coral spawned

tfp · #1 05/06/2007, 01:50 AM

well i was watchin the tank with the moonlights on at 11:30p tonight and noticed all my blue eyed cardinals were dashing around eating stuff. way more active than usual.

so i saw a bunch of small round things floating around and to my surprise found my paletta baby blue colony doing this...

it was launching a ton of them and i thought it was pretty cool

. the reef was sorta feeding itself for a change

duec22 · #2 05/06/2007, 02:07 AM

that is awesome Tim...

jwre · #3 05/06/2007, 02:31 AM

Nice pix !

Is your skimmer not overflowing ?

MrMikeB · #4 05/06/2007, 03:12 AM

WOW, this is simply amazing! I wonder why the fish would eat coral spawns - does not seem to me that they would find it tasty? Has this ever happened to you before? How old is the paletta?

dots · #5 05/06/2007, 03:18 AM

Excellent presentation......you can really see what going on there.

I was doing the same thing tonight and noticed some free swimming "bugs" of some sort looking like mosquito larvae swimming near the top right after I was feeding. I think they are mature tigger pods from the two bottles I threw in a few months ago.....

cwegescheide · #6 05/06/2007, 08:47 AM

How cool is that!!!

Marko9 · #7 05/06/2007, 09:21 AM

Cool Stuff Tim. Maybe your PL will spawn tonight and you will have Tim's Baby blue lemonade

xia · #8 05/06/2007, 09:38 AM

Totally awesome Tim. You see, all that hard work is paying off. Not to steal your thunder, but in my early days of reefing, I actually had a brown digi spawn too, in a 10 gallon nano with 110w of PC's.

I tried to capture it on video but my camera was just too cheap, but it was just like you said, little round things almost like bubbles coming from the polyps. My fish didn't seem to care though. It also happened when my lights were on, and I didn't have any moonlights.

Thinking back that must have been a good setup for me, since I also saw my mushrooms spawn too. Their spawning was more like puffs of smoke from a train engine or volcano.

Yeah, those were the days when I was constantly watching the tank though. I wonder if now and days, we just "miss it" in our big tanks. Ahh, the good old days of newbie reefing

Dwarf Seahorses · #9 05/06/2007, 12:39 PM

I just saw a show on TV yesterday about the Great Barrier Reef and it had a segment on mass coral spawning. They said it occurs at night, with low flow, and when the temperature is at or above 81 degrees. All the fish were eating the little rounds things like crazy on TV.

MCsaxmaster · #10 05/06/2007, 12:55 PM

Congratulations!!!

Seeing corals spawn (especially a mass spawning in nature) is one of the greatest joys of working with them.

cj

MrMikeB · #11 05/06/2007, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dwarf Seahorses
I just saw a show on TV yesterday about the Great Barrier Reef and it had a segment on mass coral spawning. They said it occurs at night, with low flow, and when the temperature is at or above 81 degrees. All the fish were eating the little rounds things like crazy on TV.

Did you happen to catch the name of that program. This is very cool stuff!

Dwarf Seahorses · #12 05/06/2007, 02:11 PM

I forget the name but it was something like "dangers of the great barrier reef" where it was documenting how much danger the reef is in through events like global warming, mass crown-of-thorns starfish breakouts, major bleaching events, etc. It was on the national geographic channel I believe (I think).

Sorry don't remember much of it!

wentreefgirl · #13 05/06/2007, 06:54 PM

The only thing ive seen spawn is my turbo snails.

How awsome for you though.

tfp · #14 05/06/2007, 08:36 PM

thanks for the comments everyone. it really was exciting and them blue-eyed cardinals were VERY happy

.

during the spawn, which probably didn't take more than 30minutes, the tank definitely had a unique smell to it. hard to describe though.

i wanted to turn on the vhos for better pics but just used ambient room lighting instead. didn't want to interupt the process too much

.

yep, my skimmer is full today

. i've had that particular coral since 9/03 and its been cut back considerably. but i do think it has spawned before as i've seen the same activity and smelled that particular odor. now i know what to look for next time

.

Stoney Mahony · #15 05/07/2007, 07:38 AM

Awsome post and pics! LOVE the Dobe! Sorry for the loss

Dobes are the best!

gasman059 · #16 05/07/2007, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tfp
thanks for the comments everyone. it really was exciting and them blue-eyed cardinals were VERY happy .

during the spawn, which probably didn't take more than 30minutes, the tank definitely had a unique smell to it. hard to describe though.

i wanted to turn on the vhos for better pics but just used ambient room lighting instead. didn't want to interupt the process too much .

yep, my skimmer is full today . i've had that particular coral since 9/03 and its been cut back considerably. but i do think it has spawned before as i've seen the same activity and smelled that particular odor. now i know what to look for next time .

Be aware that u really need to keep a close eye on your system( next several days), May even need to do a water change!
So many nutruents with possibly inadequate skimming can cause some issues, it's happened in the past. (This is a great experience in the hobby- but can also be very very harmful to an enclosed reef such as the ones we run)
GREAT JOB!

tfp · #17 05/07/2007, 04:47 PM

gasman, good call on the water change! i was contemplating one but it makes sense on our closed systems.

stoney, its been less than 2 weeks since that dreadful day. definitely one of the worst days of my life

. he was our first born son and prepped us for parenting. before kids, we got him certified in obedience and agility and took him everywhere. he was so much fun, athletic, friendly and a great protector.