Coral experiments
 

Tonight's experiment is simple


I'm going to fill a glass with saltwater and place a zoanthid frag in the cup then out in the bitter cold it goes for the night , tomorrow morning ill place the block of ice back in my tank and we will see if the zoa will survive it's currently -24 out side

Will take pics of the whole process



I voted will come back to life

that's just cruel D :D jk
Very interesting experiment, love to see the results as well.
Guess we can then ship zoas all over the world without heatpacks from then on? :wink:

Frag of blue zoa's is now outside it's so cold it should freeze in about an hour


I have high hopes for " lucky "

Lol , " lucky" hey? Hes gonna need it.

Looking forward to see the results

how about a side by side with some GSP and aptasia

experiment
 

the aptasia would survive

Well I gotta say I'm amazed

the coral this morning was a full block of ice and spent all night in the -24 cold I put it in this morning to thaw amd was opem with in an hour all polyps are out and open to my amazement this coral is going to survive amazing and surprising what a single coral can handle if put to the test

So I guess the question is now should I give it a try for a full week

Well my mind is blown even though I voted it would survive I kinda thought it would melt and not survive I mean it's way too cold for coral to be outside all night so now goes the question what extremes can coral be put through

Amazing, in addition to being frozen solid it probably also went through some wild salinity swings as the ice froze and thawed. Puts new light on the question of how to acclimate corals.

It got me thinking that maybe it's a gradual cold that the corals don't like or disagree with got me wondering if I should ship single corals in a block of ice instead lol

Or how about preserving coral for many many years to come simply by freezing them this could open up a whole new science in to preserving life for future generations

The next experiment is to leave one out for a week and see if it can come back to life perhaps the 24 hours was too quick for the polyp to feel affected

I'm going to closely monitor this coral for the next week or maybe 2 weeks to see how it changes and color size and response time it will be interesting to see if any major changes or effects are visible to the polyp

As this sounds like a fun experiment to do at home....
There is I believe one institute in Hawaii that is working for cryogenics corals for the future as I believe its inevitable for our dying reefs.
Its a good paper to read I should find it and post.

Denny,
None of this actually exists until we see some pictures!! :mrgreen:

Haha very true I actually have pictures taken of everything all post them on this thread tomorrow I have pictures of the coral before it went outside when its a block of ice and how it looks right now it's pretty cool

had red people eaters I was fragging I cut a small part off rock went flying across room could not find it anywhere 2 weeks went by found the little frag in the stand threw it in the tank coral rehydrated opened up looked normal 2 days later it melted completely away so from this observation I am going to say give it a couple days :biggrin:

Salinity was 1.050 once thawed no new water added

Will it last?


I once had left live rock outside mid February for about two weeks to kill any organic that were left on the rock including a large Palythoa colony two weeks later the rocks went back into the tank for a cycle and the palys came back and survived long after

However with this particular one I don't expect it to live long term but still looks good so far

That's pretty cool , I didnt think it would survive.

I voted it won't survive but am amazed it has so far.
I vote for a week test.

guess can't use the excuse "UPS let them freeze" anymore

well the zoanthid as of this morning is dead , one polyp remains but the stress wasnt good for him and he didnt make it:)


so the next experiment you ask?


im going to take 5 single polyp frags and leave them out to dry , each day i will put one back in the tank and then monitor its recovery or death.


cheers

denny

I once tried something similar but of the opposite extreme. I took a rock out of my tank that had a small patch of green star polyps on it that I wanted removed. I then blasted the star polyps with a small butane torch for a while until I figured they'd be good and dead. Afterwards I returned the rock to the tank and about a week later the star polyps were back. My recollection is a bit hazy but I think I ended up needing to hire a priest to exorcise that demon from my tank. So I bet if you try your experiment with those you will have a higher survival rate.

experiment
 

what i would like to do is take some coral from the coast(pink dendros i think) and slowly raise the temp over a year

Building a system that would keep those alive would be challenge enough no?

experiment
 

tank,sump,skimmer,reactors,chiller.same as all my other tanks

Any idea of the scientific name?

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/1/corals

Here's an article on the subject if anyone wants to experiment.

I am currently utilizing your findings to kill off some stupid encrusting softie that I have in my tank that is taking over everything!

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

I'm not too surprised. Don't we freeze things all the time to preserve them? Especially in the medical fields. Cryogenics anyone? :lol:

One of these nights those plays are going to crawl out of their tank and come sting you in your bed.

This thread has got me a bit perturbed. I should have posted this as soon as I read your first post a few days back, but I was left more in disbelief than anything else, and plus, it's been a hell of a week at work and home..sigh.

I saw the reaction on RC when you posted it and I have to agree with the latter sentiments there that what you're doing lacks any remorse and is essentially careless. Nevermind the complete absence of the notion of animal husbandry in what you're doing - the central reason we're all hobbyists!

