Red corals, jewelry and stuff

[Armando]

Funny how I didn't know how to answer this question a colleague asked me.

I told him the coral skeleton is white for all hard corals. He said what about those red (dead) corals people sell as expensive jewelry or souvenirs? I said there's no such thing, it's died or painted or something. He insisted that they are actually red corals (skeleton). So I dunno.

 

[NateHanson]

Aren't pipe organ skeletons red?

 

[Armando]

is that what they sell?

 

[Nikkoli110]

I always wondered the same thing, my aunt has a whole bunch of stuff that she says coral. And some are red, some are white. But it is funny how when someone sees my tank, and goes, "what are those things" And I tell them corals, they go "Not-ah, coral is red". Hehehe

 

[Nikkoli110]

Found this:

http://www.jewelrycentral.com/Target_Coral.html

 

[nunofs]

Here are some pics of "Corallium rubrum" in the wild, along with a necklace made out of its skeleton: http://www.arkive.org/coral/Coral/corallium_stills.html

This type of coral is much like a seafan/gorgonian, but has a hard skeleton like SPSs.

Nuno

 

[NateHanson]

Pretty! I want one. Are these ever imported? Maybe they're protected from collection?

 

[synchiropi]

In Mexico they also sell black coral jewelry. I have seen the dried up branches, with their inner black structure.

I wonder if this material is also made of calcium carbonate. It feels very different from a stony coral skeleton...


So just read the link above and yeah, at least for the red coral its made of calcium. Mmmmh, I wonder about the black coral. The very thin branches are flexible!! Does not look at all as made of calcium...

 

[nunofs]

I believe black coral is a gorgonian, so the skeleton would be made of gorgonin and not calcium carbonate... see http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/prot_res/PR/blackcoral.html for details, though they don't mention the skeleton's composition.

Nuno

 

[nunofs]

Found this about black corals: "All antipatharian black corals are colonial with a rigid, rod-like skeleton made of protein. There are no calcareous components in the skeleton"... see http://www.austgem.gil.com.au/agnews.html

Nuno

 

[synchiropi]

Yup, makes sense. Their skeletons are very flexible. I was thinking that they are sort of like the material nails are made of.

This is so interesting. I think it would be great if we could get some black coral and grow it in one of our tanks.

 

[synchiropi]

Wow, gorgonin is actually keratin...

 

[Aquaman_68]

There are a couple different corals in which the skeleton has a color. Blue ridge coral has brown tissue when alive & the skeleton is blue. There are a few different type of sps that have a dead skeleton of pink & another a lavender color. (Don't know the species but from looking at the skeleton closeup now they kinda have an apearence of a porites) They were ravaged on the reefs alive over 12 plus years ago. At the time the wholesalers claimed that they were very popular due to the color of them when they were dead & they also claimed there was only one place to acquire them off the coast of mexico.(the popular Salt water FO days when we used to take out the dead coral & bleach it every month to keep it looking bright due to the absence of coraline & abundance of the ugly diatoms) Pic of the two kinds are not too good but are below. These dead skeletons were very popular back then & would fetch a price of over 75.00 ea.

 

[Greg Hiller]

I may be wrong on this, but I believe the red coral is the skeleton of a non-photosynthetic coral. The 'black coral' is also non photosynthetic. It would probably be pretty hard for any of us to grow this stuff.

FWIW, blue ridge and organpipe (red) are both pretty easy to keep in our tanks. Both only really show theire colors when bleached out and cleaned.