Coral Lifespan

Now I've done research on this subject but haven't been able to find any definitive information. As such I'm turning to the many years of experience of the 3reef community! So I know this isn't something I'll have to likely worry about during my tank development. But how long exactly is the life of a coral? I mean a zoanthid for example will spread out a mat over rocks and continue to bud. But the original "seeds" or frags, is their lifespan dictated by their environment exclusively? Or is it like any other thing in which one has a lifespan.

The reason behind this question is, I have several colonys developing and I've been fragging them out now for some time. However I always seem to end up taking the growth from the outter edges, not the older polyps. So it got me thinking about it, in trying to look for answers the only thing I see is that coral loss seems to happen during a crash or something major. In the ocean, storms and human intervention will annihilate parts of the reef at times.

Anyone know of or seen documentation that talks about the life of the coral?

Thanks,
-Gavin

 

From everything I've read it's unsure what the lifespan of a coral polyp or anemones truly is. they end up dying due to overgrowth above them blocking light or like you said catastrophe. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who managed to keep their tank stable with the same coral long enough to see it die of old age. I don't think this hobby has been around long enough yet though.

 

Well, since corals are actually thousands to millions of individual animals coexisting together, there really is no lifespan per say of a coral. Give proper conditions, a coral should be pretty much everliving.

If like say on an sps coral, the ones in the center can and will die off due to not enough light or flow. The ones on the outsides will get the light and food, and flow needed to live.

 

Agreed with everything said above, but to specify each single coral polyp also has an unspecified lifetime that I'm aware of. In a book I read by Eric Borneman, "Aquarium Corals" he mentions that coral polyps do not have an aging gene at all so they are basically immortal (as corny as that sounds ). Hopefully I'm remembering that correctly.

 

Yeah ST, that sounds about right without trying to find that part in the book.

 

...enter Queen "HEEEERE we are...