Forums / TEAM Marine Depot / Corals and Coral Reefs - by Eric Borneman / weird montipora polyps / Latest Posts

RE: weird montipora polyps

Eric Borneman — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:18:29 GMT

OK, then it falls into the other category. My gut says they will come back down to the skeleton and become normal looking again or you have an extrusion area - again, common in tanks for unknown reasons and rare in the wild. I have heard a suggestion regarding magnesium....and that is okay for sure, just in case there is merit to this?

RE: weird montipora polyps

Marie1 — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:32:36 GMT

Eric Borneman (5/13/2008)

The top photo: you are positive those polyps are coming directly from the coral skeleton and this is not a small recruit in there somewhere? .

They are definitely monti polyps sometimes they end up so distended it looks like the polyp is hanging from the coral by a thread. I've never seen one detach though nor have I ever seen any floating around the tank.

RE: weird montipora polyps

Eric Borneman — Tue, 13 May 2008 06:03:51 GMT

The top photo: you are positive those polyps are coming directly from the coral skeleton and this is not a small recruit in there somewhere? The bottom photo is more obvious - numerous persons, including myself, have seen these abnormally swollen vesicles or polyps from single polyps to patches (or swollen tissue in areas on a skeletonP and it seems to be an anomaly of captive conditions. Sometimes it leads to branching or to polyp extrusions, and sometimes to nothing at all or even local tissue loss if the area fails to come back down onto the skeleton. I don't know what causes it, this is my first time seeing it like this on Montipora (if it is the same condition- looks can be deceiving) though I am not surprised since it happens in so many species and genera, and I don't know of any cases where this "condition" causes much harm - locally on the colony, if anything at all. I would be interested to see how it progresses, though, and what you observe.

weird montipora polyps

Marie1 — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:01:00 GMT

Hi Eric, I have a montipora digitata that has some strange looking polyps. It hasn't appeared to affect the coral, growth and colour appear to be good but there are patches of polyps that, for want of a better description appear to be overinflated. It doesn't seem to be contagious, I have other montiporas that have never done this and this coral has been like this for the last year

Would you have any idea what would cause this?

sg. 1.026, temp 82, cal 380, alk 8dkh, nitrates ~5