Frogspawn splitting??

[labnjab]

Something odds going on with one of our frogspawn heads. Its fully open and its been looking more and more like 2 heads as time passes, but now in the center where the mouth would be, its turned transparent and has grown larger. Is this what they look like before they finish the spit or is something bad happening? Other then that it looks normal
I had to use the flash to get the pic, so its not as prominent when you actually look at it
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f370/jabsgirlforever/100_0682.jpg

Its been in the same spot for months

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Perfectly normal. This is one method for the branching LPS to form new heads. They branch by splitting a polyp and each polp grows it's own corallite.

[labnjab]

Good to know. Thank you. I was worried that whats been effecting our sps has started causing problems with other coral. I've had this since november and its the first sign of spltting its shown


I think I finally found the problem with the sps too. Our temperature controller started acting crazy and I found the probe was corroded and had copper exposed. I don't know if it was the culprit but I'm sure it wasn't helping. I was able to save the controller by splicing on a new probe from a coralife digital thermometer that we stopped using. Its still 100% accurate

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

When LPS corals die, generally the polyp flesh retracts into the middle completely and you never see it come out. Unfortunately, that happened to my Torch yesterday. When I left for work in the morning, it was perfectly fine, when I came home after work, the polyps were gone. The only thing I can figure is that my female clown got a little too aggressive in her hosting behavior.

[Dave66]

Probably so, GB, since clowns are notorious for killing LPS, especially the Euphyllias. It's why I don't keep clownfish in my tanks.

Dave

[labnjab]

When LPS corals die, generally the polyp flesh retracts into the middle completely and you never see it come out. Unfortunately, that happened to my Torch yesterday. When I left for work in the morning, it was perfectly fine, when I came home after work, the polyps were gone. The only thing I can figure is that my female clown got a little too aggressive in her hosting behavior.

Sorry for the loss. Our clowns started hosting the frogspawn a while back, but I moved it from their territory and they lost interest in it. After seeing how aggressive they get while hosting the BTA, especially the female, I can see how they can easily destroy a lps

[labnjab]

I'm almost certain its splitting now. There are now 2 mouths and a definite line right down the middle. I was starting to think it would never split. We've had it for close to 6 months and this is the 1st sign of growth. Hopefully it will start growing quicker now

[labnjab]

It made the split

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f370/jabsgirlforever/random%20coral%20shots/100_0691.jpg

[oldhead]

Congrats man! Mine is in the process of going from 2 to 4, pretty exciting stuff to watch!

[kaybee]

If the frogspawn tissue is in contact with the adjacent rock, there's also the potential of it encrusting the rock and sprouting multiple independent heads from the encrustment concurrent with the head-splitting of the primary colony.

[Red]

congrats on the split!

[labnjab]

Thank you everyone. Its not attached to the rock...yet, but it would be awesome if it did