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Can Corals Share Pigmentation Through Fighting?


jservedio

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One issue that comes along with having a really old tank that is packed to the gills is that I experience a ton of fighting - it seems like every day now some two corals are fighting. Something that I have recently noticed in a couple of Montipora species is that after fighting with other corals (particularly Acroporas), their pigmentation changes - initially directly in the tissue surrounding where the fight took place, but in time migrating across the entire colony. Has anyone else experience anything like this? Is there any other explanation?

 

This is probably the strangest one - this is an original Idaho Grape cap that I've had for 6-7 years now - the frag I got came from a colony that came directly from Steve Tyree, so it isn't a clone or lookalike. The first 5-6 years I had it, it looked like every other Idaho Grape on the planet in both my pico and my nano. Last year, a WWC Yellow Tips colony I have grew directly into it - they have been battling back and forth now ever since and the acro has a pretty big chunk of it's skeleton built directly on what used to be cap. Shortly after they started battling, I noticed a little bit of green pigmentation on the cap directly around where they were fighting. About 6 months later, green pigmentation started showing up further away from where the fight took place, and now, I have large sections of green streaking all throughout the entire colony - some now more than 6" away from where the initial fight took place. I've searched hundreds of pictures of Idaho Grape monti on a bunch of different forums and have never seen anything like this - is there any other explanation?

 

idaho-grape-612.thumb.jpg.1f940b35eb16d5682d526a8b4acf0cae.jpg

 

 

Yet that isn't the only one I have in my tank! I have a purple Montipora Confusa that I got as a chunky frag a little over two years ago that has grown into a very hefty colony (about 5"x7") that is uniformly colored - teal/green base with deep purple polyps. For the last two years it has been battling with a Green Slimer acro back and forth. Recently, I trimmed a nice chunk of it off which revealed that right where the battle took place, it's got extremely bright green polyps now! And upon further examination, a small plate about 4" from the battle front is now growing with bright green polyps.

 

monti-morphing.thumb.jpg.f2e52fb4d37c8a179aba920940b47404.jpg

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8 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

time to cash in, the new "grafted" corals.  😂

 

take it with a grain of salt: https://reefbuilders.com/2020/04/21/grafted-digitata-wwc-developing-an-exciting-new-coral-strain/

 

I have to dig into old pics, my starburst monti picked up darkish red/purplish streaks after butting up against my cali tort. 

So long boring "Tyree Idaho Grape Cap" frags for $10/ea, hello "Jack's Twisted DNA Cap" for $75/ea! I've thrown a few frags of purple cap in when selling acro frags, so I'll have to check around and see if the pigmentation stayed in other people's tanks. If anyone in the NC Triangle area wants, I can give you a frag if you want to test.

 

We'll have to see - I have a red cap that has been battling with both my Pinky the Bear acro and a BC Boomberry for the last couple of months, but I haven't seen any changes. That'd make one hell of a monti since that combo of corals has red, green, yellow, teal, purple, pink, and blue!

 

Is this a new grafted cap in the making?

acro-cap-fight.thumb.jpg.8e4816cf494af7c90fd788370615de75.jpg

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mitten_reef

here's the one I found.  First I thought it was shaded, but shifting the rock around didn't affect the pattern.  too bad I no longer have any of this monti left (gave/trade it to LFS), 🤦‍♂️

 

 

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I didn't think this illustrated the point enough since it's still frag sized, but my Red Robin frag was the stereotypical deep teal blue with a little bit of pink/purple coming in on the tips like you would expect. When it ran into the Yellow Tips, it's base right where they collided turned the exact same green as the yellow tips - same sort of thing, just not as pronounced as my two montis that made dramatic changes.

 

redrobin529.thumb.jpg.a35ffcb651c21f14122c8e8a8018f05c.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thought I'd add this picture here as well - these caps have just started touching and within literally two weeks of them touching, the rim of my standard red cap started turning purple. I'll post an update in a month or two to see if it increases, but apparently montipora love soaking up pigment from literally any coral they touch. It'll be interesting because the purple Idaho Grape is carrying a ton of green pigment in it that it picked up from either the WWC Yellow Tips that overgrew part of it's skeleton or the Micromussa Amakusensis that it's been competing with for the last 5 years.

 

caps_sharing_pigment_2w.thumb.jpg.0b3e03c28d7ae80464909eb238850c72.jpg

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GFP (green fluorescent protein) is supposedly the most common...and I think I've even read that it's the base for some other proteins.

