Green Star Polyps spawning?

[belgin]

So... If my wife calls me at work and says tiny orange shapes are exiting the polyps all around our mat of GSPs, should I be happy or terrified?

The tank in question is well established and has almost no 'real estate' available for an encrusting coral. Are they likely to survive and overwhelm my zoanthids and LPS corals? I know that Pachyclavularia violacea shows up in lists as a brooding-type coral, so I'm afraid the shapes my wife is seeing may not be eggs, but planulae. Any way people know to tell?

 

[belgin]

OK. I got home and looked at them. They are eggs attached to the polyps via almost translucent strands of mucus.

Has anybody had this happen? Does there have to be a second colony to fertilize them? Did they spread all over?

 

[ReefBug]

Yes, I had this happen. Tiny little red balls (eggs) all over the polyps. Then after 36 hrs or so they just disappeared. GSP do not spawn, as far I know. I figured something else in my tank was using the GSP to spawn IN.

Nothing ever happened though, no "explosion" of any new critters anywhere. I never did figure out what the heck this was.

I sure would be interested in finding out, if anyone knows.

 

[gillianandjoe]

I have two balls of red string in my 55, looks like eggs from somewhere? Here's hoping you find out what we've got!

Any pics?

 

[belgin]

I don't have a macro-capable digital camera. But they looked just like the coral eggs in Eric Borneman's article on Reefkeeping Mag here:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-06/eb/index.php

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-06/eb/images/image016c.jpg

According to Eric, and the scientific literature, it seems that Green Star Polyps (or at least the Pachyclavularia violacea variety) are brooding corals. They make egg and sperm packets that stay next to the coral until they hatch and then the larvae / planulae swim away.

I'm hoping the pumps and skimmer will make the environment too difficult for the GSPs to spread this way. Not that I don't like corals breeding, but I don't really want GSPs spreading all over.