[christyf5]

I've had my christmas tree rock for about 2.5 years. It used to have about 20 different assorted colors of worms but most of them ejected themselves in a high temperature mishap and now I have two brown ones left. As for the porites itself, its a darn funny creature. I find little "burned out" spots that are lighter in color (yet not the classical "bleached" look) all the time and they seem to come and go depending on its "mood" it seems. Every once in awhile it gets too close to something or something falls on it and there is actually a bleached out spot (lighter in color but not quite white and no polyps apparent) but it always comes back within a couple of weeks. Sometimes the polyps are out and the whole rock takes on a fuzzy appearance for weeks, the next minute the whole thing looks like a dead rock for the next month and I'm wondering what is going on.

The latest episode involved a single yellow polyp which seems to have burned out a 1"x1" patch on the underside. Currently that patch is bone white and I'm not sure whether it is going to come back, I've never seen porites go this white before and I'm hoping it will recover. Who knew a yellow polyp could be so destructive?

As for growth, well to be honest I haven't seen any, perhaps just recovering from the various "incidents" is enough to keep it reproductively busy, who knows?

Anyway, I don't know if that helps or not.