 

FWIW, I've seen corals get this green hue even when not adjacent to another coral.....my pink birds nest has been doing this for a year or so since it was moved into the new tank.  

 

Seems to be where the new light hits it most directly, but also seems related to flow.  🤷‍♂️

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, in addition to the green lines, my Idaho Grape is also starting to throw off a few green polyps (over purple base) on some new growth:

purple-cap-green-polyps.thumb.jpg.5b35fcd86716254e0be497ab9a9726fb.jpg

 

 

 

And I was right, my red cap is definitely picking up some of the purple from the Idaho Grape it's intertwined with that I thought might have been showing up a couple weeks ago. The polyps are getting purpler, the edging is getting much more pink/purple, and there are blotches that are really deep purple:

red-cap714.thumb.jpg.68709d30a5052257679aaaf31c40d17c.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Coral color is at least partially caused by their zooelanthae, IIRC. Could it be that when they come into such close contact, with damaged tissues, some of their algae kinda just migrates itself over? 

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43 minutes ago, Tired said:

Coral color is at least partially caused by their zooelanthae, IIRC. Could it be that when they come into such close contact, with damaged tissues, some of their algae kinda just migrates itself over? 

Aside, from the usual ways, it's also possible they gain zooxanthellae through additional horizontal acquisition, but I don't know if that would apply in this situation. [Source]  

 

I have also read that corals (and some other animals) can obtain zooxanthellae through consuming prey or fecal matter that contains zooxanthellae. This study shows it occurring with giant clams.

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Oh, that could explain it. Maybe the colony is consuming bits of its foe that have broken loose during the fight? 

 

Curious- what's the water flow like around these situations? Do the colonies that acquire a color tend to be 'downstream'? Are any others picking up colors, without something touching them? 

 

I know I saw a thread on here somewhere where someone's zoanthids abruptly became streaked. I guess zooelanthae aren't quite as stationary as corals would probably prefer them to be.

 

Oh, and I'd say that the answer to the question in your post's title is "yes, evidently". You certainly have multiple examples of what looks like it. The most reasonable explanation does seem to be that they're sharing pigmentation somehow. My question is just how it's happening, and I suppose it's hard to know the answer without more controlled trials, which could take awhile and might be very hard to do.

It's too bad you can't examine the polyps under a microscope (without hurting them) and see if that gives anything away.

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On 6/12/2020 at 12:23 PM, jservedio said:

One issue that comes along with having a really old tank that is packed to the gills is that I experience a ton of fighting - it seems like every day now some two corals are fighting. Something that I have recently noticed in a couple of Montipora species is that after fighting with other corals (particularly Acroporas), their pigmentation changes - initially directly in the tissue surrounding where the fight took place, but in time migrating across the entire colony. Has anyone else experience anything like this? Is there any other explanation?

 

This is probably the strangest one - this is an original Idaho Grape cap that I've had for 6-7 years now - the frag I got came from a colony that came directly from Steve Tyree, so it isn't a clone or lookalike. The first 5-6 years I had it, it looked like every other Idaho Grape on the planet in both my pico and my nano. Last year, a WWC Yellow Tips colony I have grew directly into it - they have been battling back and forth now ever since and the acro has a pretty big chunk of it's skeleton built directly on what used to be cap. Shortly after they started battling, I noticed a little bit of green pigmentation on the cap directly around where they were fighting. About 6 months later, green pigmentation started showing up further away from where the fight took place, and now, I have large sections of green streaking all throughout the entire colony - some now more than 6" away from where the initial fight took place. I've searched hundreds of pictures of Idaho Grape monti on a bunch of different forums and have never seen anything like this - is there any other explanation?

 

idaho-grape-612.thumb.jpg.1f940b35eb16d5682d526a8b4acf0cae.jpg

 

 

Yet that isn't the only one I have in my tank! I have a purple Montipora Confusa that I got as a chunky frag a little over two years ago that has grown into a very hefty colony (about 5"x7") that is uniformly colored - teal/green base with deep purple polyps. For the last two years it has been battling with a Green Slimer acro back and forth. Recently, I trimmed a nice chunk of it off which revealed that right where the battle took place, it's got extremely bright green polyps now! And upon further examination, a small plate about 4" from the battle front is now growing with bright green polyps.

 

monti-morphing.thumb.jpg.f2e52fb4d37c8a179aba920940b47404.jpg

All I know is this is really neat.. loved seeing the photos.  Thanks for sharing 

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