Documenting torch coral spawn

[Ashwinclement]

One of the interesting things that happened in my tank:

Purple torch coral spawned in Feb 2021 and a number of torch coral babies popped up in my tank. It was not a big colony, just a two head frag that I had for several months. Not sure exactly what caused them to spawn, the only difference is since Jan 2021, I upgraded to 40 breeder during which I moved the tank to my bedroom and my bedroom is usually completely blacked out as my sleep schedule was messed up and I didnt want any tiny amount of light spill to disturb my sleep. So that might have contributed to it.

I did not expect the spawn to survive as my clownfish were gobbling them like treats

But months later I started noticing tiny spots of growth popping up all over my rock work, with time they grew to a purple torch, highlighted below. Pic taken in Oct 2021

Eventually they grew big and became a nuisance as they started stinging corals next to them, even in the image above, you can see the baby torch has killed some of the favia above it. I had to intervene, remove every piece of rock and then cut the baby torches out of the rock with a dremel. I got close to 30 frags of them, some were too small to cut or in a nook that cant be accessed so i epoxied and killed them,

A picture of the baby torch coral frags that I harvested. It took more than a year since spawn to get this size, no special care for raising the spawn, it just grew on its own in the display tank. Pic taken July 2022

I have sold all the frags, I lost the mother frag due to my lack of care and now regrowing the colony with one of the babies,

 

[Rugops]

There doesn't seem to be any pics.

 

[Ashwinclement]

Thanks for pointing it out, no idea what happened there, let me edit it

 

[officialreefbros]

Following along! Sounds super neat, would be great to see the pictures!

 

[Ashwinclement]

There should be pics now

 

[DaJMasta]

They are working now, and very cool! I imagine the blacked out nights helped it coordinate its spawning activity, perhaps with a little bit of a temperature variation with the seasons that happens naturally in many homes. Were your lights set to use a lunar cycle, or just on a standard timer?

Also was it only one colony, or several individuals? I wonder if they were able to self-fertilize, as some corals and anemones seem to be able to.

 

[Ashwinclement]

No lunar cycle, just standard timer, light comes on at 10AM and turns off at 9PM, temperature variation is possible, I did not have a Inkbird controller back then, so was just relying on the Eheim Jager heaters thermostat. I noticed it only on the purple torch, the only other torch i have is a green torch I did see anything come off it. My guess is they self fertilized, because all the spawn I got were exact replicas of the mother colony.

 

[Ashwinclement]

*green torch I did NOT see anything come off it.

 

[chipchipbro]

Is my torch spawning?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Is my torch spawning?

Looks like it to me.