Coral Sweeper Tenticle Damage

so since i get so frag crazy i sometimes have a few of em lying around and unfortunatly i forget were they are or neglect to move them as they grow or get moved.this can and usualy does end up BAD.so here as i have been fragging galaxea as my colony is getting rather large i had to place the frags on the sand bed of the tank they are in.not a big deal as i go to bed.next day my hydnaphora wich i have found to be extremely aggresive had been burned by the galaxeas sweeper tenticles.they come out during feeding and at night and sure enough they caused some damage.[img][/img]
as you can see it wasnt much damage although this picture is after i freaked out and dipped the coral in a reef dip and mela fix to prevent any bacterial infections like brown slime and then i put him back in at the bottom of the aquarium.he looks way happier in this pic than before.[img][/img]
so many time i wish i got the imediate picture of when something terrible happens but its not your fist instinct to grab the camera.

bit damn that galaxea is cool...

things look like they will be OK.the skeleton is still showing but i think that it is just a matter of time before the coral has to regrow over itself.a little setback as far as time.i hope that the area that overgrows branches proper this stuff is pretty unpredictable as far as branching.

UH OH it happend again.these guys seem to want to fight each other.somehow they are touching again.[img][/img]
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did their stings do that to the snail? if so wow...

no that would be evil..its might be hard to see unless you know these corals buthere is some fuzzy looking stuff on the tips.that is burned flesh of the coral.not good.to be honest i am not sure how the snail shells get that way.and why a hermit would choose such a home.

yeah, because i have seen it too, im willing to bet its just normal calcium depletion like will happen in a saltwater system...
but yeah i can see the the damage, i mean can you move them further apart?

i can move themfurther apart but i will have to rearange.it just seems strange as i have moved them apart and put the flow against the glaxea but it seems to heat seek the hydnaphora then stick to it causing some nice coral burns.aparently they hate each other.so yeha in the morning maybe i will move them.but that mean the hydnaphora will have other things to mess with.its a tough choice with all these corals.

yeah, if you wanna store some in my tank i could help you out, lol...

oh here is a good one..i let my frog spawn get way too close to this kenya tree due to a unplanned fragging and it just melted the crap out of it.i let it do this until it just had its branches just fall right off.now i guess i will have more kenyas but i dont recomend this for most folks at home.[img][/img]

suddenly kenyans all over the place...

here i caught my encrusting hydnaphora extending its sweeper tenticles to digest a neighboring gold poiyp or two.they look alot like see through organs or intestines.evil stuff.then it retracts the asaulting mass after the damage is done.most alien.
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thats a really good pic of that activity...

That's really cool! How far can the hydnaphora extend?

i have seen them go about 4 inches out to destroy neighboring corals.this is a good pic of the magnitude they can be produced.in this pic there are countless sweeper tenticles bundled together just eradicating the polyps next to it.some corals go much further out.interesting and frustrating at the same time.

this picture has a chalice that has touched a pectinia.both have damage but this is the most visible of the two.
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look at that.
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Here is a picture of a Pectinia with it's sweeper tentacles out.The neighboring mushroom suffered some damage.
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I found this interesting becuase the xenia looks like it is trying to pull away.The hydnophora seems to want to consume it.

yeah i have seen the xenia pull away from my anemone when it expends.usualy not fasy enough but i can tell that it does.it also creeps from the top of the tank down on the back wall when the water level drops for longer than normal.when the tank is back in proper maintenance they start back up again to the top.this leads me to believe that they can very well become a pest of sorts in some tanks but i will have to further confirm this through marooning more specimens to there designated islands and see how that goes.

Here they strike again...this one almost looks like a thick smoke.Cool stuff.[img][/img]

This picture is one of the Galaxea corals nemotocysts in my hands. So far" /> I have only seen two corals do this to me, one is my platygyra , and the other is this Galaxea coral.

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Here you may be able to see it better under actinics. The little end caps anchored into my skin.

Both of those corals you mentioned are pretty powerful contenders who both seem to love to fight. It's too bad really as both are beautiful corals.