Little Plate Coral?

[c est ma]

In September I bought a rock for its orange shrooms; it also had some blue/tan multicolor shrooms, and when I got it home I also discovered a Porites and this guy. At first all I saw were some tiny tentacles sticking out of the rock, then I determined that it had a hard skeleton. After some posts on the n-r ID forum it was concluded that it was a "cup coral," a not uncommon hitchhiker on these sorts of rocks:

 

9/14

 

It grew a bit:

 

9/22

 

And sometimes a little pink mouth stuck out:

 

9/22

 

Sometimes its tissue would swell up and it would look like a blob:

 

10/19

 

Recently I noticed it had grown quite a bit:

 

1/25

 

A few days later I looked at it and thought that the encroaching shrooms and the beautiful pink macro that had appeared were perhaps irritating the little "cup coral." Then, one day I looked for it and it seemed to have disappeared! Where it had been, all I saw was the typical coral skeleton-looking pattern of a bleached white wheel with lots of spokes. I was sad to think it was gone. But two days later I found it closed up on the substrate beneath one of the shrooms! I moved it to the front where I could get a picture:

 

2/10

 

Not knowing what to do with it, I decided to place it on a piece of rubble in a small plastic cup (contact lens holder, for size reference). Then I looked at it and it dawned on me that stonies probably don't attach themselves the way softies do. Notice the solid plate-like lower surface:

 

2/12

 

I thought of gluing it down. But then it occurred to me that I should maybe try to find out what it was, first. (By this time I'd decided that your average cup coral doesn't "jump ship" like that.) I'm not very familiar with stonies, but the closest description I could find to its appearance and behavior was in the family Fungiidae. It even looked a bit like some of them with its white-tipped tentacles. Since these corals are supposed to be free living and even move around a bit, I thought it best to shelve the gluing idea. Meanwhile, I happened to glance at its old attachment site, and was floored to notice tiny new tentacles sticking out!:

 

2/14

 

Cool! An offspring! Made me think that the profusion of tentacles I'd seen earlier (see pic from 1/25) was actually when it was starting to multiply?

 

Anyway, meanwhile the original guy is still in the cup (sans rubble), looking okay even though I seemed to have slightly damaged it with forceps when I removed the rubble), and eating cyclopeeze. Here's a top view--you can sort of see that it has 6 radiating greenish stripes between its tentacles, and a pinkish mouth.

 

2/14

 

And a side view with flashlight:

 

2/14

 

Whew! Sorry for all the pics--couldn't figure out how to do thumbnails through ImageShack...Anyway, if anyone has any input I'd be most grateful. Whatever it is, I'm extremely fascinated by this little guy! (Speaking of "little," I should add that he's about 1 cm in diameter at the moment.)

 

--Diane

[scarf_ace1981]

that's a cool little plate. are the tentacles always out? two words for those aptasia, joes jusce.

[c est ma]

So you think it's probably some kind of Fungiid, too? It does sound as though it reproduced in the asexual way (through the formation of "anthocauli," or "genetically identical daughter colonies") that I've read is unique to this family. Also, a few sources describe fungiids that are fixed to something solid when young but separate and become free living when older...

 

The tentacles are more or less always visible, though sometimes they're fully extended and sometimes very retracted, short stumpy things. The closest it gets to not showing tentacles is when it's in its swollen, lumpy state (usually after eating), as in the following picture:

 

2/15

 

The tentacles are one of the reasons I'm having trouble finding a probable genus for this specimen (assuming it's a fungiid in the first place!). At first I thought it was probably a Cycloseris, as they're small and I think I saw them mentioned as a hitchhiker somewhere. But the pics I've seen at various online sources don't look exactly right...

 

Here's another pic to illustrate the fact that, while usually the bottom surface seems to be more or less a hard flat disc, it can bend, as when the cup it's in is tipped and the coral slides part way up one of the sides. This shot also shows what part of the underside of this guy looks like:

 

2/15

 

(BTW, were you talking about the aips I mentioned in one of the current zoa threads, or did you see some in my pics in this one? If so, please let me know!)

 

--Diane

[Sparkling_Surfer]

WOW...very cool! I'll be watching this thread

[c est ma]

Sparkling Surfer--Glad to hear someone else finds this interesting. It's been one of those things where I've gone from barely realizing there were such things as plate corals to "never before realizing how much I've always wanted one" since it showed up. Or at least, I'm getting very fond of it and hope I can keep it alive. Wouldn't it be cool if the base where the new little one appears to be growing kept splitting off little free-living plates every 6 months or so? (If, indeed, it's a plate...)

