Frogspawn!

[NavyNano212]

Greetings everyone!
After many months of waiting and researching, I went out and purchased a new coral for my tank. I went to WWF(astoria) and spent about two hours talking to the guys, looking and debating on what to buy. I was looking into the frogspawn family and that is what I ended up purchasing. A green tipped, pink one. It looks very awesome or should I say did....It had five nice "heads" on it. I put it away from the other corals, medium current and it seemed fine. Then a few days ago(after only two weeks) two the head were gone, and an empty socket remained.Also, my cleaner shrimp & brittle star(not a green one a little brown one who is usually very docile) were all over it!! The brit seemed to be "pulling" pieces off???the other three bulbs seem fine and I quarantined my little brit for a while. Any thoughts???
My water readings are good & between the internet and MR, I thought I did my due diligence before purchasing this awesome coral.
Also, one more question. How do they reproduce more "heads"
I included a picture...

Thanks and I hope the swap was fun, sorry I missed it!

 

[midtownman]

thats a real nice piece

 

[Seadog09]

frogspawn

I don't know how it was transported or packaged, but sometimes between the store and your house the heads might have suffer some stress. Lets hope the 2 heads u lost are the only 2.Good luck

 

[carpediem212]

How do they reproduce more "heads"
I included a picture...

Thanks and I hope the swap was fun, sorry I missed it!

Not really sure how they do it, but in my tank it just seems the original head gets wider and then eventually it turns into two heads. Maybe someone else has better observations.

As far as how you lost the 2 heads could have been from transporting. I learned something from the swap, where you a new empty plastic bag around the coral and then place it in the bag filled with water.

Good luck with the rest of the heads.

 

[bad coffee]

It randomly happens. Also, check for disease on your other heads. I recently had brown jelly disease take out all of my euphillias.

They get heads by either growing and splitting or sending off smaller heads from the skeleton. I used to have 15-20 tiny heads grwoing from one of mine.

Target feeding will get them to grow out much faster.

B

 

[crox99]

Is it possible that the 2 heads were banged up during the transportation? Also like bad coffee said target feeding will increase their growth. These 2 picture were taken within a year apart and I definately noticed a rapid growth with target feeding each head once a week.

 

[NavyNano212]

It randomly happens. Also, check for disease on your other heads. I recently had brown jelly disease take out all of my euphillias.

They get heads by either growing and splitting or sending off smaller heads from the skeleton. I used to have 15-20 tiny heads grwoing from one of mine.

Target feeding will get them to grow out much faster.

B

Feed them what? I have tried everything so far, they don't seem to take it in and "close" to eat

 

[KathyC]

Mine like mysis shrimp.

Sure to could have gotten banged up during transport, or there could be another issue too. You didn't tell us what size tank it is and where the coral is placed. Wpuld also be helpful to give the spefic water parameters, as many as you have done recently.
Your brittle star and cleaner were probably eating dead or dying tissue from the coral as they usually will not eat healthy corals.

 

[MikeyZO]

I use DT's Live Marine Phytoplankton from a LFS in Queens (Fish Town USA on Northern Blvd in Bayside). It seems to do well for my corals. My Hammer corals (which if I understand correctly are of the same family as frogspawn) spawn by budding off the skeletons. Not sure if they're the same, but figured I would add it in.

 

[D1J8Z]

the one i have seems to spawn heads near where its thehard body and where the head comes out they just pop out around the orignal head and start growning