Group+6A

**How Does Water Motion Effect Coral Growth?**
Sara Geriak Samantha Pierson Lyndsay Binette Greg Zlotnick



We are going to see how water current effects coral growth. We will be working with Green Star coral (//Clavularia viridis//) a soft coral with bright green polyps connected by a purple mat. They are photosynthetic which means they require no feeding.Green star polyps are active during the day and closed at night. Apparently, green star polyps prefer a moderate current. (www.reefcorner.com)

Our Group will test how green star coral reacts to different water motion - high water motion and low water motion. We will do this by placing some corals farther away from the pump or closer to it. We will count the amount of new polyps (if any) each time our group checks up on our corals and see how many new ones there are and find out how much each piece of coral has grown.

The coral we use will be attached to a cement plug using reef glue. We will need...
 * Cement plugs
 * Green star polyp
 * reef glue
 * razor blade/scissors
 * Gloves

__**Updates...**__
We have glued 6 pieces of green star coral to 6 separate round cement plugs. Out plugs have been marked by carving in a "T" to the flat side, while the coral has been attached to the rough side. The tank we are using is the one lit by natural light. 3 coral pieces have been placed close to the pump were they will get the brunt of the current, while the other 3 are away from the pump were they will receive a low water current.
 * 10/17/08**

All 3 corals that were placed away from the pump had 11 polyps on them. A sort of brown algae had started to grow on the coral, while one had started to turn a sort of whitish color. The corals near the pump seemed better off and were a darker purple than the other three. One of the plugs had 13 polyps, one had 16, and the last one had 17 polyps. Altogether, the ones near the pump seemed healthier than the ones that were set away from the filter for now.
 * 10/20/08**

The corals near the pump have also started to turn a little white. They also seemed to have died off some, as this time one of the corals had 11 polyps, one had 12, and the last one near the pump had 15. However, the corals away from the pump seem worse off. They were all white and green and looked all together unhappy. Because of the growth on the ones away from the pump, we could not see the polyps on two of the corals and could only count the polyps on one of them. That last one had only 8 polyps. Neither set looked liked they were doing very well, and no polyps had opened up yet. It could be because they are still upset about being chopped up. However, the corals near the filter looked better than the other corals away from the filter.
 * 10/28/08**

Five out of the six corals are now dead. The three furthest away from the pump have died. It seems we may have used to much glue on them. Two of the three near the pump have also died. There is one coral that has six visible polyps that for the moment are alive and well. But for the others, they are gone.
 * 11/19/08**

All of the corals except for that one near the pump have died. Something might have gone wrong that was unrelated to the current.
 * 12/1/08**

ONLY GREG AND SARAH HAVE EDITED, WHAT DOES THE FILTER HAVE TO DO WITH THE WATER MOVEMENT? (THERE IS NO FILTER ON THE TANKS...) MAKE YOUR DESCRIPTIONS CLEARER! 18/20