Coral reproduction

[Rmckoy]

Reading coral magazine . Jan-feb edition regarding coral spawning .

so question ..... how can we artificially create “spawning “ conditions
Is it only meant to happen once per year ?
Is it only mature larger colonies that will reproduce or will growing and happy frags Also participate ?

does this mean if we were to create optimal conditions , every coral in our tank will reproduce at the same time ?

 

[sculpin01]

1) Sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, temperature rise and fall, and light intensity rise and fall appropriate for where the coral would live (Apex supports all but light intensity).
2) Spawning times are species, population, and location specific. Some corals dribble spawn periodically, some spawn on only one night. Some will spawn for several days once a year.
3) Dr. Craggs indicated at Mini MACNA this year that even mini-colonies can spawn but there's probably a minimum size.
4) Coral spawning times have recently been tabulated into a database:

An Indo-Pacific coral spawning database - Scientific Data

Measurement(s) Point in Time Date and Time Data Type • Spawning Technology Type(s) Observation • digital curation Sample Characteristic - Organism Scleractinia Sample Characteristic - Environment ocean Sample Characteristic - Location Pacific Ocean • Indian Ocean region Machine-accessible...

www.nature.com

The best presentation I have seen on this was Rich Ross at MACNA 2019:

 

[Double monti 61]

My question is did you read the articles?

 

[Double monti 61]

Reread the articles.

 

[Rmckoy]

My question is did you read the articles?

Yes but there are still questions .

so the geographic location can be changed as it’s not really specific

So light intensity and photo period needs to change to match .
Raising lights and lessening photo period along with water temp ?

but does this also have to match the moon cycle outside or can we induce spawning at any time ?

 

[N.Sreefer]

Im trying a backyard greenhouse this summer to see if I can induce spawning with natural moonlight and artificial tides. Itll be interesting to mess around with when the builds started Ill post a thread.

 

[sculpin01]

You pick a place you want your reef to imitate in the tropics that you have sunrise/sunset, moonrise, and water temperature data for. Let's say you use St. Croix because there's a complete data set for it. Then you fill in the blanks in Apex.local:

 

[sculpin01]

If you're an overachiever, you create sunrise/sunset ramps (remembering that the sky brightens prior to the actual sunrise and after the sunset fro 70-odd minutes):

 

[Double monti 61]

Thank you sculpi 0.1

 

[sculpin01]

And if you want, you create artificial tides:

 

[sculpin01]

I've had my display imitating St. Croix conditions for 6 months. I don't expect a spawn this year as I had a setback in January due to an Ostreopsis red tide (for realsies) that nearly killed the system. The thing you need to be aware of is that you will need two of each species if you want to successfully spawn, so you need a "Noah's Arc" approach. Also, some corals have separate sexes (2/3's of them are hermaphrodites including all Acropora) which makes everything WAY more difficult.

 

[Rmckoy]

I've had my display imitating St. Croix conditions for 6 months. I don't expect a spawn this year as I had a setback in January due to an Ostreopsis red tide (for realsies) that nearly killed the system. The thing you need to be aware of is that you will need two of each species if you want to successfully spawn, so you need a "Noah's Arc" approach. Also, some corals have separate sexes (2/3's of them are hermaphrodites including all Acropora) which makes everything WAY more difficult.

Essentially .
if all acros are both sexes .
they could produce both sperm and egg ?

to get hybrids , you could use any 2 acros as long as they’re the same species ? Tenius etc ?
the only difference would be the time they spawn as tenius spawn earlier

so if I had 2 green slimer colonies .
and conditions were right . They could spawn ?

the huge tabling acro colony I have. .
I could frag it making 2 ?
Not that I want to . I’m not ready for that strict of a maintenance schedule

 

[sculpin01]

Green Slimers are Acropora yongei, which means you would need a DIFFERENT Acropora yongei (blue slimer?) in order to get fertilized eggs. Green Slimer sperm will not fertilize Green Slimer eggs but will fertilize a DIFFERENT A. yongei's eggs.

Hybrids are possible but not likely. Fusions/chimeras are way more likely.

Another example: if you had a pink Acropora millepora and a green Acropora millepora, they would successfully cross fertilize each other, but not themselves.

 

[Rmckoy]

Green Slimers are Acropora yongei, which means you would need a DIFFERENT Acropora yongei (blue slimer?) in order to get fertilized eggs. Green Slimer sperm will not fertilize Green Slimer eggs but will fertilize a DIFFERENT A. yongei's eggs.

Hybrids are possible but not likely. Fusions/chimeras are way more likely.

Another example: if you had a pink Acropora millepora and a green Acropora millepora, they would successfully cross fertilize each other, but not themselves.

I was to the understanding 2 green slimer are the same and can spawn .
Crossing blue and green is hybrid .

 

[sculpin01]

No. All of the Green Slimers in all tanks in the world are from ONE individual coral (kind of weird when you think about it that way). Like if it was cut into a million pieces. And it can't make babies with itself. To make babies you need a DIFFERENT Slimer (Blue or whatever).

A hybrid would be if a Green Slimer and a Pink Millepora had babies and would be a new species (does happen, see Acropora prolifera, which is the love child of Acropora cervicornis and Acropora palmata).

A chimera is when three Acropora millepora babies settle on the same rock, fuse together when tiny and grow up to be a Rainbow Splice:

 

[Rmckoy]

No. All of the Green Slimers in all tanks in the world are from ONE individual coral (kind of weird when you think about it that way). Like if it was cut into a million pieces. And it can't make babies with itself. To make babies you need a DIFFERENT Slimer (Blue or whatever).

A hybrid would be if a Green Slimer and a Pink Millepora had babies and would be a new species (does happen, see Acropora prolifera, which is the love child of Acropora cervicornis and Acropora palmata).

A chimera is when three Acropora millepora babies settle on the same rock, fuse together when tiny and grow up to be a Rainbow Splice:

That would be nice to grow out to a colony ....