Coral Of The Week - Corallimorpharians - Mushies

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seffieuk

I used to be indecisive but now I'm not so sure!
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Coral of the Week - Mushies



Lets see those wonderful photos,

amazing colours along with

your experiences

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Who will be first?
 
Erm don't have any photo's, see comments below

Do very poorly under strong light, mine melted under a 150W Metal Hailde. Nice looking things, don't seem to like much flow though either.

All the best
Rabbut
 
will hunt for more pics tomorrow, but this is what i have as my wallpaper on my home pc.
its some watermelon mushies from when they were in the nano.

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Just a quick pic of one of my tongan mushies..note how it is knocking back the mushie to it's right........these guys really pack a punch for a mushie

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So what does Eric Bourneman have to say out Mushies

Corallimorpharians, also known as "mushrooms," are undoubtedly among the most interesting corals in nature. They are soft-bodied and lack external calcareous skeletons, despite being closely related to stony corals, the Scleractinia. They are oddballs, much as Heliopora coerulea (blue coral) and Tubipora musica (pipe organ coral) are soft corals that do produce an external calcareous skeleton. They are found in three or four families, and perhaps 13 genera, comprising an unknown number of species. Even genus-level identification is tenuous in this group.

Corallimorpharians are found in all oceans, from tropical to polar and shallow to deep waters. The most common types found in the aquarium trade are believed to belong to one of six genera: Actinodiscus, Rhodactis, Discosoma, Amplexidiscus, Psuedocorynactis and Ricordea. The beautiful Psuedocorynactis are not often available, but occasionally are found as hitchhikers on live rock, and individuals are commonly known as the orange ball corallimorph.

The single-polyped corallimorpharians are more recent in evolutionary history than the stony corals. This is interesting, because logically it would seem that selection would act to have corals produce skeletons as an adaptive measure. This probably did happen, prior to the Scleractinia, but at some point, a group of stony corals evolved that could survive well without a skeleton. How and why this happened is uncertain, but I would offer some possible explanations.

There are several taxonomic groups of corallimorpharians, none of which are clearly defined. Although most closely related to stony corals, they are also closely related to the actinians, or sea anemones. It is perhaps not surprising to know that many of their modes of asexual reproduction are also known in the anemones, as well as a common "purse-string" type prey envelopment. Some scleractinians are also very close in digestive behavior and cnidae development to the corallimorpharians, including the Caribbean Mycetophyllia species. Some Indo-Pacific corals are able to bail out of their skeleton and attach to substrate using adhesive filaments. This behavior illustrates the potential of coral polyps to exist without a skeleton.

These animals are minimally colonial, although often gregarious, forming clusters of polyps from a few to many hundreds of individuals. They tend to be most abundant in rubble areas in shallow turbid water that are unsuitable for stony corals. On reefs, corallimorpharians tend to consist of small clumps of isolated individuals, and they are often found under overhangs or in recesses of the reef framework. Others, such as the anemone-mimic giant corallimorph, Actinodiscus fenestrafer, are found in more exposed locations in shallow to mid-depth water. I have found many of the more common species in the trade in deeper water in marginal reef environments. To this day, I have never seen the common "Actinodiscus" red, blue, and striped-type mushrooms in the wild.

It is perhaps ironic that aquarists are so familiar with these animals since they have been common in the trade for such a long time, because they are among the most unstudied and poorly understood tropical corals. Little is known of their reproduction, behavior, ecology, and biology. At least some species are broadcast spawning.

Perhaps one of the most interesting observations about these animals that has occurred from their long-term husbandry is their competitive ability. They are resistant to disease, and extremely competitively dominant. Nothing seems to settle near corallimorpharians, and I have never seen or heard of anything able to take over space occupied by corallimorpharians. Co-existence with other species is possible, but the corallimorpharians never seem to "lose a battle." They are the only animals which I have found able to resist nearby settlement and competition by Aiptasia anemones. For this trait alone, they must be admired!

Aquarists probably know more about these animals than any other group of people. It is important for us to maintain living stocks of these animals, for so little is known of their taxonomy and distribution. Some may be exceedingly rare and never described. I would urge everyone to work diligently at maintaining widespread propagated stock of corallimorpharians since some of them may never be found again. This should not be difficult as they survive and reproduce well in aquaria, and are tolerant of most any conditions that exist in aquaria

Eric Bourneman
 
Nice :good:

After I get my new light situated, I'm picking up some Ricordea. Probably blue/purple, orange and whatever else he has that he'll pull out for me. $9 a single mouth. is that good? Since they'll overtake a tank maybe I'll buy a small rock chunk to put in a back left corner of the tank. Does anyone know if they fly around the tank like nuisance mushrooms do? If they do I'll probably skip them due to this proposed aggressive behavoir.
 
KJ, they reproduce by forming another mouth and then splitting - takes a good few months for this process ime. They certainly don't fly off all over the tank like some of the other mushies do ime


Seffie x

:fish:

ps a ric in the uk costs us on average £12/£15, so sounds like you will be getting a bargain
 
1 U.S. dollar = 0.606796117 British pounds

so a 12 british pound is $7ish us dollar, right? About the same maybe? I think these are florida rics, not yuma.

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This is where I'll be buying from. I copied his picture link to show you.
 
If we're including rics,lol.....

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Though i'm still in the anemone over mushie school of thought myself.



Kj..above pics...like, WOW !!!!!!!!!!!! Ric heaven mate.
 
Few in that vision of ric heaven you posted that i'd love...still looking a lime with red skirt here and one on there is pretty close,lol....also the greys, the lime skirted blue, the gold dust, the...........lol..way too many in those shots for me to even decide the best,lol
 
Since you've described all those I should do a little research to know what I'm looking at..lol I was just going to pick brighter nicer looking ones and try to stay away from the plainer colored ones.
 
Blues and purples are lovely under white lights but the greens and oranges glow best under blue light at night. Also many, although the same colour can have more unusual different coloured mouths and outer skirts , making them more desirable.
 
£12 is almost $20 and that's a very rare price tbh i find
More likely £15 or £20 which is $25 and $33 so really pricey over here :S.
 

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