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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Sunday, November 20, 2011 7:44 PM
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well, within 30 minutes of the last post, I had a father carrying eggs. I was sitting right next to the tank when it happened (and of course was too focused talking to Tal in chat to see it =P) Shortly after the exchange, all of the chasing died down. Things have been pretty calm today. Just like in most of the other cases, the holding fish is sitting about 9" below the main group by himself.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Monday, November 21, 2011 10:47 AM
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Interesting observations, thanks for posting all the details.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 7:10 PM
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Well, as life has it, I am out of town mostly right now, and looks like it will be this way for awhile. So this experiement will really get it's chance to go without my involvement. So far the wife has taken over feeding (and she has no clue what she is doing), but spawnings have continued regularly. I can't give estimates on how many, but when I come home on weekend I have 2-3 holding on any given weekend. I have lost all of my plants in the tank due to overfeeding, which has caused a nitrate spike. Despite this spike, spawns still continue. There is absolutely no hostile behavior I can find when I am home. Everyone is getting along great. The holding males seem to congregate and the females are always back in the group.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Friday, January 6, 2012 9:56 PM
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OK, well to update, as I have been terribly busy. I have had to work out of town for quite a while so I have been relying on the wife to care for the fish, which hasnt gone all that well. But she is trying So to update this, the system this group is attached to had a nitrate spike within a few weeks of being out of town, I mean a massive spike (200+). All the fish stopped spawning. I have been doing very large water changes over several weeks to bring the nitrates back down...getting there...down to about 30ish now. The macro all died off during the spike and some nasty algea took hold. The algea is going away and things are settling down. During this recovery period I had my wife cut the food back substantially. So more or less, the experiement is on pause. During this time, I had one of the group somehow wind up in the intake of the HOB skimmer that is on this tank to help extract the excess food being dumped into this tank. I had been lazy and did not put a cover over the inlet, but somehow it looks like one got stuck and died as a result. Problem is now corrected. Lesson learned. So everything is on pause until all is recovered and we can resume normal feeding.
<message edited by Caesra on Saturday, January 21, 2012 9:21 PM>
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Friday, January 6, 2012 10:03 PM
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sorry for the loss. hope everything else bounces back fast for you.
RLTW 180 Gallon Mixed Reef Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Thursday, February 9, 2012 9:00 PM
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Tank is in alot better condition now. Macro is reestablishing and other fish in the system are spawning again. so hopefully just a matter of time before these guys are back on the road so we can see how well this little experiment goes.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Sunday, February 12, 2012 6:51 PM
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Well, finally had another spawn in this tank. The other pairs in the system took off about a month ago, and now these guys are resuming. Appears to be just one carrying at the moment, although it looks like another female is starting to develop eggs.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 7:02 AM
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hi loving this project, i have a 400ltr sump, and thinking i could use it in a simular way are you having any aggression problems or are they just sorting it out themselves with out injury or loss, do you plan to raise the babies or is this just a reaserch project? if so what would you be planning to do with the little ones seperate them as soon as realesed? sorry for the questions but as said its a very interesting project
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Saturday, April 21, 2012 10:51 PM
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I am actually just letting nature take its course. So far, none of the juvies growing to adult have carried, but I am hopeful I have my first. 21+ days at the moment. So looks like I will get my first batch hatched in this tank. Not sure how well they babies will fair, but I am hopeful. Agression has been a non-issue. The only aggresion I observe is during spawn. The males tend to hide about 2 feet from the group and tend to maintain that, even if needing to go behind rockwork to maintain it. Pretty consistent with what I have observed over time. I will say I am gone about 4 days a week, but that still leaves me 3 days to observe and the behavior is consistent. Zero aggression towards the males holding.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Sunday, May 6, 2012 12:11 AM
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Currently 3 carrying, still do have yet to observe any aggression. But I did have one manage to jump (so maybe some aggression at some point). I have never covered my bang tanks...but they are covered now. Female carrying jumped. Very sad.... I have not had large success gettign the macro to grow in this tank, assumably to the depth. This weekend I set the MHs to turn on for 5 hours a day to try to get some pentration in the water column. Time is set for 5 hours. 5 new Bangs in QT now, all look to be roughly between 5-8 months. The size ranges. While I normally only purchase 2-3 at a time to help ensure the stock has a decent potential of being from different parents, these were pretty substantially different in size, so the hope is they are from different parents. 4 seem to be doing fine in QT. One is skiddish, and not eating well. So that is not a good sign, as so far when I have found one to completly withdraw from eating, that often means that the next stages of decline for the group is comming. They are one week into QT...so we will see. They will spend a minimum of 8 weeks in QT due to lessons learned with other batches. No Signs of rapid breathing that I see when one has become infected. I also tend to see complete suclusion when a batch is going south, and that is not present yet.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Monday, July 2, 2012 7:22 AM
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Hi Eric, has there been in progress with this shoal? Have you been able to collect any juveniles for grow out?
Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Saturday, July 21, 2012 10:52 PM
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Going to answer your question as part of journal continuation I have not been able to collect juvis. I have not witnessed any juvis yet, but there is no question about if spawning is occuring. From general overservation, I would suggest most batches are not held to term (thinking due to over crowding). I have not had success in getting the foliage to grow dense and the fake plants I tried don't seem to cut it. So I think the two spawns that have released have resulted in being ate. The spawning continues, still usually at least 2 males carrying at any give time. I did notice after the last addition of stock, aggression went up, so I fear that the space I have had become to close for comfort. Still debating moving them out of this tank and into a larger holding tank that is a bit shallower. Was looking at a 600g. I did have two fish (both appear to be female) become ill, have no clue with what and all of my hunting for an answer has not turned up an answer. Those two fish were removed, and QTed and one has died at this point. If anyone has seen this before.... both fish grew very dark, almost black, and showed signs of torn fins. Didn't look like fin rot or anything. When first died thought maybe it was an aggression issue, as I know the color tends to darken with Bangs when under stress, but when the first died, no improvement in color has been seen in the other. Altough the fins appear to be healing. So it is still in the air as far as cause. Of course I will update as time progresses. The surving bang shows no other symptoms. After i removed these two sick fish, the aggression in the tank dropped back down. So I am sitting at 15 in the group and things are a bit better on aggression. I am thinking about removing 2 from the group because I think that will space things out better, and I am female heavy at the moment any way, where I would prefer more males than females. The males generally seem very relaxed in the group, it is usually the females that get all in a huffy. It has been interesting observing, as the shoal behavior is certainly different than couples or small groups. I am planning on moving a couple of my AI Sols down to this tank to solve the macro growth problem, but I probably wont do that until mid winter. So i don't expect alot of progress till then. I need to figure out how to get some stock.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Sunday, July 22, 2012 8:36 AM
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I recently saw a reef tank with juvies in it that were hiding in the tentacles of a Long Tentacle Anemone. Now, LTAs require a lot of light, but maybe that could help you out...? Regarding the disease, if I have a fish that I don't know what it has and it has a high risk of dying (like if one with similar symptoms has already died) then I do a Formalin dip. Formalin darn near cures anything. Just make sure you use an airstone while the fish is in the dip.
<message edited by EasterEggs on Sunday, July 22, 2012 10:36 AM>
Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Saturday, August 11, 2012 11:36 PM
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I have not done a formalin yet, but I almost did after loosing the first one. The second one seems to be slowly recovering. very slowly. I am wondering if liver disease was part of (wild hypothosis for anyone reading)...as i found out my wife was heavily feeding the bangs mysis, which she was not suppose to be doing. We will see what happens as time goes on.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 1:11 AM
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I am going to consider this trial complete. The notion that you cannot keep a group together, I would call bust. I have seen very little aggression, and much like is witnessed in a natural setting, the group keeps a pretty calm order. I will be posting my opinions regarding the last year of effort, but for the time being, I think it is safe to say that groups can be kept, as long as there is enough space, hiding places and they are not introduced as paired adults. two issues I hoped to research with this experiment are: 1) Keeping as group is impossible: I consider this completely bust 2) Babies cannot be raised with adults: I cant comment on this, and I am not sure if I agree that they cannot, but adequate cover needs to be provided if attempted. i was not able (that I am aware of) to allow a batch to be brought to term, so this part of the experiement will have to be retried at some point.
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Re:Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 11:07 PM
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Just providing an additional update for anyone who has been following. I have not had time to pull down this tank, and the spawning has continued to occur. I don't check on them too often, but of course quickly feed 2x a day. Frozen food for all feedings. They spawning is consistent, there is always at least one holding and I never observe any form of aggression. We are still planning on tearing down this tank, but I want to ensure I provide updates for as long as it is up. Water parameters are far from impressive in this system, as this system is still receiving the waste water from the reef. The water comes down in pretty good shape, but the skimming and filtration on this system is sub par, so the nitrates are pretty high. I have not attempted to see if the pairs are holding to term. When we tear down the system I do hope to get the opportunity to work with the individual pairs.
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