I caught an acan larva tonight!

["Umm, fish?"]

One of my colonies had a spawning event tonight and I think I managed to catch a larva. Here's a pic:



and:



Now I'm just hoping it'll settle! Woohoo!

[jasper24]

Huh? That looks like a snail to me. I do not think that Acans spawn.

["Umm, fish?"]

Where do baby acans come from? Storks?

Seriously, though, there are multiple species of acans. Multiple species come from genetic variability. Genetic variability comes from sex. Therefore, acans have sex. And from what I can tell, the one I have is a hermaphroditic brooder.

Picture of a coral larvae about halfway down the page ("Close up of coral larvae"):

http://www.abc.net.au/science/coral/silent3.htm

Sorry, I was excited last night and didn't do the whole build-up. I have to get back to work now, but I'll post more pictures and fill in the gaps later today when I get some time.

[Hormigaquatica]

Congrats! I have been following your endless spawning stories on another forum... good stuff :-D Hope you can get it to settle for you.

[musty baby]

I've got a spawning story or two.

[jasper24]

I thought I saw one of my Non Indos smoking a Marlboro the other day. I knew it had been up to something! You learn something new every day.

["Umm, fish?"]

... and that fish I caught the other day was at least twenty pounds. If only I could've landed it.

Hormigaquatica-- Ah, that forum that shall not be named.

I have a few minutes while I'm waiting for an editor, so here we go.

A while back (a couple of months now? a little longer? The computer is giving the date of the first photos as Oct. 1.) I noticed some weird structures starting to form on the tentacles of my acan colony. (The guy who gave it to me told me it was a lord. ***Shrug*** I've never examined the skeleton, so who knows.)

Here is the first colony I noticed:







And here is a genetically identical colony (it grew up from some tissue left behind on some live rock). This is the colony that spawned again last night. You can see that the structures are identical there, too.

[racerw]

Interesting

["Umm, fish?"]

Notice how the structures are very regular. They occur in the oldest members of the colony and always occur where the stripes are. After these structures started forming, I also noticed that the stripes now continue down past these structures, the tentacles they are forming behind, and on down towards the oral disk.

More photos:





This one is on a younger member of the colony:

["Umm, fish?"]

On October 19 (again according to the date stamp on the photo), I witnessed the weirdest damn thing. The oral disk on every polyp on the colonies that had these structure had swollen up almost to the ring of tentacles. Then I started seeing them release these little, motile creatures. I did not have a microscope then, but I did have a Mesoscope so I did see these guys pretty clearly. Unfortunately, my camera only goes to 1:1 and not the ~4x magnification that the Mesoscope has. And yes, they were coming _out_ of the mouths.

More photos:











As I said, these guys are motile (they moved in different directions at once, not with the current). They are negatively bouyant, so they all hung around on the oral disk until a current took them away. That's why most of the shots are of the one polyp. It was the easiest to see into and somewhat sheltered from the current, so the little guys lasted longer in there.

["Umm, fish?"]

By the way, the colors are all funky in those photos because I had pushed the contrast and whatnot way up to help see the little things.

["Umm, fish?"]

Since that time, I have witnessed two more spawnings on the big colony. They only happened with the very oldest polyps, though, and the last spawning on that colony was only 1 polyp.

I've also witnessed one more spawning on the smaller colony, which was last night and is where the little guy in the picture above came from. I was able to collect it because the larvae are negatively bouyant. When I saw the release, I pulled out a suction feeder (okay, one of those Kent turkey basters) and sucked on the mother's oral disk. I squirted it out into a specimen container. I now have a trinocular dissecting microscope and that is where the photo above came from. The photo is at 3.3x magnification, plus the added magnification that Canon sensors give you, and it's blown up a bit.

I started shooting RAW somewhere in the middle of this process for the extra bits if anyone would like to see the RAW files that I have.

I forgot to mention above that after the spawns, the polyps that released larvae will spend the rest of the day with tentacles retracted, only coming out to feed again later the next evening. I don't know if it is important, but it probably should be said.

Thanks!

["Umm, fish?"]

Oh, I have just recently noticed these structures starting to form on another colony:

[racerw]

Nice photos & again very interesting!!!!

["Umm, fish?"]

Thanks! Gotta love those Delta skimmers!

[divecj5]

Wow....that is incredibly interesting. I think I remember you posting some of those budding pics before but the others are incredible. Amazing photography and great information. You must have one heck of a healthy tank going

Congrats.

["Umm, fish?"]

Well, shucks. Thanks! I don't know if it's healthy or not, but I sure feed those acans a lot. Hopefully I can get that little sucker to settle and then I can post some really cool pictures. I've kind of lost him at the moment. I added some small rock chips to his specimen dish to give him something to settle onto.

I meant Deltec in the post above. Sorry. I don't think the airplane company is making skimmers, yet.

Nice avatar, divecj5!

[divecj5]

Awesome...what do you feed your acans...the usual mysis?

Keep us updated on whether it attaches or not.

Gotta love Homer

["Umm, fish?"]

I used to do the mysis thing, but my tank has really turned into a heavy feeding tank (I like tubastreas, too) so I've been feeding smaller stuff and really filling the water (and doing lots of water changes). I think I get better polyp and tentacular extension, too, when I make everything work for their meals (even on the acros). I do make up a heavily blenderized goo on occasion and I will spray that directly on the colonies.

Besides, hand feeding each individual is such a pain in the ***.

["Umm, fish?"]

I'm still waiting on the kind words of the expert, but I hope this is it starting to settle.

["Umm, fish?"]

No dice. But I'm still looking....

[Justin74]

Soo cool! Thanks for sharing!

-Justin

["Umm, fish?"]

Thanks Justin!

News to report: Another multi-polyp spawn tonight, at least 4-6 polyps. Same MO as per usual--the area under the mouth swells up, the tentacles pull in, no tentacle response to food in the tank all evening. I saw a few of the larvae moving around but it was either a release of only a very few larvae or I missed the main show. I tried to grab some but I have yet to see them through the microscope, so I may have missed.

Thanks!

[smp]

I'de love to see a full tank shot
You must have a really healthy tank indeed, this is very interesting.

["Umm, fish?"]

Well, I don't know about healthy with as much as I feed. Let me look. I took some a couple of months or so ago.