Red Goniopora balls are an unusual growth phenomenon which seems to be an artifact of captive growth conditions. ORA recently shared a story about how daughter colonies of red Goniopora, presumably G. stutchburyi, which started out as typical eraser size fraglets grew into unusual ball shaped colonies when kept together in a basket.
ORA kept the red goni balls where they wouldn’t get lost, expecting the Goniopora to fuse together into a solid and probably much more manageable coral shape. Instead of developing the expected bare spots on one of their sides, or fusing with the neighboring coral, the red goniopora balls grew and grew with tissue and healthy corallites covering up every surface of the spherical coral colony. As this growth of the red goniopora balls, was a freak occurence, don’t expect ORA to offer these up with any regularity, if at all. Either way, at least we now know one way to keep red Goniopora alive and growing well.
[via ORA]
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