The point i'm going to make is that they're animals. They have a central nervous system - a system that tells them when there is danger and when it is safe and how to react. When you do something like intentionally harming them, they will react as any animal in that situation would. We're not talking about accidental death - we're talking about trying to kill the animal by using extreme stress (cold), compounded by time.

The mad science aspect of this is quite evident - can they survive the freeze? Good question, but i'd recommend you ask a coral researcher or dig through some marine journals if you're honestly that curious.

I dunno, maybe you have too much time on your hands....but as they say, idle hands are the devil's tool? (or however it goes). Try and find some other way to use your time...maybe try and see how you can get them to grow faster, eh?

You've been in the hobby a long time, just as I have...thus, i'm blown away that you still can't come to appreciate the fact that it is a living creature, and that what you're doing is trying to quantify how and to what extent you can end its life.

anyhoo.....Im blown away it lived that first night....but i'm not going to applaud your efforts.........I think you should stop this "experiment" asap.

:neutral:

I doubt it was living the first night, the fact it was open means nothing. Was it responding/retracting if disturbed, unno and don't really care to sift through to see. As far as mad scientist goes I don't think Denny is a real threat in the big scheme of things. Alot of us scorched a few spiders with magnifying glasses.

doesn't have to be a "threat" in the grand scheme of things. it's just fundamentally a wrong endeavor to take on...big or small, the ethics of killing something intentionally is not something to be taken lightly

i'd like to think you and the rest have grown up from the days of scorching spiders with magnifying glasses and calling out for mom when you fell off your bike. You're all big boys/girls now, time to make better decisions about the animals you keep.

I bet this indifference I see in this thread is a matter of people not realizing a zoanthid is an animal, yeah? amirite? the absence of a discernible face or appendages doesn't lessen its importance. But if that's the measure some of your fall back on, keep in mind: it eats and poops! :)

theres always one i guess....anyways ill bite as i love a good debate and am in the arguing mood:P



ok so you mean to tell me that you have never swatted a fly on purpose?.......sure


how about stepped on an ant?........sure

how about pulled a handful of hair algae off the rocks?...........sure

how about removed a bristle worm or intentionlly killed pods with a filter sock or your skimmer?....sure

hell just running a skimmer is knowingly killing numerous pods on a daily basis so how is my one polyp any different from your pods? ............sure

please.....how naive can you be????:noidea:


i guess my point is if your worried about the one little animal( whos half plant btw) then your in the wrong hobby to begin with everything we do is a risk to an animal or do you disagree?

have you never lost a fish?

just adding the fish to your tank was a unnecessary risk and really YOU were the one who put the risk on this ANIMAL .....in all reality how dare YOU take a risk like that on another animal huh???

like the guy who says its a sin to kennel a dog but its ok to own one in a 5oo sq ft apartment lol

people like you i really have to laugh at , your to mighty to see what the general public does as nothing but different then what you do , yet you do the same as anyone else but see it from a different view

experiments like these could or could not change your world , doesnt matter who does the test results are results.

i have pics of polyps on a microscopic level , wev'e tested with all kinds of factors and stresses so i go beyond buying a pretty animal and hoping for the best with its life , i grow and propogate the same animal that you kill time and time again , so yes i purposely killed 4 polyps just like the guy who purposely kills off an aiptasia anemone but the dif is i didnt do it to make things pretty in my eyes i did it to better understand the animal and its limits.

the ocean is %95 unmapped......are you going to do it?






so yes i feel your pain but in fact i think your no better than me



thanks for your nickle but i have enough loose change lol


cheers

please do talk to me about ethics lol do you not have a tank or do you?

wow.....


again get off your high horse .......your no better than anyone is in this hobby is, be it if you raise fish from fry, rescue corals or simply own a tank for viewing you are destroying and determining the faith of an animal who was better before you or me came along :P

you cant offer what the ocean can so you cant say that your fish will live a longer life in your tank than in the wild no? no because you know the life span on a fish in the wild is over ten years , you know what it is in aquariums? average 3 yrs lol so when you sell your pretty clown to a friend and he kills it its your fault isnt it i mean it was your responsibility wasnt it?

geesh

well i have one polyp left , it does have a response and will close up , this was one of the first things i checked as i assumed the polyps froze in an open way but it closes and opens

out of the 4-5 polyps i have 1 left but it is ****y i really dont think its going to make it long term though the cells were to badly damaged.

so what does all this mean?

well to say that you need to run home in an hour as the water will go cold is prob abit extreme lol

how about shipping overnight vs 3 days?

well may not give any serious insight to what corals go through during the shipping process but it gave me a better idea of what extremes a zoanthid polyp can handle ....why is this important?


knowing a corals limitations can determine things like temperature needed to kill nudibranchs for example.

useless information?

not to me.......

geesh i had to go check RC to see what you meant and then realized only two other people besides you though it was wrong lol which i would have expected

so just so we are clear on this its 10 people to your 3(incuding you) who disagreed lol but yeah a big "reaction " for sure.

keep an eye out for my next experiment ok?


thanks!!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2386267

Hey Denny, lets go get a Snickers.. :biggrin: