Baby plate corals January 2016 update

We lost a plate coral in late September due to a "kalk incident" . After the coral died I moved the skeleton to the back of the tank behind a rock pile so it was out of sight but would still get light since I knew this was a not-too-uncommon outcome and we were hopeful it woud happen. We first noticed the babies after about 30 days but weren't sure if they were babies or something else. Probably about 30 days ago we were 99% sure they were baby coral (Donny has had a similar expeirence and he was confident they were corals when he was at our house). I estimate there are somewhere around 100 of them ranging in size from 2x the size of a pencil eraser to less than 1/2 the size of one. The larger ones are on the side of the skeleton that got more light in the back of the tank.


With the growth of other coral in the tank we decided it would be a good time to get them out before we had to bust other corals to reach them with the tongs (back of a 30" deep tank made tongs the only option for my arms!). So, we removed them 2 day ago. Anyway, in the process of moving them to the frag section of our sump we must have knocked 5-6 of them loose as I found them in the sump. About 1/2 of these I glued to plugs and the other ones I left "loose" in the sump to see if there would be any difference in survival/growth rates. We are letting nature take its course on the other ones until they grow more at least.


I will try to update this post periodically as things progress. Any input from someone who has had this experience would be great.

 

I remember your post. So how did he remove them or did he wait until they dropped off on their own?

 

Update on the baby plates - still have ~100 or so babies on the original one in this post although some have popped off on their own - I have glued them to frag discs so they don't get lost in the sump (none of the ones that were loose when I originally moved the skeleton to the sump have made it). They have grown quite a bit but are still pretty small. The largest aren't even the size of a dime yet.

The orange plate that was also damaged in the kalk incident finally died about 2 months ago and now is also sprouting some babies although not near the number as the green one did - maybe 16 or 17 so far.

 

July update: The green babies are growing pretty fast with the larger ones about the size of a quarter when fully inflated. Several have popped off on their own and they are large enough we are no longer concerned about them getting lost in the sump. We even discovered one in the display tank that had apparently popped off when the skeleton was there and it seems to be doing fine.

The orange ones are also growing nicely but there are only 15 of them (compared to 100+ of the green ones - but not sure if there are still that many as some may have gotten smothered by their siblings on the skeleton).

Pics

 

January update: The plates have grown greatly since July - the larger ones are 2" or so when inflated and many more of the green ones have popped off the skeleton. We removed the orange ones off the skeleton in August and they all seem to do fine in the frag tank.

The green ones look a little curled up in the picture as I had just fed them coral frenzy before the pic and that is their feeding response. Interestingly, there are some tiny ones on the green skeleton that I am not sure if they are that small due to having been crowded out by their larger siblings and are are now visible when they popped off or if the skeleton is still producing babies (I assume the former but if anyone as any insight please chime in).

 

We've sold a few already when folks are out for another reason but haven't actively marketed them at this point.

We also discovered a couple in the display tank that must have fallen off when we removed the skeleton and didn't even know they were there until a few weeks ago. Interestingly, they are two of larger ones now so apparently they are more adept at fending for themselves then we gave them credit for early on.