inktomi
ReefMan
Hi!
There are research groups the world over successfully raising Acropora species for re-introduction on reefs. I really believe that we should join this push as a hobby and advance captive sexual reproduction of Acropora as a thing that we can do. Besides taking pressure off the world's reefs this will let you produce _thousands_ of baby corals from just a couple mother colonies - all it takes is careful attention to detail and the willingness to do things just a bit differently than we otherwise would.
I produced a video this weekend about what you'd need to know to successfully raise captive bred Acropora sp. corals.
I'll also summarize it here, since there's no need to watch the video if you're not interested. From all the papers (linked in the video description) that I've read, captive spawning of Acropora comes down to five basic things...
Healthy colonies
This is pretty obvious. Healthy colonies will reproduce, sickly or barely alive colonies will not. Feed your Acropora. Maintain high water quality.
Know where your corals are from
While I'm absolutely certain it's possible to spawn captive corals like the Walt Disney Tenuis, I'm not sure where that coral is actually from. If you start with corals from a location you know, you can fine tune your tank's parameters to that location as well - which will only increase your chances of success.
A realistic daylight schedule
There is research that shows that Acropora coral uses ques from the length of the day to trigger maturation of their eggs and sperm. As such, even though most of our corals come from the equator, it could be important to maintain a realistic day length in our tanks. Don't just set a 10 hour on or 12 hour on schedule and forget about it - do a bit of research into how you can properly program your controller, and then program in the seasonal lighting schedule from the reef that you're simulating.
A realistic seasonal temperature
Again, this is all about seasonal ques that we're giving our Acropora. They pay attention to the swings in temperature, and it all feeds into their ability to spawn en masse all together on a full moon (the specific one varies from reef to reef).
A realistic moonlight schedule
I think that this is probably the most important part. A realistic schedule is one part of this, and it's easy enough to program your controller to reproduce the schedule for the reef you're simulating - but you should also care about intensity and color. Unfortunately, most moonlights are not acurate in either of these measures. Real moonlight is about 4150K white light - not actinic blue. It won't make your corals glow. Most commercial moonlights are also far too intense, but that's an easy thing to fix with diffusers and that sort of thing.
Of course, there's more to it than that.
That's just getting your Acropora to spawn. Now that you've done all that, you need to collect the egg and sperm packets (made easier because they float!), mix them to burst them open and fertilize the eggs (gentle mixing for 10 or 15 minutes should do it), then keep the eggs alive for a few days while they divide and grow and then help the larvae through their settlement phase (seasoned frag plugs help, and they'll settle around three days after fertilization). From there, it's more or less like taking care of any other Acropora coral - only you'll have hundreds if not thousands of _tiny_ baby corals to tend.
Who's interested in trying to make this happen? If it can be done in aquariums and labs around the world, we can surely do it as well. There are reports on reef2reef of Acropora spawns in tanks without the owner even really trying to induce them. With some effort and planning, I bet we could make captive bred Acroporas as common as Clownfish!
There are research groups the world over successfully raising Acropora species for re-introduction on reefs. I really believe that we should join this push as a hobby and advance captive sexual reproduction of Acropora as a thing that we can do. Besides taking pressure off the world's reefs this will let you produce _thousands_ of baby corals from just a couple mother colonies - all it takes is careful attention to detail and the willingness to do things just a bit differently than we otherwise would.
I produced a video this weekend about what you'd need to know to successfully raise captive bred Acropora sp. corals.
I'll also summarize it here, since there's no need to watch the video if you're not interested. From all the papers (linked in the video description) that I've read, captive spawning of Acropora comes down to five basic things...
Healthy colonies
This is pretty obvious. Healthy colonies will reproduce, sickly or barely alive colonies will not. Feed your Acropora. Maintain high water quality.
Know where your corals are from
While I'm absolutely certain it's possible to spawn captive corals like the Walt Disney Tenuis, I'm not sure where that coral is actually from. If you start with corals from a location you know, you can fine tune your tank's parameters to that location as well - which will only increase your chances of success.
A realistic daylight schedule
There is research that shows that Acropora coral uses ques from the length of the day to trigger maturation of their eggs and sperm. As such, even though most of our corals come from the equator, it could be important to maintain a realistic day length in our tanks. Don't just set a 10 hour on or 12 hour on schedule and forget about it - do a bit of research into how you can properly program your controller, and then program in the seasonal lighting schedule from the reef that you're simulating.
A realistic seasonal temperature
Again, this is all about seasonal ques that we're giving our Acropora. They pay attention to the swings in temperature, and it all feeds into their ability to spawn en masse all together on a full moon (the specific one varies from reef to reef).
A realistic moonlight schedule
I think that this is probably the most important part. A realistic schedule is one part of this, and it's easy enough to program your controller to reproduce the schedule for the reef you're simulating - but you should also care about intensity and color. Unfortunately, most moonlights are not acurate in either of these measures. Real moonlight is about 4150K white light - not actinic blue. It won't make your corals glow. Most commercial moonlights are also far too intense, but that's an easy thing to fix with diffusers and that sort of thing.
Of course, there's more to it than that.
That's just getting your Acropora to spawn. Now that you've done all that, you need to collect the egg and sperm packets (made easier because they float!), mix them to burst them open and fertilize the eggs (gentle mixing for 10 or 15 minutes should do it), then keep the eggs alive for a few days while they divide and grow and then help the larvae through their settlement phase (seasoned frag plugs help, and they'll settle around three days after fertilization). From there, it's more or less like taking care of any other Acropora coral - only you'll have hundreds if not thousands of _tiny_ baby corals to tend.
Who's interested in trying to make this happen? If it can be done in aquariums and labs around the world, we can surely do it as well. There are reports on reef2reef of Acropora spawns in tanks without the owner even really trying to induce them. With some effort and planning, I bet we could make captive bred Acroporas as common as Clownfish!
