Hammer Coral Species

[Donya]

Can someone tell me whether this is Euphyllia ancora or another Euphyllia species? The globular tentacle shape is confusing me, since it doesn't match any of the pictures in my books.

 

[Mr Miagi]

Looks like a Hammer to me, especially with the "jelly bean" shaped ends to each tenticle. (My technological pshyco-bable will amaze you! )

 

[Donya]

Hey, jelly bean shaped is a perfectly legitimate scientific term in my book LOL a good way to describe it. So I take it ancora is the only one called "hammer" then? Also, does the tentacle shape become more pronounced on bigger individuals?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, the tentacles will get longer/fatter as it ages to a certain extent.

 

[Donya]

*sigh* well, it went from looking fine at the time the photo was taken to having obvious brown jelly infection this morning on what I thought was a very small area. Turned out it was a substantially larger area than it looked like because a large section just "blew away"...will be starting treatment shortly in the hopes it pulls through. Water tests out fine, everything else is thriving. Not sure where I went wrong. I'm starting to think this particular tank is doomed after the number of things that have gone wrong.

 

[SkiFletch]

Thats too bad Donya, are you gonna dip it in lugols or just frag it out? Looks like there's two heads there, and sometimes fraggin an LPS with brown jelly is better.

 

[Donya]

Unfortunately both had it, one more than the other but it has still gotten to the septae of the skeletons on both. I don't have the right stuff to do a lugols dip...of course this had to happen on a holiday when the LFS is closed. So, trying to contain the problem, I did a freshwater dip. A lot of dead tissue came away in that combined with tweezing the sludge out of places where it was sticking to rough spots, and both polyps have fully extended again after several hours. I am amazed this crept up so fast...literally overnight.

Here is how it was doing a little over 6 hours after the dip:

The top one is actually the one with the least damage. Not sure why the bottom one is extended more...it has nearly half the tissue over the skeleton rim gone. Things could change quickly I guess, but as of now it looks a lot healther around the base than it did this morning. I should've gotten a picture of that probably for reference...it was a really awful mess.

 

[Donya]

Go figure...this morning it's back to looking like the original pic. I'm presuming that's a good thing, but how does it (or does it even) reflect the state of the coral's recovery from the infection?

 

[SkiFletch]

I wish I could tell you Donya. Not a lot is known about "brown jelly" infections. Sometimes bacteria are present, other times not. If I had to make a guess from what I've seen of brown jelly it seems to be the coral version of an inflamation response. Perhpas your tweezing removed the damaged harmful tissue, perhaps the freshwater dip did it. Either way, returning to a normal coloration is a good thing

 

[Donya]

Pulled a couple other small globs of sludge out from between the septae this evening...seems there are a couple icky bits left on the lower polyp, stuck way down but not attached to healthy tissue. It retracted, which seemed to force the goo out the side, then it expanded again after I tweezed away the dead blobs.

I'm wondering about doing another freshwater (or lugols if I can get it) dip if I continue to see that from the lower polyp. How long should it be between dips, or is more than one even adviseable? I can't seem to find that in my books.

Random but interesting side note: the CBS is scared to death of the clicking sound metal tweezers make underwater. Maybe it sounds like a mantis...

 

[SkiFletch]

I'd be wary of futher dips... You coul d run into problems by over stressing the coral. That kind of stuff isnt in books though, you're right about that. you'll unfortunately have to guinea pig that for us...

 

[Donya]

Rats. Well, for the moment since I can't actually see anything else that looks distinctly jelly-like (tough to see when the polyps are out), I will just hope for the best and let the coral do its thing. If I see another quick flare up I will resort to another dip, hopefully with lugols if I can get it.

 

[Donya]

So far both poyps look in good shape, although the lower one has gotten rid of a couple more clear globs. I do, however, see both polyps partially retracting a couple times per day, for about a half hour or so. Then they go back out again. I can't find anything obvious that sets it off. I'm not sure whether that is an indicator of something, or normal?

EDIT: forgot something, when one of the polyps was feeding I saw that some of the tentacles were branched. Does that occur in E. ancora?

 

[SkiFletch]

Might be some kind of hybrid. Usually frogspawns are the only Euphylla species that branch, but true frogspawns branch all the way to the tip. I've heard (although never seen) people having hammer species that branch here and there. Mine only branches at the head though.

 

[Donya]

If such a thing really does happen, that may explain why it looks so weird when it puffs up. When the coral gets excited about feeding, it inflates and doesn't look very hammerish...more frogspawnish. Somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 the tentacles are branched once. Most are 1 stalk with 2 colored tips, but there are a few 3-tipped tentacles. Very strange looking...I will try to get a pic of it doing its frogspawn impression