Monsoon Aquatics, spawning Euphyllia paraancora VIDEO

Monsoon Aquatics from Darwin Australia posted these amazing videos to their Facebook Page of spawning Euphyllia paraancora. The videos clearly show egg bundles accumulating in the hammer shaped tentacles before being released through the polyps central mouth.

At least 30 colonies of all different color varieties started spawning on April 27th follow by a second spawning event on April 28th. Within 20 minutes 200 pieces of branching hammer coral started releasing eggs causing a chain reaction of coral spawning.

The gamete release happened at the same time both days, when the temperature was at its warmest. Monsoon also reported that certain individual colonies also started releasing sperm, and that there were even a few colonies releasing both sperm and eggs.

Some of these colonies were moved into holding tank to promote fertilizations, and we will see in the days to come if spawning fertilization was successful. It could be weeks before newly settled polyps are visible but this is nonetheless a very exciting observation on the spawning of branching hammer coral.

Ok so the moment we have been waiting for, our Euphyllia paraancora released this afternoon. At least 30 colonies of all different colour varieties, ripe and ready decided today was the day. Fingers crossed we have plenty of healthy happy settlement. Looks like the will be more tomorrow. Woohoo!
Posted by Monsoon Aquatics on Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Ok folks, here is another video of todays event. Todays release happened at the same time as yesterday when the days temp was at its hottest. A few started showing they were ready so we harvested from these and then within about 20 minutes almost 200 pieces of paraancora started releasing in a chain reaction. On top of all this, certain individual colonies also started releasing sperm into the water which was a surprise. So we moved some of these into the holding tanks to take advantage of this and to make sure there was optimum fertilisation. There was even a few colonies doing both, releasing bundle and sperm which was really interesting. Awesome!
Posted by Monsoon Aquatics on Thursday, April 28, 2016

Nicole Helgason

Nicole Helgason is a professional scuba diver and can often be found photographing corals and sharing her passion about coral reefs around the world. Nicole is Reef Builders Event Manager and is responsible for running ReefStock shows in Denver and Sydney. Nicole is also a manager for Reef Builders social media accounts and a weekly contributor to the Reef Builders site. Nicole has a Bachelors degree in Coastal Geography from the University of Victoria, and is originally from Vancouver Canada.