Do gorgonians shed?

[GothFishKeeper]

Every so often I notice that one of my three gorgonians has pieces of its branches surrounding it in the sandbed. Is this some kind of shedding to allow for new growth, or is this something to be concerned about?

 

[Subsea]

My leathers do the same thing. Off with the old: on with the new. Best I can tell, its a cleaning process.

Nice looking Red Bush. What kind of macro algae is that?

 

[GothFishKeeper]

My leathers do the same thing. Off with the old: on with the new. Best I can tell, its a cleaning process.

Nice looking Red Bush. What kind of macro algae is that?

That’s what I was thinking because I’ve seen it with other corals as well, but leathers are obviously very different from gorgs haha.

But thanks! That one is pom pom, a type of gracilaria. Honestly if I wasn’t currently prioritizing my aquarium budget to better my 90g mixed reef, I would swap out the pom pom for something much slower. It grows like a weed and if I don’t trim it at least every few weeks, it gets to the point where my inverts in this tank can’t even walk around lol. I did just recently do a huge cleanup of the macros in this tank though, here’s a before and after:



I’m honestly not a huge fan of the entire top rock being hypnea, and I wasn’t when it was fully covered either. I would love to do a garden of various branching macros on there surrounded by smaller mats of hypnea, but I’d be worried they’d get over run by it

 

[rowenaad]

Mine shed but not like dropping its branch. it just sheds away the slime on surface of its skin just as how leather shed.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

All corals shed their outer mucus layer occasionally, but I have never seen a gorg drop a piece of itself.