I feel stupid so dont give me a hard time! lol ...whats a coral?

[whitedove359]

What is a coral? I know that sounds rediculous, but I honestly dont know the definition. I am curious as to what exactly a coral is... Is one polyp a seprate coral, or animal. or is a coral a combination of polyps, just like a person is made up of a combination of cells....I dont know. I feel stupid for asking...

[demonclownfish]

here is a link to some info-

http://www.stanford.edu/group/microdocs/whatisacoral.html

[Tom@HaslettMI]

Not a stupid question at all. The answer is actually not all that simple and depends (somewhat) on the species. Some corals are a single polyp (I'm thinking of a fungia coral) other corals are multiple polyps (but a single polyp is still considered a coral). Here I'm thinking of zoanthids - a single polyp is a coral but 50 polyps are also a single coral if connected by tissue. Should that connection be severed then one coral can be come many (asexual reproduction a.k.a. fragging).

I hope that makes sense,
Tom

[adalius]

I think the best answer to this question is in one of the first chapters of that book you just bought (assuming the UPS guy has delivered it yet!)

[whitedove359]

lol yes I got that book and just read that chapter... One thing I noticed was...not all corals seem to have polyps...at least not visible.. so how do you feed them...if you wanted to..

[adalius]

Can you give an example of one that you can't see the polyps so I can understand which types you're referring to?

[whitedove359]

thats hard cause there pictures in the book...

[whitedove359]

try everything on page 45... like the turbinate coral...laminar coral.....massive coral....encrusting coral.....its just...maybe i dont recogonize what polyps look like? Ive been shown some before in some LFS but these look differnt. Is it possible that they are not visitble...or come in a verity of shapes and sizes? everything on page 43....I guess the diagrams in the book look differnt then the pictures, cause no corals look like....

[adalius]

Ah, so some of the SPS corals. Typically the ones you listed are the ones I mentioned in that other thread that have zooanthellae to get energy from the sun, but they do also feed on phytoplankton and other very fine sized foods. They're called SPS because they have small polyps, and you would be able to see them if you could look at them close enough. Some corals however, typically encrusting ones, aren't a solid mat of polyps, they're more like pores on your skin, with some area of 'mat' or skin between the polyps.

[whitedove359]

ahhhhhhh so there too small to see then, in most cases. so thas what sps means..for the most part. and so i was probably showen a LPS...well good thing im learning.. i feel very small and embaressed right now for asking such things....I dont want to kill anything!

[adalius]

You could have been seeing soft corals too. They're usually pretty big and easy to see.

[cg5071]

dont be too embarrased! ;) when i started i didnt even know there were soft corals. i thought all corals looked like sps does (lots of branches), like on tv reef dives or whatever.

[adalius]

My stance is nobody should ever feel stupid in this hobby given that there are college courses and actual doctorates handed out for what we try to learn. Marine biology is a pretty vast subject.

[thefishgirl]

The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. We are here to help! Every day that I come to this site, I learn something new about corals or fish or inverts or.. or... or... well you know.. salty stuff.

[Myteemouse]

Small polyp stony (SPS)
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/april4catus1.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/april4catus2.jpg
also SPS
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/april4pavona3.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/april4pavona4.jpg

Large polyp stony (large polyps on a stone like base)
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/saltwater/kids078.jpg

[Myteemouse]

I cut this coral "COLONY" into these frags here I could have cut individual heads and they would live on there own. And with the fresh cut frags you can see the "STONE" base. covered by LARGE POLYPS

LPS

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/psasbbq008.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/psasbbq007.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/may15013.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/acungaro/may12024.jpg

[whitedove359]

Thank you. This has been helpful...

How come I keep seeing people puting pbc pipeing in their tanks....

[Myteemouse]

"PVC"??
where??

[whitedove359]

local fish stores. someone also told me to use that to help stabalise live rock...

[adalius]

It doesn't react with the water so it's used in a lot of marine tanks as plumbing, but *in* the tank it's mainly used to support the liverock off the bottom of the tank so there isn't dead spots under it, to elevate it over the substrate so cleaners can clean the sand under the liverock, or as an internal framework so you can make cool aquascapes without requiring as much liverock as you would to make a solid mountain of it.

None of these uses are *required*. Some just prefer them.

[cg5071]

here is an example of pvc and eggcrate (grid that usually covers flourecent lights)