Photographs of cold-water scleractinian corals maintained in the AWI experimental aquarium system

This dataset provides observational evidence of polyp detachment in the solitary cold-water coral Caryophyllia huinayensis in the absence of disturbance. Three individuals spontaneously detached from their skeletons after keeping them for 37 months in aquaria with regular feeding and low environmental variability. A fourth individual started to detach, however, the coral remained in a semi-detached state with exposed mesenterial filaments along the edge for ten weeks.