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Sun Coral spawning


debdp

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I purchased (without knowledge of the coral's habit/feeding requirements) a sun coral back in January, 2007. I do feed twice weekly (minimum, but more if I have time) a meaty preparation of ground together snapper, oyster meat, mysis shrmp and regular shrimp) which I made small cubes of. They're doing well... in fact it's gotten to where they have been spawning almost every week. I now have a small tonga branch with about 20 baby sun corals on it. There are 7 new babies on the main sun coral's rock... not to mention the numerous babies direclty above the main sun coral under a rock ledge. Is this consistent almost weekly spawning harmful? I mean doesn't it take a lot of energy to spawn? My tank is 10 gallons with a 6 gallon refugium. The other inhabitants are a somewhat quickly spreading green star polyp, one beige xenia (now split into 3) and bluish xenia (now split into 5), quickly growing red macroalgae and a feather duster which has now split (a hitchhiker with the green star polyp mat). And one cleaner shrimp, L. amboinensis. Parameters are good but I have a big problem maintaining a steady temp. I purchased a digital thermometer and the temp fluctuates from 76.8 at night to 79.0 mid afternoon ... tank is in home office with two computers, monitors and other equipment so temp tends to rise in office even with a portable AC to help maintain the temp. I use a fan to help keep it down. Could the fluctuation in temp cause them to be spawning? Also, the sun corals are moved into separate containers that remain in the tank but are suction cupped to the inside of the tank wall for feeding... keeps from having too much food in the tank. And they stay in the containers until they're finished eating. Each polyp is handfed, there are about 45 on the main rock. It could be anywhere from one hour to 3 hours before they're placed back in the tank.

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RayWhisperer

If your getting all these new polyps, why worry? I really don't know how much stress is created by spawning. I rather doubt it's a yearly event, as in most reef corals. Simply due to the fact, they are non photosynthetic.

 

If your params stay good, just keep it up.

 

As for temp, just bump your heater up to 79.... Problem solved.

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sephroth_r1

actually, i watched the deep see imax thing, and once a year, on a specific day in the ocean, a multitude of corals release spores all at the same time. this event happens throughout the ocean, i dont know however, if it is the same in the aquarium.

 

i think its like august or may or something it happens

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It actually doesn't sound like a spawning to me. Assuming that the "babies" are actually sun corals (and not live rock hitch-hikers that look like sun coral sometimes)... I would guess it to be polyp extrusion rather than spawning.

 

Spawning of corals in aquariums isn't so uncommon, but actually having a coral spawn and then have settling larvae (without any efforts on your part)... I think that would be quite unusual for sun coral.

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moe sizlack

for about a month straight, my sun coral was making babies like it was going out of style. now, nothing. :huh:

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Thanks for all the help and suggestions. In the first picture is a part of the main colony that has four small babies in front, currenlty at 11 weeks old. The tonga branch has several as you can see and direclty under it are another 10 or so. They are not hitchikers as I've had that Tonga branch since November of last year with nothing on it. When I found the branch with the babies I was rearranging the tank and the Tonga branch was holding up a larger rock with part of it facing the back by the filter intake. They seemingly settle where there is a good current. The babies under the ledge are still too small and are more recessed in the crevices of the rock so can't get good pics. The last picture is showing a small amount of yellow spawn on one of the polyps, and the middle picture is of the main colony without the babies.

 

post-24786-1178075718_thumb.jpg post-24786-1178076712_thumb.jpg post-24786-1178076731_thumb.jpg

 

The main colony was on a piece of shell, nearly impossible to pick up and/or place without having most of them in the sand so I used a mix of superglue & marine epoxy to mount the shell on the rock. I thought it quite unusual to have corals spawning in my aquarium but they are.

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do a thread search in nr, there was a guy this happened too up in canada, they kept spawning and spreading all around the tank, he took lots of photos, definitely suncoral spawn, its their primary way to reproduce, the only pain in the butt I can think of is all those extra mouths to feed!

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Yes, I have heard of sun coral doing this, too. In Vol. I of "The Reef Aquarium," Delbeek & Sprung have some pics of baby Tubastrea growing from planulae (p. 464). The text reads as follows:

 

"Tubastrea aurea has produced planulae larvae a number of times in various public and private aquaria, in both North America and Europe...In most cases the planulae settled within a few days and developed into small colonies. What triggered the release of planulae is not known. There is evidence that planulae can be produced asexually in this coral..." (p. 465)

 

How cool! Sounds like everything is doing very well in your tank, and it must be fascinating to observe.

 

--Diane

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Clayton07

yea you are pretty lucky. That would be so cool. Not to mention you can sell all those little frags when they grow up. Hope you like sun polyps!!

