I saw several colonies of pink palythoas slowly eject small (BB sized) spherical brown balls. They were slightly bouyant. It looked like each polyp would slowly form and eject a ball out of the "mouth". Any idea what was happening?
In the "mouth" of the polyp, a small lump forms that slowly grows. After about 5 minutes, the lump looks more like a small brown BB that separates from the polyp and slowly floats upward until it is caught by the current and gets shot around the tank. I see one "eject" about every 10 minutes. It looks like each polyp is creating/ejecting a ball. The bigger the polyp, the bigger the ball. It is quite interesting. I have 3 separte clusters of pink palythoas in my tank. I have seen polyps from two separate colonies eject the brown balls.
Is this some mass pooping or reproduction?
Last edited by dan3949; 04-17-2008 at 01:04 AM.
Reason: typo
Well, it's ood that it's all happening at the same time. That sounds like a reproductive event. However, brown usualy menas poop, or zooxanthellae expulsion. How long have they been in your tank?
Sounds like a spawning event to me. Never seen it happen though.
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The palythoa coloney has been in the tank about 8 months and has multiplied into three separate groups during that time (polyps floating to new rocks across the tank).
The palythoas looked excellent today. If it was a zooxanthellae expulsion, would that result in a loss of color?
In another forum, several folks insisted the balls were poop. There are no signs of the balls in the tank now. I would have to agree that poop seems the most likely explanation. However, it is facinating that many, if not most (I saw 30-40), of the polyps in 3 separate groups/colonies of palythoa would participate in a syncronized mass pooping event over the course of 1-2 hours! Amazing!
[Maybe I unknowingly added a palythoa laxative to my tank]
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