Do Aquacultured Corals Do Better In Our Tanks

[William Morris]

What has been your experience with aquacultured corals?
Do they thrive in our systems better than corals taken directly off the reefs?

 

[LegendaryCG]

Corals grown under the same type of light makes them easier to keep.

 

[Nano sapiens]

IME, yes. Makes sense since those wild corals that survived and adaptable to captive conditions are the ones that we see in aquaculture.

 

[hart24601]

It does seem to be the case and makes sense corals that have been propagated for in some case decades, would be quite tough. I do think frags of wilds instead of colonies do a lot better than the full colonies though and have higher survival due to the shift of light and flow the larger colony grew in.

 

[Llyod276]

What does it mean to be aquacultured? Is it the propagation of coral through sexual reproduction or genetic cloning?

 

[D E N I N O]

If you mean cultured in aquaria then yes, if you mean aqua cultured in the ocean maybe not. Aquacultured clams are usually still grown in concrete tanks connected to the ocean with natural light for example. The Indonesian corals that just came back to the hobby are aqua cultured in the ocean. I don't think these have any of the advantages I'm about to talk about.

Some corals do better than others in aquariums, even in the same species some specimens will adapt better than others. This is natural.

Just like in evolution in the wild the "strong" adaptable specimens will grow faster in our aquariums, they will be propagated more and eventually spread out between many tanks to repeat the cycle. These strong growing aquarium specimens will hopefully and eventually push out the non-adaptable specimens from the same species and we're left with lots of hardy corals.

I think this is what we see when people say aquarium grown corals are hardier. If you buy 2 acros of the same species and one grows well while the other one struggles eventually you're going to frag the one that grows well. Those frags will spread more throughout the hobby because this particular specimen is more suited to aquarium life. By the time you have fragged the less-adaptable acro that isn't as suited to aquarium life you have fragged the faster growing more-adaptable coral 20-30 times.

Xenia in the 80's used to be an extremely rare and hard coral to keep because it shipped poorly. Now it's a weed coral that people can't give away... This is because after importing 1000's of specimens from the ocean we found some that could adapt and handle being transported and adapted to aquarium life. Now it's everywhere.

 

[hart24601]

What does it mean to be aquacultured? Is it the propagation of coral through sexual reproduction or genetic cloning?

No, we are not there yet on coral in the hobby. While there is no set definition on these items, aquacultured is generally accepted that the coral has been in captivity for years and what is being sold has been grown in aquariums. So if you buy aquacultured ORA strawberry shortcake acro for example, that came out of the wild at least a decade ago of not longer and what you are getting, the coral - skeleton tissue and all, was grown in captivity generally with artificial lights and artificial seawater.

Contrast to mariculture where frags are grown out in the ocean in a farm, or wilds that are harvested off the reef.

some organisms like clams and inverts are truly bred and raised in captivity. I suspect a true bred coral will not sell well in the hobby since one will not know the coloration until it’s a colony several years down the road. While an aquacultured frag you know what you’re getting.

 

[Timfish]

Besides adaptation to differetn environmental conditions and how well those are matched in a new aquaria (like lighting mentioned above), size and species of the frags is a factor (1, 2) with bigger frags having a better survival rate. The clone line's innate immune system is also a huge factor and some clone lines will be very sensitive to alleopathic and microbial stuff from other corals. A frags ability to adapt to disturbences is also both species and context dependant so frags from different species may have very different reactions to the same set of events.