Outstanding Fungia fralinae could become the first captive raised strain of disc coral

By on Jan 18, 2012

fungia fralinae

Fungia fralinae is a fairly common, popular and robust species of disc coral which is more often an attractive green color with orange mouths. It is actually less common to get Fungia fralinae as an individual polyp than as the remnants of an old colony which has died and been reborn with small polyp ‘anthoblasts’ which have regenerated from the skeleton, in most cases giving rise to dozens of identical individual little Fungias. Wouldn’t it be great if the coral above followed that script?

So how lucky are we, the collective we, that the incredible orange striped-green Fungia fralinae above is not only breathtaking, but it came from one of these Fungia-trees crowded by identical corallite anthoblasts. The coral pictured above is the first orange striped Fungia fralinae to have taken the plunge from its parent Fungia tree and also the first to be able to spread its wings expand its polyp and tentacles. You can clearly see the pink tentacle tips which corroborates all of the other indicators that this indeed a Fungia fralinae. 

This particular corallite is barely topping one inch in diameter, can you imagine what it will look like when it grows to a full size of well over six inches in diameter? Not to mention, Fungia fralinae can be induced to die a partial death to produce numerous, countless anthoblasts. Is the reef hobby ready for the first captive bred strain of disc coral? You bet it is!

These standard-issue Fungia fralinae disc corals are all captive grown specimens that were generated by a Fungia Tree

 

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  • Anonymous

    cool. any photos of the parent tree?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PNNXOIFOHZWSAMK7P3XKBQJJ5I Wiljuchi

    Weird, myself and friends over here have captive raised hundreds of fungia for years? Nice fungia though… shame its not the red one you had a pic of the other day!

  • Jason Revell

    Doesn’t “captive bred” mean that something has actually sexually reproduced? Partially killing a coral to force it to fission off some copies has nothing to do with breeding there buddy. It’s a great way to make money and hype a coral though…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Elegance-Reef/100001682874384 Elegance Reef

    thanks for identification, I rised fungia last few years, standard fungia who grows in colony from disc and obviously this Fungia Fralinae who grow from tiny tree polip what I found near one corals 2-3 years ago, is quite funny how this corals can be propagated, when grow to the inch or two I remove polyp from tree and in next 48 hours next polip start to apear on that tree, here is the picture, fralinae is at the right side on small rock, few already removed fralinae is mixed with other standard Fungia, fralinae is more neon gren, much more beautifull colour then on picture http://www.elegancereef.com/forum/uploads/gallery/album_2/gallery_716_2_5133.jpg