Coral Spawn

[justingraham]

@Thales I have read and watched a lot of your videos on coral spawning

do you believe that the moonlight is really needed beyond just having one turn on and off?

I have talked to some people who have had corals spawn in their tank and some of them do not even have a moonlight on the tank and the coral spawns in their tank corresponded with the full moon where they live.

 

[Thales]

@Thales I have read and watched a lot of your videos on coral spawning

do you believe that the moonlight is really needed beyond just having one turn on and off?

I have talked to some people who have had corals spawn in their tank and some of them do not even have a moonlight on the tank and the coral spawns in their tank corresponded with the full moon where they live.

We aren't sure what aspects are critical and which aren't - we are starting to figure it out. Lunar phases are likely very important to the synchronous spawning, and are likely to be important in triggering the coral to produces sperm and eggs, but what that actually means is a whole can of bees. Collecting data like you shared may end up being important, maybe I'll try to get a grant.
Do you know when the corals in those tanks that spawned were collected?

 

[Sabellafella]

@Thales I have read and watched a lot of your videos on coral spawning

do you believe that the moonlight is really needed beyond just having one turn on and off?

I have talked to some people who have had corals spawn in their tank and some of them do not even have a moonlight on the tank and the coral spawns in their tank corresponded with the full moon where they live.

I had no idea how the mechanics of coral spawning work, slacking with knowledge in that area

but I had 2 acropora spawn back in Febuary. We had a full moon that day, also had that lunar eclipse just a bit later. I don't run moonlights

 

[jda]

I have had some spawns and I have no moonlights. The room does get some indirect light from the outside both from the moon and sun. I have never really paid attention to where the moon was when the spawn happened... just worried more about the tank cleaning up the mess, which it did handle.

 

[Thales]

Do you guys know when the corals that spawned were collected before they spawned?

 

[jda]

One of mine was a OG Miyagi Tort. Had a wild brownish/green not so sexy millepora do it too.

 

[justingraham]

We aren't sure what aspects are critical and which aren't - we are starting to figure it out. Lunar phases are likely very important to the synchronous spawning, and are likely to be important in triggering the coral to produces sperm and eggs, but what that actually means is a whole can of bees. Collecting data like you shared may end up being important, maybe I'll try to get a grant.
Do you know when the corals in those tanks that spawned were collected?

No I did not ask that question
One was a tort tho and all the owners had the coral for three plus years and were full colonies

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I would think the size and health of the colony is the biggest factor in wether or not a coral will spawn. I have seen a few friends corals spawn with no moonlights.

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

This is very interesting. I think this should be an area of focus for coral farmers. With that in mind, does the size of the colony make it sexually mature? I know RFA's reach sexually maturity around 3".

How does lighting play a role? The corals that have spawned in the home aquarium, I am curious what lighting it was under (LED, T5, Metal Halide, Hybrid T4/LED).

What is being dosed? I am think thinking along the lines of phytoplankton, zooplankton, amino acids, etc.

 

[Thales]

Thanks for the details where you had them. The anecdote will help us form useful questions.

 

[Tamberav]

This is an old tank from years ago but walked into this hot mess!!

No idea which coral did it, it was just snowing eggs everywhere... maybe a gorg? chili coral? so softies spawn this way? I had a large nephthea in the back.


Tank was a 40 breeder with a reef breeders value fixture over it (so no moonlights) and a very large refugium full of macro. My super budget tank from college

 

[Abhishek]

@Thales - how many species of acropora have you guys attempted to breed ? Only Millepora ?

when you choose an acropora for breeding project , how do you determine which species are more viable for breeding ?

Most of the information about collection point is tough for average hobbyists like me since we are mostly into growing frags of aquaculture corals and often the vendors will have no clue other than a broad description of it being a tenuis collected in say Indonesia !

Even though we think something is tenuis or millepora , is it likely that it’s actually a completely different species ? We are just basing it based on morphological classification based on polyp extension , colony shape , branch thickness , radial and axial corallites , coenosteum , sometimes depth of collection .

My question is around how to successfully even identify some of the aquaculture species as we all know even if they spawn sometime in future , without the same species - those downs are not viable .

Also , I believe mass matters ! What’s the average size and weight of mother colonies that have successfully spawned in your lab ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[justingraham]

This is very interesting. I think this should be an area of focus for coral farmers. With that in mind, does the size of the colony make it sexually mature? I know RFA's reach sexually maturity around 3".

How does lighting play a role? The corals that have spawned in the home aquarium, I am curious what lighting it was under (LED, T5, Metal Halide, Hybrid T4/LED).

What is being dosed? I am think thinking along the lines of phytoplankton, zooplankton, amino acids, etc.

From the people I talked to the lights didn’t matter as all types were being used everyone had at least eight hours of lighting

Some dosed aminos some didn’t

Some had high flow some didn’t

I was trying to find similarities and the only Things that seemed similar was that the corals were colonies

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

From the people I talked to the lights didn’t matter as all types were being used everyone had at least eight hours of lighting

Some dosed aminos some didn’t

Some had high flow some didn’t

I was trying to find similarities and the only Things that seemed similar was that the corals were colonies

That is very interesting. Size does typically matter when it comes to animals though. Did you discover if there were any similarities in the size of the colonies?