 

Well, continuing the photo record, here's a little sequence of it feeding:

 

About a minute or two after squirting cyclopeeze at it...before, when it was on the rock, I could not get this view of its mouth, and I had no idea it could gape so widely:

 

2/15

 

I pulled its little plastic cup out of the water to get a better pic, and got some nice shots of the mouth as it was closing up--here's one:

 

2/15

 

Afterwards, it did its usual bloating up--I call this its Hershey's Kiss phase:

 

2/15

 

A little later, it has subsided in height a bit, the tentacles are re-extended, and the mouth is closed (save for a little gap that can be seen center front):

 

2/15

 

 

Looking at it today, I think that it's been looking more and more like a plate coral with each day since it's been detached from the rock. Looking down on it from a distance makes it almost look ribbed like the plates one sees pics of. Perhaps this specimen is still too juvenile to identify by picture yet (the little white dots are tentacle tips):

 

2/16

 

I guess if it doesn't attract any more responses here I will try calling attention to this thread in other fora and maybe other websites.

 

--Diane

[fishwife]

Well, that mouth certainly looks like some kind of plate or other LPS. No expert opinion to offer, but I'm also interested in hearing more as you get more info.

[proraptor]

How weird! It does look like a baby plate...If it is hopefully it will morph into a cool color!

[Caesar777]

It's a Fungia for sure. They have several ways of reproducing, and one way is tossing out planktonic larvae, which settle on random rocks. As you see. You may well find plenty more. Nice find; they're adorable.

[c est ma]

Thanks, all, for the replies. Glad to be confirmed on this! If anyone has any particular info/experience on fungiids, or can point me to some threads, I'd be very grateful. I've done some searching and found out a lot, but don't want to miss anything interesting or helpful...

 

--Diane

 

 

 

PS: I have finally been hearing from others with similar experiences. See IcyouD2's and Gili's inputs on a query I started in "Advanced Topics," and this reply at Marine Depot (where I reposted this when I wasn't getting any answers here):

 

http://www.marinedepot.com/FORUMS/Topic26845-9-1.aspx

 

It would be nice to get a reply from Borneman regarding possible genus or species.

 

--Diane

[Cesar]

WOW very cool.

[c est ma]

UPDATE: I just posted these pics to the "Fungiamania" thread, but thought I'd post them here, too, just to sort of keep this thread complete.

 

After the first fungiid fell off its base, I saw tiny tentacles from time to time at the old attachment site, but sometimes they seemed to disappear completely as well. I decided to remove the mushroom that was starting to encroach on the fungiid-generating spot on the rock, and also remove the pink macro that was growing into the site from the side. Since then the tentacles have been a pretty regular sight and the new baby coral has been growing rapidly. Here are two pics: the first shows the fungiid tentacles in the center of the shot, and the second is a smaller view with a ruler stuck in in an effort to create some sort of scale. I couldn't get the ruler as close as I would have liked, but you can see that the generation site is barely half a centimeter in diameter:

 

 

 

 

The original fungiid that budded off is doing well but I deleted the latest pics of it as they mostly showed how much the watch glass it is in needs cleaning! When I get some better shots of it I'll post them.

 

--Diane

[Gili]

You have a little fungia factory going there! Mine, if you remember is still stuck to the rock and doesnt want to let go - I think hes a late bloomer perhaps.

 

good luck with it, and please post some more pics of your tank as the snippets ive seen are all great!

[Iveman]

lucky bastige

[c est ma]

Gili--Yours is so beautiful, though! Keep posting pics of it. Regarding my tank--at the moment, I'm afraid the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole, to fracture an idiom. I have a simultaneous outbreak of flatworms and hair algae so the overall aesthetics aren't great! But the individual specimens are doing quite well...

 

Iveman--I agree.

 

Update--latest plate baby pics:

 

Enjoying another meal of Cyclopeeze (watch glass out of tank for cleaning--in the process of trying to move the coral I discovered that it can cling to the glass pretty well!):

 

Back in the tank with an obvious pink spot of ingested Cyclopeeze:

 

The sort of flat wafer it can turn into when bothered, in this case by a scavenging hermit crab (the crabs manipulate the plate all over to get at edible morsels, helping to clean the holding cup without harming the coral):

 

After the crab is gone and the meal digested, the baby plate spreads out nicely again:

 

--Diane

[SCUBA BUZZ]

Wow this thread is of great assstance to me as i just found the same thing in my tank (c est ma directed me here) I would like to share some pics of my little plate factory. if you look close you will see 3 heads deveolped the 2 big ones being not much smaller then a blastomussa merletti head. I hope this isn't viewed as hijacking becuase all i would like to do is add my experiences to this allready very helpful thread

 

This coral came as a hitchiker on an almost dead pagoda cup coral i am trying to revive. So far it has been doing very well and i have begun spot feedings to encourage growth.

 

I have a few questions regarding plates in general right now i have this coral under intense light and it seams to be doing well (intense = 4 inches below water under 250 watt hqi 14k) mine are as you can see still firmly attached to the rock how should i control where this thing ends up when it does drop off? how much can it move on its own?

