What's happening to my GPEs?

[SuperOstrich]

So I have this interesting GPE colony that started out with very little green, morphed to have tons of green and looked awesome, and are now getting a crazy starburst pattern over them and growing an extra skirt! The first picture is from the beginning of May, and the second pic was taken today, June 10th. So in a month my colony has morphed into this while still adding 5 new polyps in that month. They seem as healthy as ever and each poly has grown much larger than I thought these could get, but I've never had a colony of any zoo or paly do anything like this. Has anyone experienced anything like this or seen it before?

Notice the new, smaller skirt growing inside the long skirt? These are sitting directly under PC lights near the top of my tank. Could the strong light be morphing them into this? I might frag out a few and put them down low in the tank to see what happens.

 

[Kdocimo90]

Wow thats cool. that would look awesome with a ton of skirts on it

 

[phurst]

I don't know about the skirts, that's pretty weird. Ghe coloration I can understand though. My PPE did the same under high light. They're back to normal now that I have moved them down.

 

[Guygettnby]

the change in color could simply be due to them being blasted by light. but the skirt thing is crazy! i have never seen that before and have no explenation as to what could cause that. one thing for sure is they look awesome!

So when are ya gonna frag me off some? :lol:

 

[650-IS350]

mostly morphing due to flow. pattern or coloration for lighting.

 

[SIR PATRICK]

Sounds like you might have found their/your happy spot in the tank. Thay are morphing into somthing much cooler than what they were when you got them.

IME speckles come from higher light than they are used to, but can still handle hapily. The extra skirts??? Thats new to me, but not unexpected in zoa morphing. With morphing, it seems, anything can happen, for better or worse.

I think the morphing you have going on is for the better (for you, not sure about the polyp, but sounds like the polyp is happy) I am leaning toword better for the polyp too.

Cool find!!

 

[Pufferpunk]

Although those are not "true" GPEs, I like the extra skirt.

 

[JMalone81]

The skirt looks awsome!!!