Polyp Bail-out

[ATJ]

I have one remaining Acropora sarmentosa fragment left over from the colony with RTN. The fragment still has tissue and the tissue still has pigment (most likely zooxanthellae). However, there appears to be an absence of polyps.

Could this have been polyp bail-out? And if so, is there any hope for the coenosarc that's left? Can it regenerate the polyps?

 

[Eric Borneman]

Polyp bail out, per se, is only reported in Family Pocilloporidae. Other large polyped corasl appear to do this, too. Acropora, to my knowledge, never does this.

eric

 

[ATJ]

So what happened to the polyps? The corallites look hollow.

 

[Eric Borneman]

Retracted or dead, I'd imagine.

Eric

 

[Eric Borneman]

There is an interesting thread on this called "the Phoenix Effect" on NOAA's CHAMP Webserver. That is, that bits of remaining deep-set tissue can regenerate and recolonize a coral even after it appears dead.

Eric

 

[ATJ]

Eric,
I did a search on the NOAA CHAMP Server for "Phoenix Effect" but didn't get any matches.

The thing is that the coral does not look dead at all. The coenosarc looks fine, maybe darker than the original colony but it still has a lot of colour. The only thing that looks "wrong" is it appear there are no polyps. I'll try to get a picture and post it.

 

[ATJ]

If they are dead, my original question still stands... can they regenerate?

 

[ATJ]

Here are the pictures:

 

[Eric Borneman]

Pictures aren't loading for me

Eric

 

[ATJ]

Eric,
The pictures are there and they load for me. I sent them to your email address in case it is AOL that won't let you see them.

 

[tdwyatt]

Andrew,
Are the pix posted on your website? I was going to look, but I can't get them to load. If they are on the website, the pix shoud load here as well when using the image key in the response field below, but if they are on the website, I would just go there to look if you will post the url.

just curious, I'd like to see what you're describing, as AI had a A. palmita do something very similar, but it came back after about 3 months of seemingly "just hanging on"...

 

[ATJ]

Tom,
They are on my website. I think it is some performance problem with Tripod. If they don't load, I simply right click on the bad image icon , click View Image (using Netscape, click on Show Picture for IE), which takes me to a "Tripod - Not available for download" page with the correct URL in the location bar. If I then hit enter in the location bar the image displays. Using the back button the image is displayed in the thread.

I have no idea why I have to do this, I never had to do it before. It seems to be related to the move to UBB 6.04e as the same thing is happening on Reefing The Australian Way after we moved to UBB 6.04. There is no reason why it should be related to the UBB version because the image is loaded by the browser not the server.

Here are the URLs for the pictures, which you can also get from the bad image icon above:
http://atj777.tripod.com/Acropora_sarmentosaFragment.jpg
http://atj777.tripod.com/Acropora_sarmentosaFragment2.jpg

 

[ATJ]

I'm thinking it might be something that Tripod have done to ensure you go to the Tripod site to get the pop-up adds. I have created a page on my site with the pictures.
http://atj777.tripod.com/WhereAreThePolyps.html

 

[Eric Borneman]

That is bizarre looking and I couldn't tell you what happened to them. Whats the current status?

eric

 

[ATJ]

Much the same, no noticible change.

 

[ATJ]

I was looking at the tank after lights out last night (or was it this morning? :confused

and I could just see the tips of the tentacles sticking out of the calices. Certainly not a happy fully recovered coral, but also not dead.