I'm sure you know this but for others; the "tanks" here are university lab near industrial scale plastic 10,000l tanks, not glass walled home aquarium tanks. Same same, but they know what their doing and what complex symbiotic organisms coral are. UQ's Heron Island has table rigs under lighting but on the mainland at JCU and I believe the CSIRO it's pretty massive.
Australian uni Tank farmed corals have spawned in the same lunar phase as reefs for a while I believe, it's getting them to do it more frequently and doing the "IVF" like stuff, and implanting on scaffolding which is hard.
> the "tanks" here are university lab near industrial scale plastic 10,000l tanks
Likely polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), usually called acrylic, and possibly but less likely polyethylene terephthalate (PETE). Both are technically plastic, but plastic often correlates to cheap, and I doubt those tanks are cheap. Also possible but even less likely to be aluminium oxynitride (ALON), which is ceramic not platic, aka transparent aluminum, but I suspect it would be cost-prohibitive.
> ...they know what their doing... I welcome corrections
Another place doing some important research is KAUST above Jeddah on the Red Sea. They are working with one of the Barrier Reef photogrammetry capture programs to monitor coral and doing replacement testing etc due to higher average water temps so a coral evolved to withstand Red Sea summer might be a fit for the more recently hotter QLD water. I hope something like this works one of the most amazing things I have ever seen was a spawning event years ago. Coral is the canary in the coal mine of Climate Change and if we can't help them adapt then I am afraid we might not be able to either.
AIMS are the main org I know of that are doing lab-based synchronised spawning in Australia, and more interestingly IMO spawning/survivorship under future conditions. SeaSim is fairly well known here and tends to get national media attention around the annual mass coral spawning event (expected early next month).
Australian uni Tank farmed corals have spawned in the same lunar phase as reefs for a while I believe, it's getting them to do it more frequently and doing the "IVF" like stuff, and implanting on scaffolding which is hard.
Not a coral scientist. I welcome corrections