bright green and not so bright green star polyps

[Martin in China]

Often you see those very bright green star polyps and the not so bright ones, are they 2 different species or is there a way to get the not so bright ones brighter?

[Weasel Baron]

different species, in my experience at least. Never been able to make non-metallic green SP turn into the metallic green variety, but maybe someone else will chime in

[CronicReefer]

There is a few color variations of gsp with the most common being metallic green and the normal green variation but they can be brown or even sometimes a slight purple.

[Jellyingabout]

They may have different clades of zoozanthellae meaning the coral may respond to GFP up-regulation differently but still be the same species.

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps_oa/m364p097.pdf

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-012-0994-9#page-1

[Jellyingabout]

The metallic green you can see if Green fluorescent protein (GFP) which is up regulated in coral tissues by blue light. So if you want to colour up your greens and yellows then blue light is the way to go, plus they'll look great while you do it.

[hey]

i definitely have 3 different varieties in my tank, one is bright green with the white dots, one it metallic green no dots, one is a pastel green pretty pale. The bright metallic one seems to grow the fastest the metallic the slowest.

[Jellyingabout]

the dots could simply be fluorophores or cell pigmentation and are a poor indicator of species. Two coral that have very different colouration can still be the same species. A quick look on WoRMS and a search for the various identified species of Briareum sp shows that the different species are quite drastically different from each other in morphology rather than colour. The thing to look out for are penate/unpenate tentacles, and polyp size and extension. Colour can simply be down to the clade of zoozanthellae and regulation of various fluorescent pigments.

They will be the same species but from different location, most likely all Briareum violaceum. Metallic "varieties" most likely have a highly productive clade of zooxanthellae thus up-regulate GFP to keep populations down, they will most likely be faster growing.

[Martin in China]

so many new English words.. ...pinnate/unpinnate, clade of zooxanthellae, GFP.

[Jellyingabout]

so many new English words.. ...pinnate/unpinnate, clade of zooxanthellae, GFP.

 

Yeah my spelling has never been great, you'g think after writing these silly words all day I learn how to spell them but nope, my brain just refuses.

 

I think many people in the hobby forget that there are a bunch of researchers out there posting papers daily in peer reviewed literature. When people ask what spectrum is best to colour up my coral, rather than believing guesses as educated as they may be, there is proven science out there