Tiny piece of frogspawn floating around...

[bc219]

A few days ago I noticed what looked like a tiny piece of frogspawn floating around in the tank, then I couldn't find it anymore. Today I noticed it seems to have attached itself to my sun coral. If I look closely at one part of the frogspawn it looks like it has tiny pieces that are barely hanging on, you can sort of see it in the picture. Is this a way that it reproduces by dropping little parts off that will go elsewhere and attach themselves?

[crvz]

It could have dropped a piece, I've seen that with other LPS corals, but it's just as if not more so likely to have been damaged and floating around the tank.

[Archon]

this happens to my frog spawn every once in a while, because my clown is a dork and messes with it. One time that happened and the small piece of frogspawn fell only my sun coral, and it melted right through it within a day and killed it. it started causing the rest of it to go downhill.. Also another time a small piece fell off and landed in the sand where it sat there for over a week, still glowing bright green, i watch it the whole time, then finally got too worried and pulled it out. I have no idea if thats how they reproduce either..

[Archon]

did your sun coral make it ok?

[Loverotties]

It either did it itself or a piece brook off!

[Elegance Coral]

What you are seeing is "polyp bailout". It is a stress response. In our systems it's most often brought on by factors that interrupt calcification, like low calcium, high phosphates, and others. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a substantiated report of the bailed out polyp settling and building a new skeleton.

There are theories that this is a means of asexual reproduction, but I don't agree.

I know of a lady that kept an Elegance alive for 6 months with no skeleton. It would actually feed during that time. Eventually an infection set in where it would have been attached to its skeleton, and it perished.

[Archon]

sometimes the powerhead will just twist it around and the top pops off, i see this everyone once in a while on mine. you can see the searching tentacle thats way longer that probes around starts to get twisted. When i see this i cut it where its twisting because its going to break off anyway and fall on some poor coral.

[duijver]

When this happens can you superglue it to a frag?

I have a really really small piece of hammer that was loose/wasn't doing well and it flew away last night. I see it lying on the bottom of the tank and it's still open and all, but I wasn't sure if I could just attach it to something? I've seen one user mention it, but no responses as to if that really works or should be done. Plus, if it does not work it's not worth my time in dealing with the superglue gel out of the water, other stresses, etc. Sorry, I haven't invested in a "real" fragging glue as of yet. I guess I need to add it to my list. trace elements are all within check minus alk is at 2.29.

Sorry.. sort of a hijack but it's a common topic so I figured no reason to start a new thread

[Fly Guy]

Originally Posted by Elegance Coral

What you are seeing is "polyp bailout". It is a stress response. In our systems it's most often brought on by factors that interrupt calcification, like low calcium, high phosphates, and others. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a substantiated report of the bailed out polyp settling and building a new skeleton.

There are theories that this is a means of asexual reproduction, but I don't agree.

.

agree on all counts. I did however once have this pretty good sized frog that kept doing this to me, a myriad of less than ideal conditions causing it, tapwater with high phosphates being the front runner of suspects. There was one head in particular that was floating around and I lost it, assuming it was gone like the other few that had bailed. 6 months or soemthing goes by, I break the tank down and find it. The flesh was bleached from being in the shade for so long, but was of decent size and it had calcareous material growing on it, so the rebuild had begun. It surely didnt resemble a head yet, but there is no doubt in my mind that under the right conditions it could have continued and at some point would have grown to be a mature coral again. Being the meddler I am I of course tried to mount the thing somewhere and it died. Should have left it in the dark somewhere and let it continue to do its thing in hiding and I apparently should have taken some pics if you have never heard of it happening. I didnt imagine it was too signifigant, just another coral i tortured and killed...........