Mighty Morphing . . . polyps?!? PICS ADDED!!!! (finally)

I have a small colony of some kind of plain, normal polyp. They have been in my 14BC for about 6 months and have about quadrupled their numbers. As they are reproducing, they are changing their color and pattern.

The original polyps were plain "peach" colored. They have changed into ones with a reddish ring around the mouth and tentacles and others have gone to a more solid purple color. While others alltogether have a ring and a band on the mouth and a ring inside the tentacles.

I guess my questions are:

Are there any ways to control/predict morphing?

Is this normal or the sign of distress on the part of the coral?

What causes the morphing in the first place? Placement? Lights? Water Chemistry?

Thanks for the input!

 

lighting, and water quality would have a lot to do with this.

Its happened to me with acans, zoanthids, sps, and lps.

corals go through a lot of shipping stress, plus they are in lfs tanks which in my experience so far aren't usually the healthiest places around for fish and corals.

I think what might be happening is that its just returning to the color/morph that it naturally is ... that is to say that its been fading due to health issues the whole time previous to you buying it. Now that its in a healthy environment again, its beginning to recover and going back to its old self again.

again, this is just my opinion ... but it makes sense to me lol

 

That does make a lot of sense to me. Its just really cool to watch one type of polyp turn into three or four distinct specimens!!!

 

The types of zooxanthellae available in your tank play a role also.

 

pics or it didnt happen

 

I knew that was coming!!!

I will snap some shots and post them tomorrow morning!

 

LOL, you are after everyone now.

 

@2in10 hahaha. They sound really cool like someithng i haven't seen before.

@Ocea_man when i see the pick, I will raise the hatian bladder curse I put upon you.

 

Oh man - is that why i have to PEE uncontrollably right now!!?!?!

 

As promised - here are some pics of the Mighty Morphin' Polyps!!! Sorry it took me forever to get them posted. But as you can clearly see, these are all morphs that are from the same mother colony of about 6 polyps that we more like the plain-colored ones shown except the originals had a more even, "peach" color.
As you can see in the variations, there are different colors, different patters and they are all from the same group!!!

Anyone else see this kind of variation in a period of only 6-8 months!?!??!