How do funghia plates reproduce?

[JoJosReef]

I've heard of them dropping babies and seen vendors slice them into pie pieces. Has anyone had these reproduce in their tanks? What were the conditions where they did so? Just curious, because I have this plate that's been doing very well so far in my tank. Thanks!

 

[thereefhotspot]

I've heard of them dropping babies and seen vendors slice them into pie pieces. Has anyone had these reproduce in their tanks? What were the conditions where they did so? Just curious, because I have this plate that's been doing very well so far in my tank. Thanks!

Beautiful coral you have there! I lobe those ones that are so orange they look gold!

So the ones that are cut are usually a different species than fungia actually. Those are diaseris. It’s kind of hard to describe the difference but the skeleton is kind of wavy and the tentacles are just a bit different. We had a customer about 25 years ago back when my dad was running the family store, and this customer’s plate just totally bailed out and bleached , but in the process it spit out little babies all over the tank. For the next 10 years or so he would bring us 20 little orange plates at a time.

 

[Stang67]

I have 2 that are about 4 inches across, blue/green no babies. Then I have a rainbow ish one about 50c piece size that has dropped 3 babies, but it doesn't grow. So I am at a loss.

 

[thamnasteroid]

Solitary fungiids have multiple ways of reproduction. A damaged colony can bud anthocauli; this seems to be more common in some species than others, notably Fungia fungites, Lobactis scutaria, and Heliofungia fralinae. Cycloseris distorta and C. fragilis (formerly Diaseris) are able to "self-frag," or break themselves into (usually) 4 pieces and regrow.