Succesful Spawning and reaing of Euphyllia Glabrescens

[dvmsn]

I notice these little guys on my rock two to three months ago. I initially thought that these guys were majano anemone's. I even tried to eliminate them via the kalk method. Last week I was looking at them closely again because I was planing to zap them again. That is when I noticed that one had slightly receded and I noticed several septa on its side. Upon closer inspection of other colonies, I noticed that I could see the corallite and septa located in the tissue of several other individuals. The mother colony has about a 14 inch diameter when fully expanded. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any "spawning event" and can't really pin down the exact time that I noticed them. The photos I enclosed show clearly the corallite and septa in some of the babies. There are 10-15 individuals located throughout my tank. If the planula have any settlement preferences, they are not apparent to me.

I found several reports of Euphyllia corals spawning but none of planula surviving to maturity. If you know of any reports, regardless of the species, I would love to know about them.

I posted photos at this thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=300386
Sorry the pictures aren't very clear, but the colonies are too small for my camera to take any better photos. The coralites are fairly clear on several of the photos.

 

[EricHugo]

Are you sure these are torch corals and not Heliofungia? The reason I ask is because even in the torch spawned, these are gonochoric corals, and only produce eggs or sperm. In any case, do you have any recent photos?

 

[dvmsn]

Those photos are from 1/14/2004. I'm sorry they are so bad. I meant to put spawning in quotations marks. I am sure they are not Heliofungia. I have never had any Heliofungia and the rock is all years old or from dry base rock. I have had a number of people say they think it could be from polyp bailout. I do notice that tentacles periodically breack off and float around the tank. People are saying that if the environment is favorable, they settle out and form a new colony. I could find anything about this behavior other than on message boards. I don't have access to a scientific library so it is almost imposible for me to find out the answers to thesekinds of questions. Have you heard of this behavior in this family of corals.

 

[dvmsn]

I was able to photoraph an actual spawning last night. I have attached several photographs. You will notice what looks like eggsacks and sperm streams, although I could be wrong. I didn't think to collect any and would know what to do even if I did.

 

[dvmsn]

Another pic

 

[dvmsn]

Last one

 

[EricHugo]

Eggs are often accompanied by quite a bit of mucus. Sperm tends to come out like white or opaquish-clear smoke in the water. Hard to tell by the photos, and this is a very interesting observation.

How often is this happening for you?

 

[dvmsn]

This is the first time that I noticed the mother colony spawning. There are about 15-25 little colonies throughout the tank. They didn't all appear at the same time and seem to be in different stages of development. I noticed the egg masses when I returned home from work one evening. The water didn't appear to be cloudy. I have had other things expel sperm into the water before and this event was not consistent with those events.

 

[EricHugo]

This is very intriguing. Can you periodically email me photos of the juveniles as they develop? No way this couldbe from buds on the underside of the parent colony?