Raising plate coral babies: next steps

[Nexar]

We recently had a plate coral kick the bucket in September due to a kalk mishap, but the skeleton's now teeming with babies - I'd say 50-60+?. On one side, it's like a coral baby boom, with them growing on top of each other (check the pic below). I've got a couple of questions:
1) Should we thin out the ones on top to prevent overcrowding, or just let nature do its thing?
2) If we do remove them, how do we care for these tiny guys - the largest ones are barely twice the size of a pencil eraser.

Thoughts?

Thanks

[darkfuel]

Wouldn't it be something if all corals responded like this after a loss. The coral market would certainly take a hit. As for your questions, I'd recommend carefully clipping the babies off with bone cutters - that should be easy enough. Then, consider mounting them on plugs, giving them room to grow.

[RivieraX]

Wow, I'm really curious about the specifics behind this amazing coral explosion. Can you please share your husbandry practices, like lighting, salt, and additives?

[Vikingo9]

I'd recommend setting up a small, shallow acrylic box with some substrate in the bottom, placing it in the bottom of your tank where the coral is currently located, and then transferring the babies into this setup.

Detaching the babies from the main structure seems like the tricky part - maybe try using a fine pair of tweezers or thin pointed hemostats to carefully break off a small portion of the main structure they're attached to. Alternatively, it's possible they might not need to be detached at all. Hopefully, someone with experience in this area will chime in and offer some guidance.

[Nexar]

I appreciate everyone's input on this. After the plate coral died in late September, I moved the skeleton to the back of the tank, figuring this might happen. We first noticed the "buds" about 30 days later, but weren't sure what they were. About 30 days ago, we were pretty sure they were babies, so we decided to move the skeleton to the frag section of the sump before it got too crowded.

The picture I posted is from its new location in the sump. During the move, about 3-4 of the babies fell off, so I glued them to frag plugs to see how they'd do. I left a couple of tiny ones alone in the sump to compare. The rest, I've decided to leave as is.

I considered darkfuel's bone cutter suggestion, but they're just too small. I tried gently prying one loose with tweezers, but it was pretty attached. I didn't want to risk damaging it, so I'm just going to let nature take its course.

RivieraX asked about our husbandry practices. We have a 280-gallon system with LED lighting, IO salt, and we dose Alk, CA, and sponge power. It's a mixed reef with a variety of corals and a few other critters. I'd love to hear from someone who's had experience with this to see what worked and what didn't.

[lynxfish]

I had a similar experience with a Fungia a few years back. I picked it up from the rescue bin at a local fish store, and it only had a small strip of tissue left. After about three weeks, the tissue receded and disappeared, leaving just the skeleton. I left it in the tank, and about a month later, I noticed tiny buds forming on it. These buds eventually developed into mini plate corals.

I decided to let nature take its course and not intervene. As the buds grew, they'd eventually get too large for their calcium stalks or get knocked off by snails, fish, or invertebrates. When they fell to the bottom of the tank, I'd just turn them over if they landed face down. Initially, I had around 30 of them, which was great for trading - they grew to quarter or half-dollar size pretty quickly. This process went on for almost four years before it stopped. I think the constant breaking off of the buds kept the original skeleton stimulated, as it would initially produce a lot of buds, but over time, it would only produce one or two at a time.

I've got a pic of the skeleton towards the end of the budding process and one showing some of the baby corals.

[Nexar]

Thanks for sharing your experience Somosomo, I really appreciate it. I'm curious, did you ever target feed the babies as they grew? Now that I've relocated the skeleton to the frag section, monitoring them is much easier. I decided to try feeding them Reef Roids this afternoon and I was pleased to see a noticeable feeding response from many of them.

Regarding the picture, I'm assuming the orange one wasn't one of the babies, and you were referring to the smaller ones on the right, correct? By the way, your tank looks amazing.

[vortex9]

This is amazing, love seeing plate corals produce babies like this. Thanks for sharing, good luck with the little ones, hope they all thrive.

[frosty42]

You'll notice that when there are so many babies on one skeleton, they start to become misshaped and fuse together as they grow. It's not yet feasible to try dislodging them, given their current size. However, as they get larger and start competing for space, you can test some of the bigger ones to see if they're ready to be removed. If they are, a gentle lever with a blunt butter knife can help dislodge them - just be careful not to crack them in half. I've had a similar experience with an orange one, and I used to dislodge them to make room for the smaller ones to grow and allow new ones to start developing. Once dislodged, they can look after themselves quite well without needing any special care.

[Nexar]

You'll notice that when there are so many babies on one skeleton, they start to become misshaped and fuse together as they grow. It's not yet feasible to try dislodging them, given their current size. However, as they get larger and start competing for space, you can test some of the bigger ones to see if they're ready to be removed. If they are, a gentle lever with a blunt butter knife can help dislodge them - just be careful not to crack them in half. I've had a similar experience with an orange one, and I used to dislodge them to make room for the smaller ones to grow and allow new ones to start developing. Once dislodged, they can look after themselves quite well without needing any special care.

Thanks for the suggestions, Oceanarium. Appreciate your input.