Spawning corals in your tank

[SynDen]

Reading the latest addition of coral magazine, which is about coral spawning, and they give a pretty detailed guide on how to spawn corals in a tank. They give detailed info on how To setup your lighting, day and night, with an apex, to simulate the seasons. If you follow their example you should be able to predict the day and hour that corals will begin to spawn. They even give some insights on how to get the corals to settle a grow after the spawn.

This was one of those things that was always a nuisance in a home tank because of possible repercussions if you didn't dona bunch of water changes afterward. But this mostly on,y an issue if you didnt plan, or wasnt expecting the spawn. If it becomes possible to predict, plan, and trigger the spawn at specific times, that opens the doors to a whole new frontier in reef keeping.

I admit I am intrigued and sort of considering doing it at least once. Certainly would be a ton of work and a lot of planning, but the reward would be exceptional

Thoughts? Anyone else read it and find themselves intrigued or considering the possibilities?

 

[jda123]

I have had acropora spawn in my tank. I have talked to Ross about it a lot too. It just happened. I did not do anything.

The key to me seems to be to get the coral a lot of usable resources. Like actually usable. Ammonia or organic nitrogen forms instead of no3, organic phosphate instead of po4. Lots of high quality light from a wide spectrum like 350nm to 800/850nm. This allows the coral to not waste energy converting or trying to make up for holes in either building blocks or energy.

For acropora, which do seem to spawn the most, catching food sources in the slime coat seems best. Bacteria, zooplankton.

Ross feeds the heck out of his tank and has tons of organic forms of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and the rest.

There seems to be two ways to do it. First, is to have a tank with NSW parameters and tons of high spectrum, high quality light - like an old school reef. This is what my tank was, and most of the people who wrote about spawning before the biocube generation of sterile tanks, cut spectrum lighting, high waste products, which might not inhibit spawning, but can cut the microfauna and bacteria needed and also do not provide nitrogen and phosphate the way that people think that they do. These tanks seem to be able to have diverse bacteria, microfauna and other things to keep corals going. Second, dose and feed what you need. Ross does this with his coral feedings.

I have heard really smart people suggest that byproducts from sponges can really feed acropora. I do have tons and tons of sponge in my tanks. I cannot remember if Ross does, but I want to say so.

 

[SynDen]

Ya, I have had acros randomly spawn in the tank before. But the latest article gives pretty detailed info on how to setup lights and such to get them to spawn on a schedule. If you setup it up right you should be able to predict the exact time and date of the spawn.

If one can get the schedule down to some consistency it opens the door for the next phase of settling and growing the corals. Although that is a whole other adventure in its self.

 

[jda123]

I did not read it, but if they don't have you pair any cycles up with nature then it probably won't work too well. You don't even really need the light cycles if you study the natural cycles. I have some light that gets into our walkout basement, but the corals knew when it was time.

I never got any stuff to grow long term. Maybe grew to a few polyps, but then died out. I did not really try. At least for me, it was never a super duper cool acro that wanted to spawn... I had enough Purple Nana.

My squamosa clams would spawn routinely when the water temps would rise in the summer. Made quite a mess.

What did the author have luck spawning on schedule, time and time again, if anything? I have seen articles like this before, but when questioned, the author did not really do it, but read about natural stuff from Veron and the like.