Broadcast spawning events?

[scott84]

Has anyone been able to reproduce the parameters required for a broadcast spawn? Or any sexual reproduction? If so with what corals and what parameters? Was there any recruitment? Reason I ask is a lfs clerk told me today that home aquariums are going to be on the forefront of reef conservation and re-population in the future. This got me thinking of genetic diversity issues which seem overwhelming at the moment.

I tried searching rc for this, but since I'm not a premium member I hit a road block.

 

[greenbean36191]

I'm not sure about great success within the hobby, but there are several projects currently trying to grow out sexual recruits in the lab. SECORE is the big one.

As for home aquaria being on the forefront of conservation and repopulation, it's not going to happen. Our corals are and always will be dead ends. Besides the lack of genetic diversity within the hobby, the fact that we can't trace the origins of our animals and we mix animals from all different regions makes the risk of introducing invasive species too great for them to ever be used for re-population. Besides, simply growing corals and putting them back on the reefs doesn't work if you don't fix the underlying problems that killed the original reefs off anyway. Within the next 50 years we could realistically reach a point where there's almost no hope for conserving or restoring reefs if we don't start to address the underlying causes.

 

[Frankenpora]

Here...

Here...

:rollface:
Not that I think this is the way we will repopulate the reefs or anything, but check this out..captive spawning is achievable:
http://www.shallowreef.com/

Also lets not forget that all live reefs are built on dead ones...
just a thought.:mixed:

 

[Frankenpora]

 

[greenbean36191]

Spawning is the easy part. It happens occasionally for lots of reefers. Getting the larvae to settle and grow is a bit harder. I know several dozen who have had corals spawn in captivity, but I don't think I know of a single person who has raised sexually produced planula from their tank. Some people are working on it, but the irregularity and unpredictability of the spawning in captivity makes it hard to capture the gametes.

And not all reefs are built on top of dead reefs. Some are, but those reefs were mostly killed by sea level change, so it's really more like parts of the reef died and other parts moved into shallower water and then back deeper again. These aren't reefs that stopped growing because the water chemistry changed or they were crowded out by algae, which is what's happening now.

 

[drawman]

Like greenbean said, the difficult part is introduction of an invasive species. The only way this would be feasible is if you setup a tank from a very specific area with life only from that area in the hopes of saving that specific reef. Furthermore, you would have to prove that everything in your tank is from that specific area. I believe this is what zoos have to do for elkhorn coral conservation. Think of all the single celled organisms you would risk introducing back in the wild. There are just too many cases of organisms wreaking havoc when introduced into new environments. It would be great if we could systematically setup tanks in this manner though.