rock flower nem breeding

[Ron Reefman]

I know rock flowers propagate sexually. The male spawns and the female releases tiny babies some time later, like 2 months (?).

I have 2 rock flowers that are next to each other at one end of the DT. They are both 4" or 5" in diameter. One is the rainbow of blue, red, yellow and green (from the center out). I've had them for a couple of years now. Yesterday we discovered 5 VERY TINY babies on the rocks next to them. Three look orange and two look light green. But they are only about 1/32" in diameter! I'm a father! OK... maybe I should say I have step children. LOL!

I was in the process of turning my 50g cube from a display refugium into a rock flower, RBTA and maxi-mini garden.

Does anybody have any real data on getting rock flowers to propagate? Any links to articles? I've seen the one in The Reef Hobbyist from some time back. But that was a hobbyist who was just offering up his best beliefs and assumptions, not really very scientific.

However, lacking any good scientific data, does anybody have any good theories or actual experience to offer?

Mine just happened. I wasn't trying to get them to reproduce. But now that I've seen that I can happen, I'd like to encourage it!

 

[WatDatThing]

Congrats....please continue to update this thread with interesting facts and tidbits. I hope some will survive and thrive.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

[garygb]

I don't have any scientific articles to offer. However, my number of flower anemones have increased three fold over the past 10 years or so that I've been keeping them. I started off with 6 or 7 flower anemones and now I have at least 30, many only an inch or two in diameter, some the size of the original adults. One thing I've noticed is that they seem to spawn when the weather is warm and the water temp goes up slightly higher than the norm. I keep my tank around 78, but in the summer it will go up to 80 on occasion. They spawn right after the lights go out. The males will make the water cloudy. From my understanding the female keeps the eggs internal and fertilization occurs internally. I have noticed the babies occur in proximity to the adults, so my guess is the larvae do not travel far after they are released from the female.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Do you think I'd get a better response in the Reef discussion forum?