Plate Coral

I found this interesting. While talking to buddy who owns an LFS I asked him about a plate coral he had there. It was real nice, about 6" in diameter when open fully for $40.00, anyway, when I asked him if they were difficult he stated "somewhat". He then told me that in the ocean the plate is on a long thin stem. The flesh expands over the plate but is untouched by anything. The divers go along and grab the plate and snap it off from the stem. We are instructed to place the plate on the substrate in our aquariums. The flesh that over hangs the plate is in contact with the substrate and is getting irritated sufficiently over time that it can cause infection and early death. I thought I would share.

 

Interesting. So would you say that it's then better to keep them on maybe a flat portion of rock?

 

wow! interesting to know!!! K+

 

K+ for the info. many have stated the plate coral doesnt care about where it is, whether rock or substrate. thanks for sharing

 

ive also read that some can get motile, and when they do the movement on a hard rock surface will damage the skeletal portion. which is why substrate is also recommended because its more forgiving

 

Well, his suggestion is to use a short ceramic rod or other suitable type and glue the plate to the one end and get an appropriate size frag disc and glue the other end in there, the disc can then be burried in the substrate for anchoring or glued to a flat rock area. I am excited about this as you could have a couple at different heights.

 

I personally have a plate coral and it has been doing just fine for the past three years. It sits on flat sand. When I put it into my new tank it was in a high flow area and it did not seem to like that much flow. I would puff up real big and overnight it would move an inch or so. It is about 5" in diameter. I have seen the underside of it and there is nowhere for a stem. When they puff up real big they are totally covered with flesh, even the underside.

 

that is a really rad idea! and would definitely look awesome if you had a few at different heights

 

O.k. here is part two. My buddy also told me he talked to some frag maniacs and they told him that when they want to get a plate to (in a sense) propagate, they turn it over on its' face and leave it that way. This causes the face to die and forces new mini colonies to grow out of the (what was bottom). I thought he was saying new polyps just grew through but he said no, small groups of polyps come through or grow in individual colonies, they then cut and separate the small groups and round the plate to create more frags. Sounds bizarre but fascinating all the same.

 

It's one of the ways it happens in the wild too.

Well, this is a bit of overgeneralization. The Fungiidae Family consists of quite a few Genera. (I think like 15 but couldn't find out for sure using Google). EDIT: 13 Genera according to J.E.N. Veron Many adult specimens will be on a stalk......juveniles won't. You will often know how old it is, not by how large the disk is, but if it looks more like the top of a (land based) mushroom and not flat like a mushroom corallimorph. If it's already shaped like a mushroom cap or bell, they need some support as your friend indicated. I have never had problems with any other species resting on sand

In the wild, they can be found in sand, rubble, silt, but not on the reef face nor leeward slopes or patch reefs. (That's a hint as to how to position them. Don't put them up in your rockwork nor have them in a whole bunch of flow). The one Fungiid that is an exception would be from the Podabacia Genus. Species from this genus grow in the rockwork on leeward slopes and grow in a pattern that looks just like Monti caps. (This post reminds me of a good post regarding coral reef zonation.....look for that soon).