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


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  1. #1
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    Default I feel stupid so dont give me a hard time! lol ...whats a coral?

    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...

  2. #2
    demonclownfish - Reefkeeper CR Member
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    Tom@HaslettMI - Reefkeeper
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    Default

    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

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    adalius - Reefkeeper CR Member
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    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!)

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    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..

  6. #6
    adalius - Reefkeeper CR Member
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    Can you give an example of one that you can't see the polyps so I can understand which types you're referring to?

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    thats hard cause there pictures in the book...

  8. #8
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    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....

  9. #9
    adalius - Reefkeeper CR Member
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    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.

  10. #10
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    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!

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