found a tree stump while cutting liverock

[jolson10450]

well... while i was trying to hack 99% of my blue xenia down i was cutting one of the pieces of rock and smelled a funny smell... decided to chip away at the rock to see what it was and i found a tree stump inside of the piece of liverock! seems very off that this would happen.... but it was in my tank like this. i wonder how it could of got like that? at first i thought it was a bone but i am 99% sure it is a tree stump.

here is a picture:



i outlined it in red to show you where the actual piece is and that there is liverock still attached to it:

[jimsflies]

Could it have been a mangrove?

[EMUreef]

Originally Posted by jimsflies

Could it have been a mangrove?

ill have to agree its probably a mangrove stump as they do grow like trees and look like them.

[jolson10450]

it seems almost to big to be a mangrove stump and it does not branch outward like mangroves do... not saying that is not what it is but it does not look like that to me... i wonder how old it is, which i could do some dating research on it. it is possible that there was once a tree growing and that area flooded and became a reef area over a long period of time resulting in this.

just strange to me, cant say i ever seen a piece of wood in general embedded into a piece of liverock.

[EMUreef]

Originally Posted by jolson10450

it seems almost to big to be a mangrove stump and it does not branch outward like mangroves do... not saying that is not what it is but it does not look like that to me... i wonder how old it is, which i could do some dating research on it. it is possible that there was once a tree growing and that area flooded and became a reef area over a long period of time resulting in this.

just strange to me, cant say i ever seen a piece of wood in general embedded into a piece of liverock.

you know how big mangroves can get right?

[jolson10450]

Originally Posted by EMUreef

you know how big mangroves can get right?

yeah i just always though they had split roots not one central root though right? but it looks like those is just one central root..... could be, what do the cores of them look like... you can see it clearly in the picture that it does not have rings like a normal tree so if the core looks like that then it is probably a mangrove root from however many years ago

[EMUreef]

Originally Posted by jolson10450

yeah i just always though they had split roots not one central root though right? but it looks like those is just one central root..... could be, what do the cores of them look like... you can see it clearly in the picture that it does not have rings like a normal tree so if the core looks like that then it is probably a mangrove root from however many years ago

some of the split roots can be pretty thick, so it might be that as i doubt the roots have rings.

[jay13]

ummm kinda looks like a femer bone. from the proximal head near your hip down into the shank of the bone. that would be a little unnerving though.....

[rmalone]

I agree it looks much more like a bone to me also. Could it be the skeletal base of a big ol euphyllia that was then covered in some other coral after died? I have a digi and a spongodes that have kind of wrapped around each, other there are branches of digi that I know have a core of spongodes skeleton.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by EMUreef

some of the split roots can be pretty thick, so it might be that as i doubt the roots have rings.

Not to mention if its a mature tree like those in the pic u posted, they would be fairly large and thick (each "branch" of the roots.

Justin.... ever dug up almost any tree that was 15-20' tall (or saw the roots on one that size or larger)? Many types of trees have roots that could easily look similar in size to the one your pic so it could definitely be a mangrove root, or stump from a smaller mangrove maybe.