 

[justingraham]

That is very interesting. Size does typically matter when it comes to animals though. Did you discover if there were any similarities in the size of the colonies?

Branches were 3/4 an inch or bigger

 

[User1]

@Thales - how many species of acropora have you guys attempted to breed ? Only Millepora ?

when you choose an acropora for breeding project , how do you determine which species are more viable for breeding ?

Most of the information about collection point is tough for average hobbyists like me since we are mostly into growing frags of aquaculture corals and often the vendors will have no clue other than a broad description of it being a tenuis collected in say Indonesia !

Even though we think something is tenuis or millepora , is it likely that it’s actually a completely different species ? We are just basing it based on morphological classification based on polyp extension , colony shape , branch thickness , radial and axial corallites , coenosteum , sometimes depth of collection .

My question is around how to successfully even identify some of the aquaculture species as we all know even if they spawn sometime in future , without the same species - those downs are not viable .

Also , I believe mass matters ! What’s the average size and weight of mother colonies that have successfully spawned in your lab ?

Regards,
Abhishek

I may be incorrect here but I thought one of his presentations at MACNA talked about the process. If you haven't check them out. There is also the behind the scene with Neptune and aquarium setup. Maybe between the three that I'm thinking will answer some of your questions.

I can't speak for sps type corals but my rose bubble tips have spawned a few times now and it was mid day. No idea what made this happen.

 

[Perry]

I had a merletti blasto spawn years ago and caught the tail end on video, let me see if I can attach. Not SPS but cool anyway

 

[Graffiti Spot]

This is very interesting. I think this should be an area of focus for coral farmers. With that in mind, does the size of the colony make it sexually mature? I know RFA's reach sexually maturity around 3".

How does lighting play a role? The corals that have spawned in the home aquarium, I am curious what lighting it was under (LED, T5, Metal Halide, Hybrid T4/LED).

One of the rc tank of the months (a guy I have visited a few times since he lives near) used all blue and white leds back when they were getting popular and had a spawning. Lighting doesn’t matter as long as it’s adequate as far as I have seen and read. I have seen success with and without moonlights too but with moonlights on a timer to replicate the cycle, I believe you have a much higher chance in forcing a spawning event. The size of the colonies matters for most I have seen and they always had a nice thick base to the colonies.

 

[Thales]

@Thales - how many species of acropora have you guys attempted to breed ? Only Millepora ?

We work with A. hyacinthus as our main spawner. We also have A. tenuis which may go this April, but our studies are around a. hy.

when you choose an acropora for breeding project , how do you determine which species are more viable for breeding ?

We chose A. hy because it is very abundant in Palau where we collect our corals for the lab. Fast grower, broadcast spawner, easy to id. We have collected twice and will one more time in Feb. We go a few months before the projected spawn and collect gravid colonies - we 'crack' branches and look for eggs. This year we will be comparing the newly collected coral spawn with the corals we have from previous seasons.

Most of the information about collection point is tough for average hobbyists like me since we are mostly into growing frags of aquaculture corals and often the vendors will have no clue other than a broad description of it being a tenuis collected in say Indonesia !

That is part of the hard part for hobbyists - collecting different genotypes of the same species. Find a vendor that will work with you to get you what you need. Though, just getting the colonies to go off at the same time is the first trick, IVF the gametes is the next.

Even though we think something is tenuis or millepora , is it likely that it’s actually a completely different species ? We are just basing it based on morphological classification based on polyp extension , colony shape , branch thickness , radial and axial corallites , coenosteum , sometimes depth of collection .

That can be difficult. Gotta get good at making that id until genetic testing becomes cheap and easy.

My question is around how to successfully even identify some of the aquaculture species as we all know even if they spawn sometime in future , without the same species - those downs are not viable .

That is even harder, and one of the reasons I dislike flash in the pan common names.

Also , I believe mass matters ! What’s the average size and weight of mother colonies that have successfully spawned in your lab ?

Don't know the weight off hand but the colonies are about hand sized.

Thanks!

 

[Thales]

Here are some resources:
Jamie Craggs paper
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.3538
A quick overview of all of it.
Neptune Systems video - goes into some nuts and bolts.
MACNA presentation

I have an updated version of my MACNA talk, but not on video. I am working on a nuts and bolts article about corals spawning at home.
The short version - I think that everyone that can should be doing what they can to promote spawns in their tanks, even if they don't have multiple genotypes for IVF. We would like to know more about what makes the spawn trigger and what makes the development of gametes trigger independently of actually getting baby corals. So if all you can do is do lunar cycles or heat cycles or whatever, those seem like good initial steps.
Jamie Craggs paper (the first link) is pretty great and the supplementary materials has all the details if you want to go whole hog. The article I am working on will be more hobbyist friendly than a paper...hopefully I'll get time to finish it soon.