Spawning??????

[doorlady]

This afternoon I whatched the craziest thing happen in our aquarium, I captured it on video but can't figure out how to get it on the laptop.

This dendro starting expelling a substance from the mouth of the largest head and I taped it for more than 3 minutes and stoped to call Bill because I freaked out thinking something had gone wrong with the tank. Was this spawning, has anyone else seen one of these corals do this? If this was spawning do you think we will see new growth somewhere in the tank

 

[wpecoul]

I would guess spawning or eliminating. Was it continuous or in short bursts? Small packets/groups or larger strings/clumps?

 

[NicoleC]

What color and consistency? Did you capture any for a look under a microscope?

 

[LovenBama]

I saw the video this morning at work and I tell you it was awesome looking....kinda freaky too.....she's gonna try to load the video tonight but if she can't she's gonna bring me her memory card and I'll do it for her tomorrow night. You all have got to see it, I've never seen it happen before and was kinda werry when she told me about it, thinking maybe see was seeing some kind of snail maybe behind the dendro spawning and just thought it was the dendro...but she was right about where it was coming from....the head of the dendro was swollen like it was about to burst and then you see the burst of white coming from it's mouth over and over again...wicked I tell ya, just plain wicked looking

 

[LovenBama]

Hey Big Girl!! I just found a vid on you tube that's crazy...this one person has a three head dendro that looks to be the same color as yours with the light cream colored base and all...and all three of those heads are releasing at the same time...I'm gonna try to go back and get the name of it so you can go watch the clip...cool lookin

 

[doorlady]

here is the video, whatch it all the way thru, it gets really wicked at the end.

 

[LovenBama]

congrats on getting it loaded..lol...just took a lil effort is all ....I did a lil research and to answer your "?" as to wether or not you'll have baby dendro all over the tank....well gotta do somemore reseach...found a site that you need to read and gives you links to the differnent corals and tells you if it's possible or not, was alot of info but can't remember right off the top of my head as to the different types of repoduction that can take place depending on the type coral....LOL...see I'm even confussing myself right now, but anyhow, I'll show you the link at work in the morning so you can do some more research yourself

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Very nice. According to a number of articles that I read, various Tubastrea are broad cast spawners. They are hermaphroditic and can produce planulae both sexually and asexually. The smoke like thing that your dendrophyllia is expelling is planulae. It seems to happen a lot in aquarium, but raising planulae seems to be quite a challenge. However, I remember an article in Coral magazine that featured a lady and her tubastrea tank. Her tank was full of baby sun corals. They were literally all over the place .

 

[doorlady]

tomoko, I thought it was spawning, it only had 2 heads and a tiny baby head when we bought it, it now has 14 heads and 2 news growths that we will be heads in about a week. hope that we that we will see new colonys start to develope soon after this. will keep you posted.

 

[NicoleC]

Doorlady, your colony was reproducing asexually to grow extra heads. Now it is trying to reproduce sexually to produce new colonies. That's a great video capturing the event, and congratulations on your success with this coral.

Tubastrae sun corals also reproduce by sending filaments through rocks to crop up elsewhere. I don't know if dendros (which live in the sand in at least one of their natural habitats) do the same. I had sun corals reproduce in a low-light tank, and I believe they did so with filaments, not by sexual spawning. But I remember seeing the tank in Coral Magazine, and IIRC, the babies initially started growing on glass, which would have to be by sexual reproduction.

 

[doorlady]

Doorlady, your colony was reproducing asexually to grow extra heads. Now it is trying to reproduce sexually to produce new colonies. That's a great video capturing the event, and congratulations on your success with this coral.

Tubastrae sun corals also reproduce by sending filaments through rocks to crop up elsewhere. I don't know if dendros (which live in the sand in at least one of their natural habitats) do the same. I had sun corals reproduce in a low-light tank, and I believe they did so with filaments, not by sexual spawning. But I remember seeing the tank in Coral Magazine, and IIRC, the babies initially started growing on glass, which would have to be by sexual reproduction.

It will be so cool if babies show up somewhere else in the tank. We were going to do a water change the day that this happened but decided not to just in case it was spawning, do you think we are safe to do one now(it has been 2 days) or should we wait.

 

[NicoleC]

Your guess is as good as mine. But if you are already running pumps, skimmer, etc. and have filter feeders, a water change isn't going to be that much more of a threat. And unless you have some particularly sweet laminar circulating flow in your tank, I suspect most if not all of the larvae (if any) would have settled by now.

 

[scapes]

that was pretty cool susan

 

[doorlady]

This thing was spawning again yesterday. I think I found a couple of babies on the side of a rock, need someone to come look and confirm(hint gflat) I tried to get pictures but can't get my camera to focus when I zoom in on them.

Here is a video from yesterday of the spawning.

 

[gflat65]

I'd be glad to come by. I can bring the camera, too. I'm fragging for the swap, then doing some honeydo's (and some side fragging-6 hours yesterday on my stuff, probably another 5 today on my stuff-I'm glad I only do this once or twice a year on a big scale). I think by the end of the weekend, I should be able to squeeze another small project in. Fascia boards and gutters shouldn't be too bad...

 

[doorlady]

hey Gary,
I would love for you to come by and look at these things to see if I have baby dendros, and photo some things and maybe even do a small frag job
Just give us a call and we will make a plan, maybe I can feed you and Jennifer.