Bladder corals
| Bladder corals | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
_membranes_retracted_on_left_-_membranes_extended_on_right.jpg)
Bladder coral, left with contracted bubbles, |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Plerogyra | ||||||||||||
| Milne Edwards & Haime , 1848 |
The bladder corals ( Plerogyra ) are a stony coral genus from the Red Sea and the tropical Indo-Pacific , where they occur from the coast of East Africa and Madagascar to Samoa and the Marshall Islands . They prefer to live in cloudy lagoons and on reef slopes, in locations that are not as bright as the habitat of most hard corals.
Appearance and behavior
Bladder corals form massive colonies that can reach over a meter in diameter. During the day, they inflate appendages at the base of their tentacles to form the eponymous bladders. The symbiotic zooxanthellae , whose metabolic products are used by the corals, sit in them . The bubbles increase the surface area exposed to light. At night the bubbles get smaller and the corals stretch their tentacles to catch prey. They can be brownish gray, blue or green in color.
Aquarium keeping
Bladder corals are among the first hard corals that could be kept in seawater aquariums. They are robust and only need a medium level of illuminance or can be placed on the floor if the lighting is strong. However, they nettle very strongly and should therefore be placed at a great distance from other sessile animals.
species
There are four types:
- Plerogyra eyrysepta Nemenzo, 1960
- Plerogyra simplex Rehberg, 1892
- Plerogyra sinuosa (Dana, 1846)
- Plerogyra turbida (Hodgson & Ross, 1981)
The closely related genus Physogyra is also known in German as bladder coral. It differs from Plerogyra in that it has smaller bubbles.
literature
- Julian Sprung: Korallen , Dähne Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-921684-87-0
- Svein A. Fosså / Alf Jacob Nilsen: Coral Reef Aquarium , Volume 4, Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag, Bornheim, ISBN 3-928819-05-4
