So scolys have always been my favorite type of coral, and I've had a few in the past years. Mine were always healthy and big, but I've always wondered, how do they reproduce? Has anyone ever had a scoly that did reproduce?
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I was wondering the same so I googled it and took me to this. someone is offering a huge bleeding heart for 250.00 and since they grow big and round I wondering how that happened. Do they move around the tank like mushrooms, leaving footprints of them selves?I haven't heard of them giving off babies like acans. I don't think anyone has gotten them to sexually reproduce. Probably sexual reproduction will happen in captive reefs sometime far in the future. I think sexual reproduction depends on the size of the coral. So people will have to get them real big and happy to get them to release gametes. The most realistic current way of reproducing scoly's is asexual fragmentation. People have cut them up into quarters and them let them heal into whole scoly's again. Apparently it takes a long time and they do not regain their perfect shape after the cut. You should try it and post progression pics for all to see.
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Any updates? Thanks for sharingI have a buddy that fragged one up into a bunch of pieces. He gave me a piece about three months ago. It’s looked good for quite a while and I even saw feeder tentacles on it a few times. I moved it from my grow out area to my display and it’s shriveled a bit, but seems to be doing ok.
Did some reading in the interim related to scoly reproduction and found this in the peer review lit (although old):Homophyllia australis (Formerly in the Genus Scolymia) can reproduce by splitting, and rarely if ever forms new polyps at the base of mature polyps. Their main method of reproduction is sexual, spawning into the water column. I had some success cutting a few years back, and a few other keepers have documented as well but it's very risky and rare to have them regrow fully or be round again. They theoretically can live a very long time so your best bet is to care for ones you have for the next hundred years, collect many of them and potentially spawn one day
Did some reading in the interim related to scoly reproduction and found this in the peer review lit (although old):
Reading this leads me to believe it could he possible to induce spawning in these corals in captivity in the same manner as Craggs, et al, did:
And of course:Inducing broadcast coral spawning ex situ: Closed system mesocosm design and husbandry protocol
For many corals, the timing of broadcast spawning correlates strongly with a number of environmental signals (seasonal temperature, lunar, and diel cycles). Robust experimental studies examining the role of these putative cues in triggering spawning have ...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Something to add to my coral dreams