Coral Resurrection Poll

[horge]

Just an informal query.

Who has had a dead coral skeleta suddenly sprout polyps?
How 'dead' was the skeleton?
What kind of coral?
Did the polyps reuse the same calices in the skeleton?
How long was the 'dead period before revitalization?
And any in-tank factors you believe allowed the revitalization to take place.

Thanks for any contributions!

[tdwyatt]

I have 4 that have done this. 2 were hammer or anchors, branching spp, and one was a candycane, one was a pearl coral. All four were at least 6 months away from my tanks (they were farmed out by my brother while I was in the hospital, long story...) None had polyps left, but 2 had some tissue left on the calices or the skeleton below the calices. 1 was a branching hammer, aone was a branching anchor,one was a bubble (actually a brown pearl) , and one was a candycane. The candycane had nothing at all showing on the skeleton when I put it back into the tank, but both the euphyllia spp did have some small tissues amounts left. The hammer is growing back from the sides of the calici, the pearl is growing from the spaces between the toothed plates, the anchor is folling the lead of the hammer, and the candycane is just going wild, growing from the depth of each calice and filling the end of each branch. More if you want it, (ie water parameters, etc)

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Tom <"{{{{>(
(TDWyatt)
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. -Plato

[horge]

Thanks. Params, time period, you betcha, Tom http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
And I'd rather limit this to discussing rising from TRULY DEAD http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/wink.gif If there's any visible tissue left, that doesn't count ...so your Caulastrea sp. 'Candycane' sounds more like it. Was it bare skeleton, or had algae infiltrated it already prior to revitalization?

Did you have any other Caulastrea corals in the tank at the time? If you didn't, that rules out a foreign larva colonizing the coral as opposed to native tissue seemingly coming out of nowhere.

[Minh Nguyen]

horge,
You are not thinking of spontaous regeneration do you? You got to be kidding. The only way that coral regenerated is that there are still some living tissue in the cracks of the head. There is no way a completly dead coral regenerate and growing a new head.


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Minh Nguyen
Visit my reef at:
http://sites.netscape.net/austinnguyen/homepage

[horge]

Me believing in 'spontaneous generation'?
No Minh, I would think even half a grade school education on my part would rule that out, hehe http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/smile.gif --and education in my country isn't that backward http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/biggrin.gif ...yet.

The key words were 'any visible tissue'. Anyway I rather thought Tom got the general gist immediately. Like I said at the onset, an informal kind of thing, so the language was of similar temper.

Anyway, Minh, have you had any corals come back from 'death' (or if you prefer, 'prolonged absence of any visible living tissue')?

[Minh Nguyen]

>>I'd rather limit this to discussing rising from TRULY DEAD<<
horge,
I misunderstand the post. I read the post as an emphasis on true dead coral. Hope I did not offended you. I did not notice that you are from the Philippines until your last post. Sorry.
I just got an Blue ridge coral that appeared dead but came back. I thought thet there are some minimal tissue living so I got the coral from the fish store for free, and got a beautiful coral in about 1 year.

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Minh Nguyen
Visit my reef at:
http://sites.netscape.net/austinnguyen/homepage

[Allison]

I remember someone saying in another post that if you scraped all the visible dead tissue, the coral would sometimes grow back. Don't we all wish that was ALWAYS true!! http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[tdwyatt]

I will post some photos of what the hammer looked like prior to regeneration, and what they look like now, as well and the candycane. There was another healthy candy cane in the tank, but the genetic material is different, most likely a trumpet with candycne coloring, there is an obvious difference between the two. I will give you more specifics later, I gotta gota work ;-(

Later, Tom