Ron Reefman's Rock Flower experience

[Eagle_Steve]

I know from experience that RFAs as small as 1" to 1 1/2" can spawn.

Unfortunately I've never witnessed a birthing event, so I have no idea how small a RFA might be and still be able to produce offspring.

RFAs do take time to grow. I've found they grow very slowly if you rely on just photosynthesis. They do better if you are feeding the tank for fish. And even better if you are over feeding. And they do grow faster if you feed them directly every 2 to 4 weeks.

Since all but a couple of mine are now in the RFA breeding tank, they rely more on my feeding them individually. But over the last few months I have been adding some livestock in with them. First were some sexy shrimp and porcelain crabs. Then, later I started adding astraea snails, then nerites and recently stomatella snails and a very tiny, unknown fish I collected when collecting the stomatella snails. So now I do feed the RFA tank some, but I still feed either small shrimp or cut up silversides individually every 2 to 4 weeks.

Ron. Any pics of the little fish? I may be able to help you ID it. I have about 60-70 different little fish from the keys and Atlantic coast scattered throughout my tanks lol. Already done the research through tons of species books to ID all of them, so may save you some time lol.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Ron. Any pics of the little fish? I may be able to help you ID it. I have about 60-70 different little fish from the keys and Atlantic coast scattered throughout my tanks lol. Already done the research through tons of species books to ID all of them, so may save you some time lol.

Thanks for the offer to help. It's really small, maybe 1/2". And rarely stays still. But I'll see if I can get a photo tomorrow.

 

[cpschult]

How long till I could start seeing babies? I’ve found a few in tank before. Never seen this before tho!

@Ron Reefman I found babies yesterday! 8/23 sperm event, 9/21 babies seen
Any recommendations on how often to feed?

 

[Ron Reefman]

@Ron Reefman I found babies yesterday! 8/23 sperm event, 9/21 babies seen
Any recommendations on how often to feed?

That's great news! And I can't tell you how much I appreciate your watching this and providing us with dates! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

And your roughly 30 day gestation period falls in VERY close to the 30 to 35 days I've seen in my 2 events.

As for feeding, if you feed your corals anything special, anything that is very small or powder, that would be good. I'd suggest once every week or two weeks to shut off all water movement and use a turkey baster to try and do some individual feeding. If you regularly add food for your corals to the food you feed your fish, individual feedings can be less frequent.

Have fun with it and congratulations!

Yes, it's an Easter thing, but it's about new born babies!

 

[sfin52]

That's great news! And I can't tell you how much I appreciate your watching this and providing us with dates! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

And your roughly 30 day gestation period falls in VERY close to the 30 to 35 days I've seen in my 2 events.

As for feeding, if you feed your corals anything special, anything that is very small or powder, that would be good. I'd suggest once every week or two weeks to shut off all water movement and use a turkey baster to try and do some individual feeding. If you regularly add food for your corals to the food you feed your fish, individual feedings can be less frequent.

Have fun with it and congratulations!

Yes, it's an Easter thing, but it's about new born babies!

I should be spot feeding rfa? I broadcast feed so this wouldn't be enough?

 

[danieyella]

I should be spot feeding rfa? I broadcast feed so this wouldn't be enough?

I spot feed the rfa in the front of my tank once a week -- not the ones in the back. The ones in the back receive broadcast feedings with the rest of the tank. The ones in the front have grown much faster. The ones in the back are healthy looking and alive, but smaller.

 

[cpschult]

I spot feed all my rfa's. Just a little baste of food (normally mysis and LRS). I'll be adding reef roids to the mix to spot feed the baby RFA's now.

I do have three babies RFA's that have survived WITHOUT any sort of spot feedings but I want as many to survive as I can!

 

[Ron Reefman]

I should be spot feeding rfa? I broadcast feed so this wouldn't be enough?

As others have stated, spot feeding helps. I only spot feed once every 2 or 3 weeks and I broadcast feed some in the RFA 16g breeding tank, but not too much.

If you are pushing for reproduction, and broadcast feed a fair amount, you probably don't need to spot feed at all.

On a side note, I have 4 non-colorful, shallow water RFAs I collected in the Keys. They have been in the breeding tank a shorter time than the colorful, ultra RFAs that I bought. Those come from deeper water, like 20 to 40 feet deep. Over the past 6 months the shallow water RFAs appear to be growing significantly faster than the colorful RFAs. I have no idea why and it's just an anecdotal observation. But from here on, I'm watching them more closely!

 

[sfin52]

Dn

As others have stated, spot feeding helps. I only spot feed once every 2 or 3 weeks and I broadcast feed some in the RFA 16g breeding tank, but not too much.

If you are pushing for reproduction, and broadcast feed a fair amount, you probably don't need to spot feed at all.

On a side note, I have 4 non-colorful, shallow water RFAs I collected in the Keys. They have been in the breeding tank a shorter time than the colorful, ultra RFAs that I bought. Those come from deeper water, like 20 to 40 feet deep. Over the past 6 months the shallow water RFAs appear to be growing significantly faster than the colorful RFAs. I have no idea why and it's just an anecdotal observation. But from here on, I'm watching them more closely!

Will the shallow water rfa breed with the deep water rfa?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Dn

Will the shallow water rfa breed with the deep water rfa?