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I do love my sun corals... but they're definitley not for the lazy. They DO require a lot of attention. Although I feed 2-3 times a week when I'm busy, I feed more often when I can and they respond soo much better to more frequent feedings. Selling... a fleeting thought. I've been at the LFS and people are clueless as to how much work is involved in their care. Also seen some photos on the web where people bought them and shown progressive pictures and the sun corals died due to lack of feeding/care. So to have babies and raise them and watch them grow and develop into colonies then sell to the unknown... nah, I'll just keep them. My big concern is I have fast growing/spreading softies and I got to keep them off my sun coral rock. Most babies have settled underneath the ledge so I'm hoping with very little light the green star polyps on top of the ledge, the xenia and clove won't go and spread under there. But the sun coral babies on top, even though I'm feeding them, I feel they'll be smothered/overtaken at some point. Feeding is getting a bit crazy. I remove the tonga branch with babies to a container and feed under a magnifying light (light also keeps water warm) and the larger one to a container in the tank which is suction cupped to the side of tank. That one I have to rotate and tilt to feed as the colony is like a 3/4 round ball. They just started opening their tentacles and that has made feeding much easier as the food sticks... before I had to put the food on each of their mouths.

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debdp,

 

Sounds to me like you're really taking good care of these guys. If you find they respond well to your feeding regimen, why not?

 

Just checked my handy Delbeek & Sprung again--here's what they have to say about it:

 

"Tubastrea are common imports from Indonesia and the Caribbean. They are popular because of their bright colour, but they are not especially long lived in most aquaria because of their need for large quantities of food...For this reason we do not recommend them for the beginning hobbyist unless he/she is willing to give this coral the special attention it needs: daily feeding of shrimp tissue, mussel tissue, brine shrimp, worms, or other foods offered to the open polyps by means of a long pipette. Daily additions of live brine shrimp to the aquarium may train this coral to open in the light. When cared for, this coral can be hardy and long lived." (pp 462-465)

 

debdp, you must have read this! At any rate, this coral is lucky you "adopted" it!

 

--Diane

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Having been bit by the sun coral bug I purchased black sun corals from Drs. Foster & Smith. Nervous because I've never ordered online before. And I was really surprised to see that I ended up with a mix. The yellow ones I purchased from the LFS and they were not as healthy. Two polyps have died since bringing them home but the rest are starting to extend more. There's a picture of the yellow ones with the first sun polyps I bought in February.

 

post-24786-1180844089_thumb.jpg post-24786-1180844144_thumb.jpg

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Those are beautiful!

 

You're saying you ordered only black from Drs. F & S, and they sent you black & orange? If so, that's pretty cool.

 

IME they have great merchandise, shipping, & customer service. A little pricey, but worth it.

 

--Diane

 

PS: I think it's really cool to specialize like this!

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  • 2 months later...

Hello, I would just like to say that I have been keeping sun corals for sometime now and regular spawning is pretty common once the coral is out of the danger zone. For tubastrea species this could take upwards of one year. I do not believe that you can over feed these corals as in the wild they feed 24 hours a day where they are found in caves... remember that suncorals do not containe zooanthalle so they do not like much light... but do like heavy current. When my sun corals spawn usually only 2-6 polyp fry will live... baby polyps are a fish and invert favorite food. Once established on a piece of substrate I always remove the coral from the tank and place into a specimen container to observe feeding.. then i place coral into my refugium for two weeks with no lights... then I either place back into my tank or sell... this method has proven very successful. Hope this helps! I'm new to this forum so please do not hesitate to drop me a line! :) Oh btw, lps and soft coral spawning is very stressful and many times the parent coral will die!

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Hello, I would just like to say that I have been keeping sun corals for sometime now and regular spawning is pretty common once the coral is out of the danger zone. For tubastrea species this could take upwards of one year. I do not believe that you can over feed these corals as in the wild they feed 24 hours a day where they are found in caves... remember that suncorals do not containe zooanthalle so they do not like much light... but do like heavy current. When my sun corals spawn usually only 2-6 polyp fry will live... baby polyps are a fish and invert favorite food. Once established on a piece of substrate I always remove the coral from the tank and place into a specimen container to observe feeding.. then i place coral into my refugium for two weeks with no lights... then I either place back into my tank or sell... this method has proven very successful. Hope this helps! I'm new to this forum so please do not hesitate to drop me a line! :) Oh btw, lps and soft coral spawning is very stressful and many times the parent coral will die!

 

Hey welcome to N-R, very good description. What and how do you feed the polyp fry?

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Hey welcome to N-R, very good description. What and how do you feed the polyp fry?

 

Thank you very much! I have been looking at N-R forums for sometime now as a guest but have not had time to register and contribute to many forums. Anyways, by the time that polyp fry are actually visable they are big enough to eat baby brine shrimp. I feed my fry baby brine soaked in Selcon. This has worked very well for me!

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  • 3 weeks later...

When your sun coral spawned did it spit out little orange (kinda like really really tiny acorn shaped) eggs? I got a sun coral a week ago and still havent gotten it to open up or eat but it has been releasing tons of these eggs(?) into the water. Today it released another 10 while I was watching it...

 

Thanks

 

Jon

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  • 3 weeks later...
I do feed twice weekly (minimum, but more if I have time) a meaty preparation of ground together snapper, oyster meat, mysis shrmp and regular shrimp) which I made small cubes of.

 

Hay i have a question about meaty preparation does that mean you get that from a lsf or a people store like the fish market. thanks

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