Fresh water coral?

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jsado

Contributor
Messages
229
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Location
upstate NY
# of dives
50 - 99
Is there such a thing as fresh water coral? We dove today in lake Ontario at about 30 ft and saw something that looks like the start of coral. I have no idea. My buddy has dove in many places where he's seen coral in salt water. He says it looked just like coral. Is this possible?
 
In Pavillion Lake BC there are formations that are thought to resemble fresh water coral however I believe they are actually bacteria colonies. Do a search on Pavillion and see if the pics match what you saw.
 
To my (expert) knowledge, there is no such creature as freshwater coral.

Excluding mineral formations other posters have mentioned, there are also gelatinous freshwater bryozoan colonies. They can be common in lakes and ponds in summer months, and get as big across as a basketball. Their "zooids" may eerily resemble translucent or brownish polyps of star corals.

If you touch it and it feels like rubber, it's probably a phylactolaemate bryozoan. They are harmless and rather fun to mess with.
 
I like that I found this same question on Yahoo's Ask website, and someone in Minnesota claimed that there is a "dead reef" in the lake he regularly dives in. Well duh- MN used to be covered with salt water, I have plenty of coral samples from the banks of the Mississippi river. But they are fossils, not live coral.
gomi_
 
ohmdiver:
For what it is worth, Skeanatlas Lake has an area well known for fossilized stag horn coral

Ooh, neato! Those ancient waters must've been quite toasty.
 
As far as I know there's no such thing as LIVING fresh water coral.
 
I'm no expert, but is it possible that it was freshwater sponges? Last year, they started popping up in the Green Bay off of Menominee, MI. I did some research and talked to the DNR and found out they are in "clean" water which I guess is caused from the zebra mussels. (Did a dive today and vis was less than a foot - so not sure how true THAT is ha ha). The sponges can get quite large. Just a suggestion. (I had never seen anything like this before).
 
Sure there's freshwater sponges. They just don't look like coral. :wink:
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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