Has anyone had their corals go sexual

rsd

rsd

Member
So I have been running saltwater for 6-8years (lost track). I thought I had seen just about everything out of the corals/inverts/fish I take care of... till this morning.
History: 200 gal. 12x 65watt PC's. 1/2 actinic. 1/2 10k. 40 galon fuge. PH 8.1 (average). NO/NH: 0, AM:0, Calcium: 450, temp: 79-81 deg f. Too many corals to mention. 1 Scribbled rabbit, 2 clown gobies, 1 maroon clown, 2 firefish, 1 barnacle blenny, 1 bicolor blenny, 1 sandsifting gobie. Way too many crabs/snails,etc.
Two weeks ago my balast failed in the fuge. Didn't know it for 2 days. Most of my calerpa went away. I had a diatom bloom and a burst of hair algea in the tank. Phosphate readings became readable. No Problem... I know the problem and fixed it.
Last week my BTA split (yeah, clown is happy). My frogspawn extended, and my xenias begain to branch again.
This morning I awoke to my 2 largest colonies of matting star polyps being covered and giving off HUGE amounts of sperm and egg. I hadn't seen this before in captivity and was wondering if you guys had seen this before?
I'll post pics when my batteries recharge on the camera. I had just enough juice in there to snap about 15 photo's.
Thanks
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
Very cool! As a matter of fact, I did have my massive colony of GSP spawn a couple years ago...it clouded the whole tank for over an hour!
I have since removed all GSP from my tank,but this morning I witnessed my dendrophyllia coral doing the same.Pretty neat..it looks like smoke.
 
rsd

rsd

Member
sorry for the delay... I had to acutally get some work done.
Here are 4 photo's.
I was rushing as my camera kept shutting off... so the focus and all the settings aren't the greatest... but you get the idea. These are 2 of the largest colonies I have... the other 4 colonies seemed to do nothing.
It's 7pm now... and they all look quite "spent".



 
yosemite sam

yosemite sam

Active Member
That's amazing!!! It'll be interesting to see if any of the eggs develop. Are the two colonies frags of the same coral, or from different ones?
 
rsd

rsd

Member
Thanks for the comments on the pics. I use a Canon Digital Rebel.
Most of these shots were taken on teh lowest res. setting and with the basic lense that comes with it. I love this camera and travel all over the states and beyond with it.
To answer a few questions:
Yosemite Sam: they are from the same original colony. This colony was started 4 years ago in my 85 gallon. When I moved up to the 200 (at the same time as buying a new house) I split up the base rock to use as base rock for the new stuff. Instead of 1 big wall I have 3 towers of rock/coral I am building off of.
In the old tank the 3-5 colonies of GSP all were touching... now (11 months in the new set up) they are split up all over. The one near the zoo's is the original parent colony.
Same thing with my blue ridge... I have one mamoth parent colony and on 3 different rocks "frags" (some of which are big) of the original... all seem to feed, shed their mucus layer, and grow at the same time and rate. Really interesting.
 
pasafire

pasafire

Member
Originally Posted by RSD
sorry for the delay... I had to acutally get some work done.
Here are 4 photo's.
I was rushing as my camera kept shutting off... so the focus and all the settings aren't the greatest... but you get the idea. These are 2 of the largest colonies I have... the other 4 colonies seemed to do nothing.
It's 7pm now... and they all look quite "spent".
Thats really awesome! I was watching a documentary the other night about how all the corals on a reef spawn the same night once a year so all the fish don't eat them all up because they are absolutely too many of them. It will be very interesting to see what happens you may soon have lots of babies to trade !!! Really awesome
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top