Witnessed nature yesterday..

[anonome]

Yesterday when I was looking at my tank...find myself doing that quite often....I witnessed an awesome spawning act. My bristle worms came out of their rocks, raised their tails and shot out a milky substance...I'm assuming this was sperm, possible eggs. I'm not sure if it is a good of a thing, I didn't have a whole lot of worms, but now I'm pretty sure I will. I am hoping that the skimmer, filters get most of it. I can say that my filter feeders..feather dusters and some corals sure had their tentacles out to retrieve what they could. The water became extremly milky. Didn't seem to have any adverse effect on the fish or the corals for that matter. I will be doing some research to find out what to expect and when. Just thought I would share. Has anyone else had this happen?

 

[anonome]

Well, I did some research and found out that even though I may not want all of these new babies...I must be doing something right. They only spawn in optimum water conditions. Yeah!!

I also found out that the spawning that I saw was actually males and females releasing sperm and eggs into the water column in which to be fertilized. They then become free swimming larvae to be enjoyed by the fish and corals. So hopefully, I won't be overrun by bristleworms! Anyone want some? Free to good home.

 

[nereef]

very interesting!

 

[laddy]

That is very interesting. In my tanks I think the population of bristle worms increases and decreases at times......haven't figured out if they fluctuate with the current parimeters of the water?

 

[fishgeek01]

i also witnessed a similar event yesterday, but am not sure what it was from, i have many many of the little 1mm snails in my reef tank, and it seems like the majority of them hide under this one rock during the day, well last night shortly after the lights went out the same thing happened in my tank that happened in yours, there was a puff, thena conitnous cloud that milkked up my water, and it came from that rock, the cloud was to big to have been made by a single animal, no matter what it was, i know i have nothing in my tank that would do that, it disippated into my water column and was shortly taken out by my filtration, about an hour and a half later then it was gone.

 

[ahpchagi]

I was removing some bad live rock, (chunks of phosphate) and a large b-worm dropped to a porous rock on the bottom. I tried to grab it with long tweezers, giving it a good clamping and it crawled into the pores of the rock. 10 seconds later it extended about an inch out of the rock and squirt that milkey stuff, actually sticking to the glass for a short time. It clouded the tank for about 20 mins. I thought they might ink like cephs. when stressed. I don't know. Sure hope it wasn't a spawning thing. These worms(three over 6 ins.) were clam killers.

 

[alyssia]

Originally Posted by Anonome
Yesterday when I was looking at my tank...find myself doing that quite often....I witnessed an awesome spawning act. My bristle worms came out of their rocks, raised their tails and shot out a milky substance...I'm assuming this was sperm, possible eggs. I'm not sure if it is a good of a thing, I didn't have a whole lot of worms, but now I'm pretty sure I will. I am hoping that the skimmer, filters get most of it. I can say that my filter feeders..feather dusters and some corals sure had their tentacles out to retrieve what they could. The water became extremly milky. Didn't seem to have any adverse effect on the fish or the corals for that matter. I will be doing some research to find out what to expect and when. Just thought I would share. Has anyone else had this happen?

That's pretty cool.