Green Star Polyps

Pachyclavularia sp.
Like a field of tall grass waving in the wind.

Hard to get florescence to show up in a picture, but try to picture it was florescent green.
You can see the polyp tenticles waving around in the current.

This isn't so much one critter, as a MASSIVE collection of colonizing critters. The colony is forever growing/expanding. In doing so, first, the entire colony contributes necessary *stuff* (details omitted) to expand the mantle (it's base) out further from the colony, widening its footprint, so to speak. Then, new little polyps start to sprout up from this new mantle growth.
Each polyp (unit of the colony) has a white disc (mouth) from which extend 8 tenticles. The top 1/3rd of which is green. All the polyps are connected to a shared base mantle which is a pretty purple color.

This picture (right) should give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. Here, you can see purple mat extening out front (the mantle), and the new polyps growing right behind it. If you look closely at the edge of the mantle, you can see white spots, where new polyps will sprout up in a few days.


When the daylights go out, and only the actinics are on, the tenticles all glow bright florescent green. Add to that the fact that the current is constantly making the colony wave around like a vast field of tall grass, and this coral is just fascinating to stare at.


Here they are glowing like crazy in the Actinic lights.


This creature sustains life in two fasions. First, it's photosynthetic, so it gets a good amount of it's energy from the lights. It also eats microscopic things in the water, through mouths located on each polyp. And judging by the growth I'm seeing, it's getting LOTS of good stuff from both forms of feeding.

This picture shows you both how long the polyps extended tenticles get (bottom left),
and what the actual polyp mouths look like (white circles in the middle and upper right).

I've yet to see any GSP with tenticles as long as this one. Since it's growing like crazy, I'm guessing that's a good thing.

Late at night, when there's no more light, each polyp will deflate, and pull itself into it's tube, and suddenly, I have a rock with a bunch of purple pimples.

This is what the Green Star Polyp looks like after the lights go out, and all the polyps close up.

I've since taken cuttings, and attached them to the closed loop pipes, in the hopes that they will eventually grow over the pipes. The pipes take away from the overall appearance, and maybe this coral can help it blend in better. Once I've put all the pictures together, I'll add more information here about how I did it, and the progress made so far. Stay tuned!


Added to the tank on March 13th, from the Pet Loft, Mt Airy, MD.


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Last updated 7/5/05