 

I hope you guys can help me out as of right now it has colours which i have never personaly seen on a plate coral and i would love to be able to grow and someday sell one of the 3 that are currently growing.

[SPerry]

Very cool. You should put some sand in the glass. Plates seem to like being on the sand IME.

[c est ma]

SCUBA BUZZ:

 

I hope you get some good answers. Since my discovery, plates quickly became one of my favorite all-time corals.

 

You might not have noticed that this thread is a year old--since then, an emerald killed my baby plate (I was devastated) and its generation site got overgrown. Recently, however, I cleaned out the area, and it's growing again! ( http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=120778&hl= )

 

I pasted some fungiid links to your ID forum post. They may have come from this thread, though, so maybe you've already seen them!

 

Anyway, good luck!

 

SPerry: Thanks for the suggestion. I may try that if I get another chance. But I found I did need to clean the watchglass frequently, so that might make sand a little difficult...we'll see.

 

--Diane

[joesmoe517]

congrats on your plate producing peice of live rock. We get them in at my work on rare occasion and they get bought up quite quickly. a couple customers of ours who we've sold them to bring us in plates theyve grown all the time because their rock spits out one every month or so. Let me know if you want to sell one of your babies as i am looking for a nice plate for the front left of my sandbed.

[adinsxq]

nice crunchy

[michelle02]

im so glad i read this post! when i bought my live rock nearly nine months ago it was coverd in what looked like little skeletons of corals and i thought nothing of it but on those same dead bits these gorgeous little corals exactly like yours started to pop up, 3 multi coloured ones 1 light pinky 1 and 2 deep red ones, i love them till i broke 1 off the rock while cleanin around it and was mortified and just about in tears thinking i had killed it, i sat it back on the rock and its fine i feed them brine shrimp and mysis, amazing how wide their mouth can open!! now on wednesday i noticed 1 has fallen off and is on the sand so after reading this i think i will leave her alone and just feed her, they are sooo pretty and my fav for sure, Thankyou for sharing all the info you have and the pics without which i would have never have known what a cool adition to my tank i have

[KOFP]

In the book, they refer to a plate coral as a mushroom coral. It's from the book OCEAN: The World's Last Wilderness Revealed. It's a superb book, amazing.

[c est ma]

im so glad i read this post! when i bought my live rock nearly nine months ago it was coverd in what looked like little skeletons of corals and i thought nothing of it but on those same dead bits these gorgeous little corals exactly like yours started to pop up, 3 multi coloured ones 1 light pinky 1 and 2 deep red ones, i love them till i broke 1 off the rock while cleanin around it and was mortified and just about in tears thinking i had killed it, i sat it back on the rock and its fine i feed them brine shrimp and mysis, amazing how wide their mouth can open!! now on wednesday i noticed 1 has fallen off and is on the sand so after reading this i think i will leave her alone and just feed her, they are sooo pretty and my fav for sure, Thankyou for sharing all the info you have and the pics without which i would have never have known what a cool adition to my tank i have

 

Wow, how very, very cool! I hope you'll post pictures!! Congrats!

 

In the book, they refer to a plate coral as a mushroom coral. It's from the book OCEAN: The World's Last Wilderness Revealed. It's a superb book, amazing.

 

Thank you, that's very helpful. It's nice to have its reproduction habits validated. I will definitely look into that book!

 

I have a bit of a problem with the common name "mushroom coral." Afraid if that becomes common, there will be confusion with the numerous corallimorphs of the same common name. It's bad enough that there are at least two distinctly different stonies called "plates." (I see that Delbeek & Sprung list 'mushroom,' 'plate,' and 'disc' as common names for fungiids!) I think we ought to stick with fungiids, or the actual genus if we know it!

 

One thing to point out, I think, is that there are probably more than just the one species of fungiids mentioned that behave this way.

 

But thanks so much for posting the whole page! Most interesting!

 

--Diane

[KOFP]

Well, here's the whole page

Yeah, I agree, I think we should just stick with Fungia or Fungiid.

[iboard2]

You guys are lucky you got the colored ones!

 

In March I traded someone for a lobophyllia, on the side of it I thought I had a rock anenome growing off of it, it was about the size of a pencil eraser. I was ready to nuke it til I ran cross a thread similar to this one and found out it was a plate.

 

It now is slightly larger than a silver dollar, skeleton is approx size of quarter, and has yet to drop. It started out only the one polyp, but now has atleast 7 more growing at its base.

 

Unfortunately, mine is a deep purple/brown with a bright purple mouth. Regardless of its drab color it is a lot of fun to watch them grow from nothing. Can't wait to have my first one drop off, it has to happen soon it's getting fairly large.

[strangelove]

 

Wow really like how this photo turned out. It's a contact lens cup, then you used a flash light to light it?