melev
Spawning event
by
, 05-16-2010 at 01:07 AM (6397 Views)
As I shared recently, I decided to treat my reef for Cyano with Chemi-Clean. It's been about 48 hours so far. To do so, I had to shut down the skimmer for 72 hours, and take the carbon reactor offline as well. That way the meds aren't taken out of the water too soon, which kill the cyano bacteria.
Whilst this is going on, I noticed on Saturday morning that the tank was a little cloudy or hazy. Looking at one of the Bubble Tip Anemones (BTA), it looked like it had been spawning. Not a big deal. The haze was light; the anemone had pumped out its smokey sperm into the system. Still, with no filtration running, the only thing that would take it out would be filter feeders.
Saturday evening, I broke down my calcium reactor and set it back up with new media. This pumped some dust from the media into the return section, which would make the system cloudy again for a little while. With the reactor running rather spotty lately, I figured the boost of calcium drifting through would only help.
Another hour later, the tank seemed even more cloudy. This was unexpected because the dust should have settled out. So I looked at the anemones again, and all three of them were spawning into the reef. The tank's moonlights were the only light, but I couldn't see in much more than 10" into the display. This picture is a little misleading. It wasn't as clear as my Nkon indicates.
Some fish were unsettled and took cover. Others swam about. Here are two of the Gudgeon Gobies, possibly snacking on the stuff.
And here are those BTAs. Look at the mouth, which is pursed and poking out.
With the flash
What to do? No skimming, no filter floss, no filter socks, and another day of meds still running to kill the cyano.
I went up to the front tank to see what was going on. Its light had turned off 3 hours earlier, so I flipped on the ceiling light switch. As soon as I saw this, I ran for the camera because I knew this was a truly unique experience that would not soon be repeated.
I was so excited, just trying to wrap my brain around what was happening. In the main reef, three bubble tips were spawning sperm into the water. The 20g angled tank is plumbed into the same system, and the Rose BTA responded in turn with a massive clutch of eggs!!!
Everyone always states how huge this anemone is, but look at it now:
The egg cluster snagged on a Gorgonian branch, and the flow in the tank was slowly breaking it up into the system. I watched in fascination, wondering if anyone had ever raised anemones from sperm and eggs. I can't think of anyone at the moment, but surely some have done so by now, right?
The entire time I'm taking pictures and trying to shoot video, in the background I'm hearing the soundtrack from the Discovery Channel's show Life. It was like my reef's event had a commentator documenting it for the future.
My reef is a cloudy mess. The oxygen level must surely be taking a hit, although the ORP hasn't dropped significantly. Since the skimmer is offline, I decided to drop in a huge airstone into the reef hooked up to a good-sized air pump to push oxygen into the water for the night. Normally, ORP drops down to about 316 or so. It's at 279 at the moment.
I just mixed up 55g of saltwater this evening for the upcoming water change. I'm currently trying to decide if I need to act now or leave things be. The corals are definitely feasting on the anemone's exchanges, and the fish have retreated for the night.
Here's a simple video taken tonight.
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