Stereonephthya babies everywhere!

[ScottK]

I've had this purple Stereonephthya colony for about 7 months now, and I noticed several babies popping up around the tank. They are in the same family as Capnellas, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise, but it's nice that something colorful is making free frags. A few of the babies have settled on small rocks on the substrate, so hopefully I'll have ready-made frags in a few months. :division:

Sorry for the blurry photos of the babies, they're really small.


Here's the mother colony

And here a few of the babies I could get photos of

 

[noelskii]

nice!

 

[jhale]

hey Scott good to see you

that's a nice bonus, your tank must be doing well!

 

[ScottK]

Thanks guys. Yeah, the tank seems to be doing pretty well. I haven't added much recently but things are growing out pretty well.

 

[DevIouS]

:party:

Still got mine!

 

[ScottK]

:party:

Still got mine!

That's awesome. I was wondering how those frags did!

 

[House of Laughter]

nice scott keelness and good luck - hope all is well.

jim

 

[ScottK]

Thanks Jim, things here are good. I was bummed to miss the swap.

Check this out, I've noticed at least two of these in different parts of the tank. I think they're baby sun corals (I have 6 sun coral colonies/frags in my tank). They're really small so this is the best picture I could get. I don't know how sun corals reproduce, but this isn't a hitchhiker since the piece of rock it's on is a piece of rubble I boiled for over an hour about 9 months ago. :scratchch

 

[ScottK]

Here is an update. A few of the babies came and went, and there are some new polyps that I'm watching, but one is doing really well. This is the baby in the third photograph above, taken at a different angle. It's grown quite a bit, and now has several polyps and a stalk. It's also a better photo now that I got a nice DSLR and macro lens :splitspin

 

[Josh]

What are you feeding the tank? Do you target feed at all?

 

[ScottK]

I don't target feed the corals, but I dose 40ml each of Rotifeast and Shellfish Diet (Reef Nutrition products) daily, via an Aqua Medic dosing pump. I also add some other foods to the mix, like oyster eggs, a few times a week. This is a different Stereonephthya than the completely purple one I had back in New York. This one doesn't seem to be photosynthetic at all. The baby in the photo is in a pretty shaded area at the bottom of the tank, so it's not receiving very much light and is still growing.

 

[KathyC]

Nice to see you are getting little ones! Is this your favorite coral Scott?

Yes, the purple one from when you were here..what a day that was! The great race to your place to be the lucky person who got that coral. The things we do to get what we want..lol
I ended up losing mine, but not until after I fragged it to a couple of other folks. One of these days I'm going to see about getting a piece of it back.

More pics please!

 

[ScottK]

Thanks, Kathy. Yes, that was a crazy day!!! I'm sorry you lost your frag but it's good to know there are some others still out there. This is a pretty cool coral. I'll have to take some photos of the parent colony when the lights are on tomorrow. Since I bought the macro lens, I haven't taken too many normal photos of the tank!

Josh, with regards to feeding, I also dose about 1 ml of vodka daily, and I am wondering if it has an impact on feeding some of the non-photosynthetic softies. I had been doing it regularly for months, and stopped for about 3 weeks after I went out of town for a few weeks for work (or shall I say my fiance stopped doing it for me :tongue1. Anyway, I noticed that some of the corals were not looking as full as usually, so I started dosing again, and after working back up to my normal dosing rate, the corals are looking better. I should mention that water quality stayed pretty much the same when I stopped dosing, with nitrates around 10 (normally around 5), so it's not as if a huge change in water quality could have caused the decline in coral health. Anyway, I've been wondering if some of the non-photo softies are feeding off the bacteria fed by the vodka.

 

[Josh]

This one doesn't seem to be photosynthetic at all. The baby in the photo is in a pretty shaded area at the bottom of the tank, so it's not receiving very much light and is still growing.

I was under the impression that they were all non-photosynthetic. On the reef they all come out in the morning to catch their daily meal. They usually hang upside down under rock outcroppings and on the edge of reef walls in high current areas.

Dosing the rotifeast with an automated system is a good idea, I never thought of that before.

What is the shellfish blend?

 

[ScottK]

There are some that are at least partially photosynthetic. Back in New York, I had a bright, solid purple one that was definitely photosynthetic. I think Phil still has a frag of it. I've got another in my tank now that I suspect is also at least partially photosynthetic.

The Shellfish diet is a blend of four cultures, Isochrysis, Pavlova, Thalassiosira weissflogii and Tetraselmis. It contains 9% plankton (dry weight), which is a lot denser than other plankton feeds I've seen. It has the consistency of a thick cup of hot chocolate. I got the idea on the feeder from a TOTM on Reef Central a few years ago: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-02/feature/index.php

 

[DevIouS]

Yea...
The one I have is definitely photosynthetic.
I was gonna mention that the one you have pictured looks a little different than the one I have.