Speciosa spawning documented!

[hunterallen40]

Just happened to walk up to our frag tank at the right time, and saw something truly breathtaking... One of our Malaysian acropora speciosas decided to spawn!

Close up video of the spawn:

I've been waiting to see any of my acros do this, and to have it happen on a speciosa... I just HAD to share!

 

[crazyfishmom]

Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Dairyreefer01]

Wow! Congrats. Will be cool to see if it settles. How long have you had the colony?

 

[hunterallen40]

Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

Absolutely!

Wow! Congrats. Will be cool to see if it settles. How long have you had the colony?

Thank you! So happy we were able to document such a special event!

We got the colony on August 6th.

 

[bubbgee]

That's amazing! Any special dosing or trace elements you used on this system? I'm hoping to experience coral spawning one day as well..

 

[hunterallen40]

That's amazing! Any special dosing or trace elements you used on this system? I'm hoping to experience coral spawning one day as well..

Thank you very much! For dosing, we use our two-part dosing supplement (Not A Feesh Two-Part). We have been running it on this system the entire time we've had the colony. Does a great job of keeping things happy and healthy!

This happened in our fishless system, where we also dose phosphate and ammonium throughout the day. I also started feeding them nightly with benereef about a week ago, so this could be related.

We also dose live phyto into this system nightly, and pretty heavily. For our 50 gallon fishless system we do 10 mL of acropower, 1 teaspoon of benereef, and soak it in ~600 mL of live phyto. We do a mix of rhodomonas salina, tetraselmis chui, and t-isochrysis lutea that we culture in house weekly.

Happy to answer any questions about our methodology / husbandry! I think documenting these events is very important.

I believe the actual trigger, though, was adding the lunar simulation module back on the apex. The first night we put it back on I left it on 100% for absolutely no reason in particular. The next day I turned it on to auto, and this dropped to 6% intensity. I think we simulated "full moon" -> "new moon", and this triggered the spawn. Pretty spectacular!

These were the other parameters when the coral spawned (as measured by our trident + trident NP):

Alk: 8.0 ppm
Ca: 422 ppm
Mg: 1392 ppm
PO4: 0.18 ppm
NO3: 8.1 ppm
Temperature: 80 F
Salinity: 35 ppt (we use the tropic marin precision hydrometer to measure, and do temperature compensation to verify we are at the equivalent of 1.0264 sg at 77F)
pH: Need to calibrate the probe, but 8.6+ is very common at that time. I'll measure tonight around the same time the spawn happened after I calibrate the probe.

 

[hunterallen40]

Here is a less-macro video of the spawn!

New video by Hunter Allen

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[Charlie the Reefer]

Congrats! Thanks for sharing.

 

[rhaetuluscrenatus]

I'm not happy with it if it's a new added coral. I have same issue before, added a colony of milepora, one month later it spawned, and them its health is in down trend due to loss energy for spawning, took me 5 months to recover it, but not as full colour as it was before.

 

[BristleWormHater]

Very cool!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Thank you for sharing!

 

[hunterallen40]

I'm not happy with it if it's a new added coral. I have same issue before, added a colony of milepora, one month later it spawned, and them its health is in down trend due to loss energy for spawning, took me 5 months to recover it, but not as full colour as it was before.

Yeah, I've heard this can happen when they spawn. We have a couple of nice frags from it, but I would still be pretty sad if the colony stopped being so nice.

 

[gig 'em]

How long has this coral been in captivity and in this system?

 

[hunterallen40]

How long has this coral been in captivity and in this system?

Coral was imported in late July, and received by us on August 6th.