kind of an odd question but do corals have a lifespan like a fish does?? or do they just live for ever given the right water params.

This come up in conversation last night when i went out for a drink with a few friends an it stumped us as no one realy knew an answer.

Perhaps not forever, but centuries for sure. Through propagation (both natural and human-engineered) they likely can live forever.

That is certainly an interesting question; do corals live forever?? Certainly as Ski said natural reefs can be hundreds, if no thousands, of years old. Corals are animals and so my assumption is that like all other eukaryotic cells they would have inactivation of the telomerase enzyme which means senescence would inevitably result. However I do know that simpler eukaryotic organisms can reactivate this enzyme which is one step in the direction of immortality. I will have a snoop around through the literature and see what I find.

Regards

we brought up a similar point last night about reefs being hundreds of years old and one thing that come to mind was the size of that brain coral u saw on ur diving trip ski it was massive and they dont get that big in a year it must take a serious ammount of time.

But them another thing we fort of was that corals are in fact living organisms but they must age at a seriously slow rate compared to fish and other invertibrates.

The brain corals can live for hundreds of years and is well documented in scientific literature. Sea anemones are capable of living forever but usually succumb to water quality issues in captivity. They do have the power of regeneration and can die down to virtually nothing and then come back to all their former glory under the right conditions.

Agreed....hence....one should be selective...plan well...and take their time before rushing into a reef setup. SH