Fungia Archives - Coral Ever After

Fungia Rehabilitation

reefdup Fungia, Rehabilitation June 28, 2020June 28, 2020coral sting, Dying Coral, Fungia, plate coral, Rescue Coral 1 Comment

Here is part II of the Fungia rehabilitation story request! The previous post focused on Fungia reproduction (anthocauli) that formed after the coral died. This one will focus on coral recovery.

This Fungia was stung, and I took it home on 29 December 2012.

By 26 January 2012, the coral was regrowing over its old skeleton. At this point, I decided to trim the remaining skeleton.

This coral loved to ingest sand – I assume this was to filter out food. Notice the sand particles along the body of the coral. The coral would move the sand particles onto its body, use its tentacles and inflate its body to move the particles to its mouth, and then dump the sand onto the other side. (30 June 2012)

Even after a year later (6 January 2013), the coral had not regrown its circular shape. In fact, it had not done much of anything.

Here it is on 16 June 2013. Notice how the mouth appears to be moving outward (the sides are now becoming more acute than obtuse). This is opposite behavior from what I expected.

I can’t say that I’m thrilled with this recovery, especially after a year and a half. Maybe next time I’ll leave the skeleton alone to see what happens. But, a lop-sided coral is better than a dead coral any day!

Fungia Coral Reproduction

reefdup Fungia, Rehabilitation June 28, 2020January 31, 2021anthocauli, Baby coral, Dying Coral, Fungia, plate coral, reproduction, Rescue Coral 0 Comment

A reader requested a Fungia rescue story, so here you go! I received this essentially dead Fungia coral on 12 January 2019, and I wanted to see if I could see Fungia coral reproduction in the form of anthocauli.

Anthocauli are essentially tiny clones from the parent coral that may form when the parent is stressed or dying in a final attempt to reproduce. Extremely small amounts of Fungia tissue appear capable of re-growing into full-sized corals. When the anthocauli are removed from the parent skeleton, new anthocauli may even regrow from that spot! One parent skeleton can act as a Fungia farm, constantly regrowing babies. How cool is that?

A good way to search for anthocauli is with a UV-light, as the babies may fluoresce.

Unfortunately, months went by with no sign of life. Eventually I placed it into an unused dark corner of my tank as a sad reminder of a failure – and encouragement to learn and try again.

Fungia Coral Anthocauli:

The skeleton was covered in various forms of algae and had no sign of tissue whatsoever for months. I had lost all hope, but I still happened to check on the coral occasionally. Eventually I saw this (the red circles) on 24 October 2019. There were new anthocauli – baby Fungia plate corals! It had reproduced after all!

As of 19 June 2020, three anthocauli remain. Unfortunately a bout with Lyngbia killed the others. Hopefully these three will continue to grow!

The timeline for this one example was 10 months, from decay to anthocauli presence. Had I not had the Lyngbia, I imagine the babies would be larger (and more would remain). I’d love to hear your experience with dying Fungia coral reproduction with anthocauli down in the comments – how long did it take yours to appear?

Check out another Fungia coral rehabilitation here!