Coral life span?

I've tried searching the threads with no success. Does anyone know of potential life spans for corals in captivity? I'm interested specifically in [FONT=Verdana, Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif]Seriatopora hystrix, but I'm curious to see if any documentation has been done on other "hobbyist" species. Personal experience counts! I realize environment determines longevity (as in every species), but in average aquariums, how long can we expect to keep, say, a mushroom? Or could you keep a toadstool for 20 years? Long-time aquarist opinions welcome!
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I doubt there is a known lifespan. My toadstool is and mushrooms are as old as my tank even surviving one move - so 11 years. Interesting topic ! thanks for starting this...

 

good question?

i think i heard that some wild stonies live 100 or more yrs or something crazy.

 

I don't think there is a lifespan. Since most reproduce by cloning themselves, to some degree, they can pretty much live forever. As long as nothing physically kills them, I don't think corals can die of old age.

 

Some can live for hundreds of years under the right conditions. It also depends on whether you're talking about individual polyps, or colonies.

 

Most of them don't die because of genetic timeline. They die because of their environment. I guess you could say that they live forever if the conditions are in their favor. But this is something that not even nature has mastered

 

Nature has mastered it, man is destroying it.

 

Nature has destoyed a lot of marine life including coral life due to change in temeprature/nurition/shifting currents etc etc etc. Not to say that man hasn't done his part but it is well observed fact.

Its just the nature of things i guess.

 

I'll give you that. I'm just growing concerned over the recent events with the reefs, overfishing etc. I hope our glass boxes don't become museums or such...:-/

 

There's a lot of mankind destruction. Fertilizer run off ect.