Is this coral spawning ?

Sparkss

Active member
I posted this over in the general reef forum, but then thought that I might better find the answers I am looking for here. Does anyone have any ideas about this ? :

We were watching the tank this evening right before going to bed and right after it was fed with DIY "coral chow". We noticed that one of our blue tipped (w/ green polyps) acros seemed to have a pinkish tint to it's base, when a flashlight was shined onto it. A couple of minutes later we noticed some smallish red sheres floating in the water column and after a while alot floating on the top water surface. They were coming out of the polyps of the acro, literally. We watched as they were pushed from the polyps as eggs from a chicken, and the polyps were producing more than one sphere each. The polyps appeared to be unharmed by this action (I checked since I was worried about a parasite or something). We fished a few out and looked at them under a magnifying glass. There were very sticky and appeared to move to form themselves into the sphere shape. Each sphere was comprised of many smaller spheres clumped together to form the larger sphere shape (kind of reminded me of a volleyball the way you could make out the individual shapes from the grooves where they were joined together)


Coral-spawn-009.jpg


Here is the coral colony with the pinkish/orangish objects visible in various stages of emerging from the polyps.


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And here is a picture of them floating on top of the water,kind of hard to make out due to the reflection (I also turned the pumps off to take this shot).


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Does anyone have any idea what this event is ?
 
Thanks for the fast replies.... we "captured" a couple of the "seeds" out before the other corals and the skimmer got to them... should have grabbed more and made "gifts" of them to our friends.. or sold them to those that wanted a truly pest free coral tank.. can't get much more "pure" than to start from a seed :)
 
Thanks for all of the kind words... we do our best to "spoil" our tank inhabitants, especially with the home made foods :), not sure how much of a role that played, or if it was just luck that it spawned in our tank, but either way we were thrilled to have witnessed it :)

Realistically though I doubt any will survive, between predation and filtration (already saw a gorgonian making a feast out of a couple of the seeds last night.. such is life on a reef I suppose :)).

I did see a couple of the "seeds" in the sump caught up in the chaeto and the ones we fished out last night have separated into their individual globes (that made up the overall spherical shape). So aparently the seeds were really clumps of smaller seeds, meant to float to a distant location then separate and seed multiple spots in that location, multiple this times so many locations (so many spheres witnessed last night being released), and it is easy to see how coral reefs can spread :)
 
I will try, but I am not sure where to even try to get them to "take root".. as with most of our reef tanks, real estate is hard to come by....But we do plan to try, if for no other reason than to be able to point to a coral colony in our tank and say "yea, we grew that one from a seed" :)
 
please correct em if I am remembering wrong, but is not the "seed" as you call it- just the egg, and it needs to be fertilized? I am willing to bet, unless you are lucky enough to have both male and female specimens of the same coral that you have the equivalent of eggs you would buy at the grocery store.. a lot of protein, but no chance of coming to life.

IF you did get fertilization, i would recommend throwing them in a tank with only small amounts large air bubbles for water movement [similar to clownfish fry handling minus the rotifers] , and some crushed coral or clam shell base- let them settle, and take root so to say... then superglue the rubble where you want it to grow once it has attached
 
i am searchign now- but i know that corals do release both sperm and eggs- thus the importance of all corals spawning on the same night in the ocean- for fertilization to occur... now, if it is polyp by polyp or coral vs. coral. it will be different...

you would have seen big shots of sperm coming off the head, if there was male action happening...





hmm foudn this.."Sexual reproduction takes place as mass spawning, where polyps release millions of eggs and sperm. Polyps are either male or female or both male and female. After the eggs and sperm are released, they float to the surface. The fertilised eggs that escape predation by other animals hatch into larvae and drift with the plankton. The tiny percent that survive and settle on the reef then begin new coral colonies. "
http://www.barrierreefaustralia.com/the-great-barrier-reef/coralfacts.htm




or this

The nature of sexual reproduction among corals varies by species. About three-quarters of all stony corals form hermaphroditic colonies. These colonies have the ability to produce both male and female gametes. The remainder form gonochoristic colonies which can produce either male or female gametes, but not both. The sexuality of coralsââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âwhether hermaphroditic or gonochoristicââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âtends to be consistent within species and genera, although there are exceptions (Veron, 2000).

http://www.coris.noaa.gov/about/biology/biology.html
 
from waikiki aquarium's research team- i would trust this source

the cas of the Montipora ... we could not get them to settle out ... I don't think anyone has ... The Acropora .. only one colony spawned and they do not self-fertilize ... and the Sandalolitha is gonichoristic ... so you need both a male and female colony to spawn and the last few years only the female has ... though it did a very strange thing a few years ago ... it released SPERM one year ... since then it has released only eggs again ... its not supposed to be able to change sexes like that!
coral need a cue in order to settle out ... for most Acropora it appears to be coralline algae
... for some other genera it is bacterial growth on the substratum ... for others we don't know what it is.



http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/jc_delbeek_102701.html
 
very interesting, thank you for the additional information and links... my one concern was if the coral, as with plants, would "go to seed" after it tried to spawn.. but it appears to be doing fine so far :)
 
Cool stuff man, thats some 'next level' stuff there. If that ever happens in my tank I'll know I've arrived.
Any info on lighting cycle, and light time, or moon light input you could give?
 
Also interesting....is that it happens in one night of the year in the oceans, AND in our tanks ?

Mine on the same night....



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My skimmer didnt like that stuff....lol
Marc.
 
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