Yes, I believe they will. So far a marine biologist I know in California (working on us Doctorate... maybe has it by now) has done some looking into it and he is pretty sure they are the same species. I don't know of anybody, anywhere in the world that has done the DNA analysis of both to compare. And just to muddy the water up (so to speak) there are RFAs that come from water that is only semi deep and they are also semi-colorful. Usually only one color and nothing like the ultras, but absolutely more color than the very ordinary shallow water relatives.

These are very typical of the very shallow water RFAs we find in less than 3 or 4 feet of water on the Florida Bay side of the Middle Keys. Some have VERY cool patterns, but only a very few have any color other than white, tan, brown and black. A few have green tentacles and they do fluoresce.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Yes, I believe they will. So far a marine biologist I know in California (working on us Doctorate... maybe has it by now) has done some looking into it and he is pretty sure they are the same species. I don't know of anybody, anywhere in the world that has done the DNA analysis of both to compare. And just to muddy the water up (so to speak) there are RFAs that come from water that is only semi deep and they are also semi-colorful. Usually only one color and nothing like the ultras, but absolutely more color than the very ordinary shallow water relatives.

These are very typical of the very shallow water RFAs we find in less than 3 or 4 feet of water on the Florida Bay side of the Middle Keys. Some have VERY cool patterns, but only a very few have any color other than white, tan, brown and black. A few have green tentacles and they do fluoresce.

I wonder if you raised the larvae from the shallow water specimens in the dark, would they gain colors potentially? That could be something to try.

 

[sfin52]

Yes, I believe they will. So far a marine biologist I know in California (working on us Doctorate... maybe has it by now) has done some looking into it and he is pretty sure they are the same species. I don't know of anybody, anywhere in the world that has done the DNA analysis of both to compare. And just to muddy the water up (so to speak) there are RFAs that come from water that is only semi deep and they are also semi-colorful. Usually only one color and nothing like the ultras, but absolutely more color than the very ordinary shallow water relatives.

These are very typical of the very shallow water RFAs we find in less than 3 or 4 feet of water on the Florida Bay side of the Middle Keys. Some have VERY cool patterns, but only a very few have any color other than white, tan, brown and black. A few have green tentacles and they do fluoresce.

Those are cool

 

[Tired]

I would suspect that it's not necessarily a quick adaptation that could take over in one generation. I'd think it's more akin to different color morphs, and/or possibly related to what zooelanthae are available in the water around them. What I'd be interested to do would be take a couple of wild baby shallow-water ones and put them near some deep-water ones in the wild, and vice versa, and see if they make it and how they develop.

Is there anyone who does WYSIWYG shallow-water nems? There are some I'd really like, like the strong zebra-pattern ones and those cool almost-solid-white ones, but I don't really want a random one because I don't have space for a brown nem I'm not keen on.

 

[danieyella]

These are very typical of the very shallow water RFAs we find in less than 3 or 4 feet of water on the Florida Bay side of the Middle Keys. Some have VERY cool patterns, but only a very few have any color other than white, tan, brown and black. A few have green tentacles and they do fluoresce.

The patterning on that first one. Wow.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I wonder if you raised the larvae from the shallow water specimens in the dark, would they gain colors potentially? That could be something to try.

I don't think it's nurture related, I think it's nature and longer term genetics.

I would suspect that it's not necessarily a quick adaptation that could take over in one generation. I'd think it's more akin to different color morphs, and/or possibly related to what zooelanthae are available in the water around them. What I'd be interested to do would be take a couple of wild baby shallow-water ones and put them near some deep-water ones in the wild, and vice versa, and see if they make it and how they develop.

Is there anyone who does WYSIWYG shallow-water nems? There are some I'd really like, like the strong zebra-pattern ones and those cool almost-solid-white ones, but I don't really want a random one because I don't have space for a brown nem I'm not keen on.

I think that may be what the medium depth RFAs are. Some mixed breeding.

I haven't seen anybody pushing the ordinary RFAs. I have seen some being sold on occasion, but they go cheap. I agree that some of the patterns are very cool. And I hope that I get some interbreeding in my RFA breeding tank. I have 30+ ultras and 4 plain janes. Well, one of my ordinary looking ones is special to me because it has some unusual blue coloring in it oral disk. I collected it when it was small, because it was different. But of my 4 ordinary looking RFAs, it's the one that is NOT growing very fast???

 

[Ron Reefman]

The patterning on that first one. Wow.

I know a very small island off shore where the water is only 2' to 4' deep and there are a lot similar to this one attached to holes in the vertical rock wall of the island. But they are extremely difficult to collect.

 

[Tired]

Live-plants.com sells their-pick common RFAs, at decent sizes, but they don't really let you choose. Guess I'll have to see if my LFS gets any nice non-ultras in after the pandemic is over, so I can look at them in person.

 

[sfin52]

Live-plants.com sells their-pick common RFAs, at decent sizes, but they don't really let you choose. Guess I'll have to see if my LFS gets any nice non-ultras in after the pandemic is over, so I can look at them in person.

I wonder if you contact them if they could work with one

 

[cpschult]

Ron have you seen any decent rfa’s for sale around? I’d like to add some more color

 

[ApoIsland]

Thanks for the offer to help. It's really small, maybe 1/2". And rarely stays still. But I'll see if I can get a photo tomorrow.

Forget the photo. Use your phone to take a video and then you can pause and go frame by frame until you get the shot you want. Then take a screenshot of the paused video. Much faster and easier to get that perfect pic.