Candy Coral Help!!

[BC564]

I have a candy coral colony with probably 250 heads and have been losing the heads. The flesh isnt shriveling up or coming apart or appearing to melt away like I have seen before. Instead the heads are huge and puffy.....look healthy but the whole head comes off and floats away and sits in another part of the tank....I have been worried about this coral for a few months and have been trying to find out what is wrong....is there something wrong? Is this a form of spreading and building new colonies? Looking for answers and thank you in advance.

[BC564]

Here is a pic of the coral

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd218/BC564/PICT00015.jpg

[sharuq1]

That thing is huge. Maybe it feels crowded so is trying to drop the heads to reproduce in other areas?

[BC564]

I have little heads all over the place in the tank....one has attached to a mushroom colony rock. I have never heard of this happening before. But I'm not a candy coral expert.

[kwirky]

That thing is huge. Maybe it feels crowded so is trying to drop the heads to reproduce in other areas?

read in an article about fragging candycane that if it's fragged then it grows healthier because it gets more water flow through it.

[Myka]

I have little heads all over the place in the tank....one has attached to a mushroom colony rock. I have never heard of this happening before. But I'm not a candy coral expert.

So the heads that falls off live? If so, it must be a form of natural reproduction. Is it just the fleshy part that falls off, or does part of the skeleton go with it?

[Murminator]

Yep its reproducing my closed brain is going thru that now

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c142/Murminator/IMG_026251.jpg

[michika]

Its normal, my frogspawn and hammer corals have both done it in the past as well. I also had my candys do it too. It was often triggered in my tank by heavy feeding, or a fish shoving its way in the branches to get to some food.

[BC564]

I'll take a picture tonight....but its not nearly as pretty to look at as it was a few weeks ago.

[justinl]

A lot of corals disperse this way and i wouldnt be at all surprised if candy canes did this naturally. Just look at how dense your colony is; there's no more room for lateral asexual reproduction. I wouldn't worry about it too much, but i might consider spreading the love and fragging that bad boy. btw, I'd say that's a very nice colony.

[Pier Pressure]

I have a riccordea mushroom rock that is losing little mushrooms all over the place. I think it is the same thing - no space left in the colony so reproducing. Beautiful coral, by the way.