MUCHO REEF
06-13-2010, 04:38 PM
A pharmacist who is a local well known keeper/grower of zoanthids and palythoas had an idea, so he decided to act on that idea and this is what happened.
His goal was to collect 100 of the brightest most colorful zoas and palys for his new 300 gallon reef tank. Not wanting to wait forever for maximum coverage and growth, he sought ways to rapidly increase his polyp count. He won't say how, but he got a hold of 10 ml of Synthetic Human Growth Hormones not yet approved by the FDA and injected various amounts into ten 5 polyp frags each attached to a 4" x 4" rock on March 1, 2010. He then placed each of the rocks along the front of his reef tank to make and notate daily observations along with photographic updates on a daily basis at the EXACT same time each day. He went so far as to run a time lapsed underwater camera on 2 of the colonies 24/7 as he ran his moonlights throughout the experiment to record for the first time ever, real time growth as it happened.
On March 3, just 48 hours later, he noticed new growth of 1 to 2 polyps on 8 of the 10 rocks he seeded. To his surprise, on March 6, the eight rocks now had 6 new polyps each, the other 2 rocks begin to catch up and both were now 1 polyp shy each of the exact same amount of growth. This growth pattern continued and on April 3, just one month later, 9 of the 10 rocks were now 100 % completely covered and were now growing onto the substrate. He took a total of average polyp growth on each rock by photographing each rock and counting the polyps individually from the photograph. He had an average of 246 zoanthid polyps on each of the 5 zoa rocks he seeded, and an average of 180 palythoas on the 5 paly rocks he seeded. The palythoa count was much less as the polyps themselves were bigger. If that wasn't shocking enough, all of the polyps on each of the 10 rocks were much larger, more colorful then they were when taken from the mother colonies.
Now here's the most shocking thing he discovered, he duplicated the same results in April and May of this year !!!!!!!!
Before I share the results on Wednesday at 9 PM eastern time, here's the question. Did or didn't it truly happen? Fact or fiction? Possible or impossible? You may think you know the answer, but I have something sitting in front of me and I will post it in 3 days. You may really think you know the answer.....but do you? Please engage the topic, minus the humor. I want to know what you think. Is it plausible, possible, probable, real or fake? Give me more than just a no or yes, give me your feedback/opinion. What say you?
Mucho Reef
PS, There was something else he placed in the water that each of you have in your medicine cabinet or should have I should say. He believes it caused the ????? ????? within the ??????????? ????? to mutate, hence the exponential growth. HMMMMMM !!!!
The answer is hidden within this thread.
His goal was to collect 100 of the brightest most colorful zoas and palys for his new 300 gallon reef tank. Not wanting to wait forever for maximum coverage and growth, he sought ways to rapidly increase his polyp count. He won't say how, but he got a hold of 10 ml of Synthetic Human Growth Hormones not yet approved by the FDA and injected various amounts into ten 5 polyp frags each attached to a 4" x 4" rock on March 1, 2010. He then placed each of the rocks along the front of his reef tank to make and notate daily observations along with photographic updates on a daily basis at the EXACT same time each day. He went so far as to run a time lapsed underwater camera on 2 of the colonies 24/7 as he ran his moonlights throughout the experiment to record for the first time ever, real time growth as it happened.
On March 3, just 48 hours later, he noticed new growth of 1 to 2 polyps on 8 of the 10 rocks he seeded. To his surprise, on March 6, the eight rocks now had 6 new polyps each, the other 2 rocks begin to catch up and both were now 1 polyp shy each of the exact same amount of growth. This growth pattern continued and on April 3, just one month later, 9 of the 10 rocks were now 100 % completely covered and were now growing onto the substrate. He took a total of average polyp growth on each rock by photographing each rock and counting the polyps individually from the photograph. He had an average of 246 zoanthid polyps on each of the 5 zoa rocks he seeded, and an average of 180 palythoas on the 5 paly rocks he seeded. The palythoa count was much less as the polyps themselves were bigger. If that wasn't shocking enough, all of the polyps on each of the 10 rocks were much larger, more colorful then they were when taken from the mother colonies.
Now here's the most shocking thing he discovered, he duplicated the same results in April and May of this year !!!!!!!!
Before I share the results on Wednesday at 9 PM eastern time, here's the question. Did or didn't it truly happen? Fact or fiction? Possible or impossible? You may think you know the answer, but I have something sitting in front of me and I will post it in 3 days. You may really think you know the answer.....but do you? Please engage the topic, minus the humor. I want to know what you think. Is it plausible, possible, probable, real or fake? Give me more than just a no or yes, give me your feedback/opinion. What say you?
Mucho Reef
PS, There was something else he placed in the water that each of you have in your medicine cabinet or should have I should say. He believes it caused the ????? ????? within the ??????????? ????? to mutate, hence the exponential growth. HMMMMMM !!!!
The answer is hidden within this thread.