Acropora lifespan

[ReefRondo]

Hey guys,

just read an article that said Acropora only live for 4-7 years. I had not even considered them dying of natural causes. My tank will barely be finished by then! Is this just in the wild or is this also the case in our reef tanks? Will taking frags stop this from happening? Is it just the single polyps that die with age and the new growth will continue?

 

[Nanoreefer4ever]

Fragging acros tend to encourage them to grow more, and they will live forever as long stability is golden

 

[Sallstrom]

In theory a colony could live forever. But I heard a coral scientist talk about lower fecundity in older Acropora colonies, so they might "get old".

 

[Softhammer]

That article is total Baloney. They can live forever as conditions permit, meaning new growth. I have dove around 20 plus foot colonies and fields of stag horns as big as a house, those aren’t 4-7 years old, I‘ll put everything I own on that! Now can a single polyp live that long.. no clue.. and as long as the colony as a whole is alive, what difference does it make?

 

[C. Eymann]

Agree with softhammer,
I too have swam over massive stands of A. palmata that had to have been 50+ years if not hundreds of years old.

I am not a coral biologist, and have no scientific info on the subject but I believe lifespan of a colony is determined/limited by environmental factors & disease, not a biological "clock"/ age.

Just my two pennies

 

[sfin52]

An individual polyp prob has a life span but a colony is a whole different animal.

 

[PatW]

There are only 2 species of acropora in the Caribbean: staghorn and elkhorn. I have seen staghorn colonies that are about 4’ high, 4’ deep and 12’ long. And I have seen elkhorn that is 6’ and 12’ across. It is hard to imagine that colonies of this size are no older than 7 years.

 

[jda]

I have some colonies in my own tanks that I got from before 2000. They have all been fragged back or else they would outgrow the tank. I think that the OG Garf Bonsai is from 1990, or so. 29 years just in captivity and who knows how much longer in the ocean.