female BTA spawning?

[jimmyj7090]

hi,

Anybody seen a female BTA spawn before?

Mine is releasing hundreds of tiny brown/green balls. They can be seen in the tentacles and in the body but it's not clear to me how they are coming out. Is this spawning? Is it uncommon to see this?

[Anemone]

YEs, it sounds like that. Eggs were released through the mouths of my BTAs...basically ejected in groups with a mucous-like connective tissue the quickly separates...

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/512/1075Anemone_Eggs.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/512/1075Eggs1.jpg

Kevin

[dellrio]

i thought these things split? why release eggs?

[jimmyj7090]

BTA's can reproduce both sexually and asexually. As far as I know successful sexual reproduction in captivity is quite uncommon to almost unheard of. "the reef aquarium vol 2" by sprung and delbeek has pictures of spawned baby bta's but I'm unclear on how common this is. BTA's splitting in captivity is common.

I'm wondering if individual BTA's are prone to either sexual or asexual reproduction, or if the means of reproduction is related to the environment?

Has anyone seen the same BTA spawn and split over time, or have people only seen individual anemones do one or another?

[Anemone]

Mine have done both, as have Sanjay Joshi's....

FWIW,
Kevin

[catdoc]

Anyone have pics of the baby bta's? I found something this afternoon that I can't identify and I'm wondering if that's what they are.

I have a 10 gallon tank separate from my reef where I'm rearing some baby banggai. The tank was set-up using 2 pieces of live rock from my sump and water from my reef tank. BTW, the rearing tank is barebottom with a sponge-filter/bubbler. I've been away for a week and when I got home, I found 3 tiny little anemone-like organisms on one of the pieces of live rock. In my reef, I do have several rose btas. I don't see any of these little "anemones" in my reef tank, just in the baby banggai tank.

Whatcha think they are?? If they are baby bta's I probably need to get them into a tank with appropriate lighting, although they're probably feeding well on the baby brine shrimp at the moment.

[Anemone]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12106832#post12106832 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by catdoc
Anyone have pics of the baby bta's? I found something this afternoon that I can't identify and I'm wondering if that's what they are.


To my knowledge, no one has had babies succesfully settle out. Waikiki aquarium has theirs spawn regularly, but they haven't reported any success in rearing the young.

Kevin

[garygb]

Yeah, my RBTA's have spawned many times and they are all clones of the original. Mine are males.

[catdoc]

I moved the rock the anemones were on so I could see them better. I'm pretty sure they are Corynactis (is that spelled right??)--the little strawberry anemones. Funny how they've apparently been in my system for years and I'm just now seeing them. I haven't added rock for 2 years and these particular pieces have been in my dark sump for most of that time.

[tgfrench]

My male rbta has spawned during the first couple of weeks in April for the last 3 yrs. It has split around Christmas for the last 2 yrs.

[jimmyj7090]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=2288079#post2288079 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jimmyj7090
BTA's can reproduce both sexually and asexually. As far as I know successful sexual reproduction in captivity is quite uncommon to almost unheard of. "the reef aquarium vol 2" by sprung and delbeek has pictures of spawned baby bta's but I'm unclear on how common this is. BTA's splitting in captivity is common.

I'm wondering if individual BTA's are prone to either sexual or asexual reproduction, or if the means of reproduction is related to the environment?

Has anyone seen the same BTA spawn and split over time, or have people only seen individual anemones do one or another?


wow, 4 yr old thread.

Anyway I can answer my own question now, that RBTA has now split into about 15. No more eggs since that one incident.