Sun coral larvae settlement

[Moort82]

I got a sun coral through the post today and it had the annoyed yellow strands you see when they are stressed. You can also see it has produced some planulae due to the stress in a last attempt to spread it's genetics.
now I'm unsure but I think they are brooder so these should be fully viable but don't want to just chuck them in the tank for them to dissappear. Anyone got any ideas on how to treat them? I only have 5-6 and have them in a shallow dish. Might try placing them on some substrate and see if they attach. Sure I have seen acro larvae settle in tanks without flow.

 

[Moort82]

anyone tried this?

 

[Tennyson]

My sun coral also releases planulae when stressed. I once had my sun coral in a 5 gallon bucket for two days (between moving tanks), and it released over a dozen planulae.

I put the planulae into a container filled with live rock rubble (at least 3" deep of rubble so they have a good chance of attaching to rock rather then settling to the bottom). The sun coral larvae are really buoyant and they can float around the container for hours. I leave them overnight, they dissapear into the rubble for me to find later.

Does anybody else have success with other methods? Any idea if moderate flow would be better than no flow for rock attachment?

 

[Moort82]

Your solution is basically what I decided to try. Some were still floating a couple of days after so I just popped them in the tank to take their chances. Hard to spot anything on the rubble I used so I orientated it best I could in an area of good flow and will see if anything develops.

Still struggling with the parent coral, who was very starved when I received it. Got the small new heads to open up with some, albeit minor, tentacle extension but the large heads are barely showing even their mouths so it's a long way to go. I'm using a floating bowl with heavy mixed foods and laying pieces of food on each head. Think I might need to do this for several weeks to get it going.

 

[SantaMonica]

Really neat how the planulae are buoyant to be carried far away, and then can sink to settle down.

I've seen they like to attach to the leeward side of surfaces, where they can catch the most food particles that hit them. So although it might seem best to reduce flow and allow them to settle, it might be better to keep flow strong so they go where the strong flow goes.

 

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

I'm just a beginner, and of course not a sun coral expert. But I've been reading about sun corals.

They are generally found on the side of walls or even on the top of cave/swimthroughs (ie upside down) in the wild.

In this case, eggs being able to float makes sense – the sun corals live in some sort of high flow area, and then when they release the eggs they're taken away and they float up (If they floated down there just get stuck in the substrate) so they just wait for the current to carry them to some sort of rocky area where they can attach to. in a cave for enough swing through or some such.

So, it seems to me that if they don't sink in a few days, maybe attaching them directly to a piece of live rock would be best. It would seem that you can even just put the live rock on top of the eggs.
Would also seem that high flow is best for them, especially after they attach.


Anyone else have experience with this? I'm curious

 

[rsepiphyte]

Very interesting topic, does anyone have any pictures of the planulae that they can post?

 

[Moort82]

I didn't take a picture but if you can imagine a tiny orange ball your there.