Coral reproduction in captivity

photobarry · 01-12-2004, 01:00 AM

I'm going to sneak in my own thread while Jerel's asleep at the wheel, umm...I mean sick.

I was just wondering who else has had occurances of corals spawning in their tanks. I've had a Euphyllia ancora produce gametes and I just noticed this today.

photobarry · 01-12-2004, 01:01 AM

And this (notice the white nodules inside the tentacles).

Graham · 01-12-2004, 02:51 AM

Nice, Barry!

I had an anemone spawn last Spring. Two out of three mornings before work I saw it releasing what appeared to be sperm. I actually got some video of it with my digital camera and a couple pics. I'll see if I can find one...

Graham · 01-12-2004, 02:56 AM

Here it is...it's got some food caught in it.

It looked all weird, and as you can see, it had bleached. Long story short, it was one of the less-fond-of-switching-to-Crystal-Sea salt specimens in my old tank. It has since recovered...it's pretty neat and actually, I have no idea what kind it is. It doesn't appear to be a common host variety, though it did host a pair of melanopus clowns I used to have. I'll attach a better pic of it's present appearance...

(I don't mean to be a hijacker here...)

Spanky · 01-12-2004, 07:44 AM

Euuuuuuuuuuuuuu

photobarry · 01-12-2004, 10:50 AM

Cool Graham! You're not hitchiking at all. That's what this thread is for.

Here's my story: I was staring at my tank at work (which I don't often get to do) and for some reason I had to wait for something and had no computer (Ack!) so I decided to stare at the tank for awhile. I don't know how I happened to notice something strange in a couple of polyps out of hundreds. This got me wondering. How much coral reproduction is going on that we just don't see / miss entirely?

MiddletonMark · 01-12-2004, 11:56 AM

I've seen a 120 with a major Pocillapora problem ... probably more likely `polyp bailout' ... but it's a 9 or so year old tank, with little Pocillaporas growing everywhere ... the intakes, the outflow, the walls, the front glass, probably 20 or so little colonies everywhere.
The owner of the tank actually found it a real pain ... as the has to regularly break them off the intakes, scrape them off the front glass ... just for proper tank functioning. I can always tell his frags at the LFS ... as they have this perfectly flat base, scraped off the glass panes

For the coolest event I've seen, about 2 months after my fiance got a Waratah Anemone for her 10g nano tank ... it decided to spit out babies. It's a unusual GBR anemone, I've heard said to be cool-water [but over a year in our tanks] ... but it internally breeds young.
We were watching the tank one evening, and saw it `spitting out' something ... went over to the tank to check it out and saw it spit out of it's `mouth' repeatedly a couple very tiny baby anemones. Probably the reason why I'm so hooked now

Sadly, in the nano, the babies all went into the rocks, and given the coral load ... never re-emerged

But on the upside, after 6 months in the 58g tank, it reproduced again, with 4 babies visible now [and getting target fed, like the mother] ... a pic of one is below.

photobarry · 01-12-2004, 12:43 PM

Wow, that's really cool!

Graham · 01-12-2004, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by photobarry
How much coral reproduction is going on that we just don't see / miss entirely?

I guess we'll never know...

MiddletonMark,

That is neat. I've never heard of that type of anemone - I guess it's a brooder, eh? Spitting out babies...heheh. It must be hermaphroditic then...if it's spitting out viable young. I wouldn't think they'd be able to retain the brooding larvae for over a year. I could be wrong.

I've had Pocis bail on me before. In fact, the colony that I'm growing out right now is a bail-out from the mother colony that I parted with a while back. At first it was cool, but then it was a pain. Having all these little colonies sprouting up exactly where you don't want them...

MiddletonMark · 01-12-2004, 01:20 PM

Yep, Poci's seem to be the `first you wish for it, then you regret wishing even a single time' sort of coral with that polyp bail-out. Have some mystery coral sprouting up on a piece of LR near my precious turban cup coral ... and I've been wondering ...

But that anemone / babies are the coolest thing. Yeah, the one good little writeup I heard off them said they were hermaphrodites I believe. Hope I can keep it happy in the long-run ... maybe spread some around. It's been a near ideal reef anemone, hardly moved, small [1.5" for adult size] ... and that great bright red color

But likely to be time, as I'm not letting go of any until I know they're really booming. Maybe try some in my softie tank too ... nice at bare least to have a couple to `experiment with' that way.

photobarry · 01-12-2004, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Graham
I guess we'll never know...

I'm expecting that it is more common than we think in tanks 2yrs and older. But then again, I could be wrong.

I looked at my Clavularia today and there's no sign of those white nodules any more. I'll check again around lunchtime and see.

MiddletonMark · 01-12-2004, 01:27 PM

That gets into the `is there a proper place for the new corals to settle/grow' too ....

As IMO, not only does it need to reproduce, but then it has to drop [or however] it's young into somewhere it can grow ... and not get munched by some inhabitant, stung by a coral to death, or blown into the sump [or deep dark rocks].

Let us know what happens Barry ... they're great pics and I love to hear about this stuff!