Hi..some of you will be adding corals soon and notice comments like "temperament aggressive" or "extends sweeper tentacles beyond it's base". For those of you who are curious, here is where those sweepers come from. The first picture is that of a favites coral also known as a brain, moon or pineapple coral. It is an LPS coral and contains zooxanthellae, so, it obtains most of it's food supply from photosynthesis.
After dark, the coral 'retracts' and if you look towards the center of the polyps, you'll see rims of brown forming. Those are the sweeper tentacles preparing to come out and expand to catch any plankton floating by. I tried to catch the same polyps:
I hadn't seen a post like this so I thought someone might be interested. You CAN get a sting if you touch sweeper tentacles. SH
After dark, the coral 'retracts' and if you look towards the center of the polyps, you'll see rims of brown forming. Those are the sweeper tentacles preparing to come out and expand to catch any plankton floating by. I tried to catch the same polyps:
I hadn't seen a post like this so I thought someone might be interested. You CAN get a sting if you touch sweeper tentacles. SH
