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The accidental fungia propagation...


hlem

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(edited)

Long story short, I bought this plate about 6-7 months ago to expand my collection.  Below pics is what it looked like for a good 5 or so months.

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Upper right

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Then about 2 months ago, it became like this, stop inflating, and eventually skeleto up.... very sad and pricey lost...

Upper Left

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But I did not throw it away, I kept the skeleton under an overhang rock, kinda hidden away from the rest, not much light or flow at all.  

 

So today, as I was cleaning the tank, I picked it up just to blow some sand off it, and I notice a few speckles of color.  

 

Then upon a closer look...... 

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SOOOOOO.....If i'm right, I'm going to have about 100+ baby plates in a few months, or I need to buy a bunch of peppermint shrimps for these aptasia. 

 

 

What does everyone think?

Edited by hlem
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Pretty cool. I have aplate thats on its way out and ive heard this before. Im hoping for the same results. I also had asmall one I glued to a frag plug not knowing better. After a few months I popped it off. A month later a new one grew on the frag plug

 

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For what it's worth I brought back a fungia from near death ( skeleton showing) by force feeding it mysis. It didn't have any tentacles to sweep food to the mouth so I would shove mysis shrimp in the center and stuff it down between the skeleton ridges. If it can eat, it might recover. Mine did. 

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That's so cool, are the all the same looking?

 

they dont have much color yet, but i would assume since they are from the same "mother"

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I know nothing about propagation of fungia. Lol

Do you let them just grow on the skeleton or can you remove them?

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For what it's worth I brought back a fungia from near death ( skeleton showing) by force feeding it mysis. It didn't have any tentacles to sweep food to the mouth so I would shove mysis shrimp in the center and stuff it down between the skeleton ridges. If it can eat, it might recover. Mine did.

Csn they eat if the center is what died first?

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

 

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I know nothing about propagation of fungia. Lol

Do you let them just grow on the skeleton or can you remove them?

i dont know anything about propagating fungia either. but i will let them grow on the skeleton until i dont have to 20x zoom to see them.  I will glue them to frag plugs once they are big enough, maybe around 1/4-1/2"

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  • 1 month later...
(edited)

So also 2 months now. here is an update. not much bigger, but seems to have a lot less babies now

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But a few were big enough for me to cut them from the skeleton and glue onto frag plugs. Definitely showing colors of their mother.

1" plug

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IMG_9153.JPG

Edited by hlem
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  • 4 weeks later...

Is this how they reproduce?  You know you have everyone kicking themselves for tossing their "dead" plate corals now.

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Next time, don't cut up the skeleton. They will continue to pop babies out and when ready, they will detach.

 

Some will propagate plates by taking a razor blade and slicing between ridges. This damage is often enough to cause it to either separate or produce buds like you have.

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Next time, don't cut up the skeleton. They will continue to pop babies out and when ready, they will detach.

 

Some will propagate plates by taking a razor blade and slicing between ridges. This damage is often enough to cause it to either separate or produce buds like you have.

 

i only cut 2 out for grow out. there are still plenty left on there. will try to take a pic later. they're all growing nicely.

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This is really cool.  Bizarre, and cool.  Coral always seem like nothing that should be on this planet.

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Is this how they reproduce? You know you have everyone kicking themselves for tossing their "dead" plate corals now.

 

Yea, I'm sure we all are...never again. Lol.

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Next time, don't cut up the skeleton. They will continue to pop babies out and when ready, they will detach.

 

Some will propagate plates by taking a razor blade and slicing between ridges. This damage is often enough to cause it to either separate or produce buds like you have.

I'm going to try this someday. I saw it happening at Cowrie's house a couple of month's ago and thought it was pretty cool. The mother plate had generated dozens of smaller plates over time from an injury site. In fact, I have one of the babies (about 2 inches across) in my frag tank now.

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