Sun Coral Reproduction Question

[livinlifeinBKK]

I have a yellow sun coral and a black sun coral (Tubastrea micranthus) and both are doing amazingly well and I was even able to train them to fully open their polyps under normal light during the day. Does anyone know how to encourage them to reproduce and plant larvae in other parts of the tank?

 

[nezw0001]

I think aggressive and consistent feeding will be your best bet.

 

[Apollo7235]

I think aggressive and consistent feeding will be your best bet.

+1 to this. I can’t speak to the larvae, but I can say that I feed my sun coral twice a day and it is gaining new heads rapidly.

I feel like every time I look at it I see a new tiny little polyp emerging.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

+1 to this. I can’t speak to the larvae, but I can say that I feed my sun coral twice a day and it is gaining new heads rapidly.

I feel like every time I look at it I see a new tiny little polyp emerging.

I feed each polyp as well! Both are definitely well fed and have fully open polyps during the day...I was just curious if anyone knew about the larval stage

 

[SeahawkMom]

So I target feed my sun coral daily when I feed my fish, and I’ve just started to notice baby sun corals on my live rock in 3 other spots in my tank. I didn’t realize sun coral could spawn like this. I don’t necessarily want this, so I’ll need to pick off the ones in places I don’t want them to grow. The ones in the dark area are kinda cool though. Not sure if this is normal or if the heat wave we had a couple weeks ago stressed them enough to fertilize and release spawn. The first two pics are behind my rocks in shaded areas so I’ll leave those, but I just noticed the two I. The last photo that are in the front of my live rock. I’ll leave them for now and she what they do. That’s where I was planning to put SPS, so we’ll see what happens. I have a chiller now so hoping these spawn events aren’t too frequent.

 

[Apollo7235]

As far as I know, that is a natural behavior for the sun corals. Personally, I love it because they’ll grow in the overhangs and shaded areas where photosynthetic corals likely wouldn’t thrive, and they brighten those areas with a nice little pop of color. As always, though, to each their own. Glad to see you’re having so much success with them!

 

[G Santana]

So I target feed my sun coral daily when I feed my fish, and I’ve just started to notice baby sun corals on my live rock in 3 other spots in my tank. I didn’t realize sun coral could spawn like this. I don’t necessarily want this, so I’ll need to pick off the ones in places I don’t want them to grow. The ones in the dark area are kinda cool though. Not sure if this is normal or if the heat wave we had a couple weeks ago stressed them enough to fertilize and release spawn. The first two pics are behind my rocks in shaded areas so I’ll leave those, but I just noticed the two I. The last photo that are in the front of my live rock. I’ll leave them for now and she what they do. That’s where I was planning to put SPS, so we’ll see what happens. I have a chiller now so hoping these spawn events aren’t too frequent.

What are you feeding the sun coral?
The fact that they are reproducing is awesome!!!

 

[SeahawkMom]

What are you feeding the sun coral?
The fact that they are reproducing is awesome!!!

I don’t feed anything special. I target feed PE Calanus thawed frozen food daily that’s actually for the fish. I squirt it by the sun corals and the fish eat around the coral. It’s smelly so it triggers a feeding response and they must like it too. I also add live phyto to the tank after I feed and let it circulate for about 15 minutes before I turn the return pump back on. That’s more to feed my cocopods but the corals benefit too. Every few days I also dose Red Sea Reef Energy AB+.