My Dendros Spawned!! (VIDEO Included)

[LA Reef Addict]

I have been meaning to post this for a while but you know, life, sometimes gets in the way of reefing. Lol.

Last year in October while doing regular maintenance, my gf pointed out a plume of "smoke" in the tank. Upon further inspection, I realized what was happening and quickly grabbed my phone and recorded the events that took place.

I personally always thought that dendros only reproduced by budding but apparently not. Interesting to note is that I have been keeping dendros for several years now and I spot feed them every day and most of the ones you see in the video were grown under my care.

Also interesting to note is that I have had torches spawn in the past and while I run many different lights in my many tanks, the spawning events have always happened under radion pro led lights, this time being no different.

Anyway, enough of my yapping and hope you enjoy the bad quality video. Lol

 

[LA Reef Addict]

Dendro spawning event!

 

[Daniel]

Really neat to see! Thanks for sharing, so cool to see them expel eggs like that.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I personally always thought that dendros only reproduced by budding but apparently not. Interesting to note is that I have been keeping dendros for several years now and I spot feed them every day and most of the ones you see in the video were grown under my care.

Also interesting to note is that I have had torches spawn in the past and while I run many different lights in my many tanks, the spawning events have always happened under radion pro led lights, this time being no different.

Super cool to see!

What do you feed them? Just once per day?

What light settings/schedule do you run, and do you know what PAR you get?

 

[LA Reef Addict]

Super cool to see!

What do you feed them? Just once per day?

What light settings/schedule do you run, and do you know what PAR you get?

I feed them once per day and I feed them a combo of Hikari mysis, spirulina brine shrimp and reef roids. I will post a feeding video a little later today.

I don't know what par they are getting as I have them off center because I know they don't require much light. The light schedule is the lps schedule in the mobius app.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I feed them once per day and I feed them a combo of Hikari mysis, spirulina brine shrimp and reef roids. I will post a feeding video a little later today.

I don't know what par they are getting as I have them off center because I know they don't require much light. The light schedule is the lps schedule in the mobius app.

I forgot to ask - what are your parameters, and did they have any sort of noticeable trigger that you noticed?

(Things like temperature changes, moon cycles, water changes, etc. are some of the more common triggers, for example).

 

[LA Reef Addict]

I forgot to ask - what are your parameters, and did they have any sort of noticeable trigger that you noticed?

(Things like temperature changes, moon cycles, water changes, etc. are some of the more common triggers, for example).

I try to keep my parameters close to NSW. I can't think if any triggers but I'm only guessing the moon cycle on the radion light program might have something to do with it. Around the same time, my torches Spawned also. Will post a picture of my baby torch later today also.

 

[taricha]

The egg releases (at 1:45 and 4:25) are really cool and explosive.
years ago, I found a microscopic yellow formless wiggly thing. I never found a good ID for it.

I recently decided that I think it was a coral larva from my dendros I had at the time.

 

[LA Reef Addict]

Feeding time!

 

[LA Reef Addict]

My baby torch growing nicely on a piece of liverock.

 

[taricha]

My baby torch growing nicely on a piece of liverock.

Is that a frag? Or do we think that is a spawned baby?

 

[LA Reef Addict]

Is that a frag? Or do we think that is a spawned baby?

Definitely a spawned baby. I had 2 but the other one died a couple weeks ago.

 

[biophilia]

So cool! Thanks for the videos!

I don't have experience with Dendrophyllia spawning, but healthy Tubastraea seem to have larger spawns coinciding with the first lunar phase (new moon) each month. If you have an overflow box on your tank, try sticking a brine shrimp or similarly fine micron net in it at night to collect the planula.

If you put the larvae in a container (like a cup floating in the tank) they'll be motile cruising around in the water column for a few days before settling. They'll settle on just about anything (including plastic) but if you time it right you can encourage them to settle on a piece of coralline covered rock rubble by pipetting them gently onto the rock after they've been in the water column for ~48 hours or so. You'll see them swimming slower and lower towards the substrate when they're starting to think about settling.

@taricha definitely looks like a little planular larvae! Here are a few photos of some Tubastraea larvae I collected a while back:

 

[Luckyduck]

Wow that's really cool! I like you thought they only reproduced by budding. I picked up 2 heads about 3 years back and now have 8. They are still on one colony but I can easily split it so I'm going to do that soon. Mine are big fans of the shade. I know they are NPS but mine seem to also only like being under a rock ledge. They Just recently (past 3 months) started to bud more frequently. I feed mine Brightwell Aquatics LPS food. It's a pellet. They love them! I like the pellets because there is no defrosting involved and they are also fortified. Check them out. You have quite the collection there my friend! I might mess around with my lights and see if I can get a moon cycle going. Thanks for the inspiration.

 

[brandon429]

the reason no corals are exclusively budding for reproduction is because that does not diversify the gene pool, corals must eventually have meiosis and genetic mixing during sexual reproduction to stay alive, fit, and withstanding insults and have a chance to deal with deleterious mutations.

creating buds is by mitosis/replicates existing dna over and over even when it has bad mutations eventually. it can go on for decades in captivity, but eventually weakens the organism slowly over time / ability to withstand disease



the rate of coral sexual reproduction in reef tanks is rapidly increasing/ wow. quality of feed, care, and hardware.

 

[brandon429]

sidenote yet potentially related:

the rise (and subsequent mighty fast fall=no more otc) of Cipro use in reefing, the need for it, may be explained by us all dealing strictly in sps and lps corals that are on filial generation #1002 of purely mitotic reproduction.

the corals we buy from shops that are clones from other cuttings have weaker environmental stress resistance ability compared to filial generations arising from sexual reproduction.

corals that have maintained naturally-selected heritable strength don't need as much antibiotic life support. this isn't meant to be a cipro bash, it is just a fact in the analysis of reproduction in the corals we keep.


this thread + others like it are signaling that corals are naturally-selecting into our environments at home, not just in nature.

 

[Luckyduck]

the reason no corals are exclusively budding for reproduction is because that does not diversify the gene pool, corals must eventually have meiosis and genetic mixing during sexual reproduction to stay alive, fit, and withstanding insults and have a chance to deal with deleterious mutations.

creating buds is by mitosis/replicates existing dna over and over even when it has bad mutations eventually. it can go on for decades in captivity, but eventually weakens the organism slowly over time / ability to withstand disease



the rate of coral sexual reproduction in reef tanks is rapidly increasing/ wow. quality of feed, care, and hardware.

Well what do ya know? That makes perfect sense. How would an animal evolve if it continually reproduces with the same dna. Good point.

 

[LA Reef Addict]

My happy Dendros!

 

[BigC]

Dendro spawning event!

Very cool! Are they hard to care for? I want to get one for my tank.

 

[LA Reef Addict]

Very cool! Are they hard to care for? I want to get one for my tank.

I spot feed them every single. If I go more than 2 days without feeding them, they get hangry and close up and I have to then add reef roids to the water column for them to open up again. So long story short, they can be very finicky corals imo.