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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, April 5, 2013 9:13 AM
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Day after my last entry, on Aug 2 there were 4 larvae. Then those four larvae dwindled to one on Apr 3. Last night I had another hatch, a big one! I think there must be 100 larvae. I removed the egg mass from the tube at 5pm and put it in the specimen container, and hung the specimen container inside the larval rearing tank. I put the Aqualifter pump output in the specimen container, gently flowing out towards the egg mass, with the water trickling down the side of the specimen container and into the rearing tank. I shut the lights on the tank out at the usual broodstock tank time. I guess either lack of flow of leaving the lights on all night was the problem with the last hatch, where only about 10 of the eggs hatched. I ended up hatching the eggs out in the tank with the single larva from my last hatch since there was only a single larva in there. Didn't seem worth it to set up a new tank yet for this new batch. The sole survivor from the last hatch is still kicking, he's about 50-60% larger than the other larvae, and darker. I'll get some photos of this latest hatch and I have some photos of the rearing tank and cultures that I need to get posted up.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, April 5, 2013 9:22 AM
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It all starts with just one! Good job!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, April 5, 2013 4:25 PM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, April 5, 2013 4:42 PM
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Another installment in the "Poorly Filmed Videos, by Joel" series. Fresh batch of dottyback larvae, 4/5/13. Best hatch yet (by far!). 1dph.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Monday, April 8, 2013 9:25 AM
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Finally "caught them in the act" yesterday. 5pm, both were in the tube, no eggs yet. But this morning there was a fresh egg mass in there. So they're definitely spawning in the evening, as suspected, but now confirmed. It's a bit unnerving when they are in that tube together because there's absolutely no sign of them in the tank- it makes me panic a little. Need to shine a flashlight in the tube to see them. The female was all the way back against the endcap in a U-shape with her head against one side of the pipe and her tail against the other side of the pipe and her body pressed against the endcap.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Thursday, April 11, 2013 3:55 PM
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Got a new batch of eggs hatching tonight! On the downside, had a rotifer crash yesterday. At siphoning time last evening I noticed they weren't very dense in numbers and today it looks to be toasted. Ordered up another culture today. Started hatching some NHBBS shrimp last night. Since the hatch, the only dead larvae I saw were the morning after- there were about a half dozen. Since then I haven't had more than a death or two that I have seen. However, after a really skimpy feeding last night, I found about a half dozen dead this morning and about another half dozen dead at lunch. This is either a big turning point in their transformation, or due to starvation. Starvation seems to be the likely culprit in this case. My routine thus far was to siphon off 1/3 of the rotifers from two 5g buckets every two days thru a coffee filter and add those to the rearing tank. It was a LOT of rotifers. Every day, 2x per day, I add about a dozen drops of RGComplete and .5ml of Prime water conditioner to the rearing tank. Seemed to be working very well until the rotifer crash. I went to my LFS looking for frozen rots. They had them, but my top-notch LFS guy suggested "Rotifeast" instead. Said someone locally uses it instead of live rotifers for rearing clownfish larvae, and the frozen rots "explode" after freezing so they aren't as good. So I gave it a shot on my lunch break and it seemed like they were taking to it well, in that their guts were getting filled up with "white". I'll know for sure when I check them again later based on their guts. I'm also wondering if the rots will stay suspended in the water. I can't believe it's only been 7 days.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, April 12, 2013 9:22 AM
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When I checked the tank in the evening it was pretty obvious it was in decline. The water was also getting pretty cloudy, prob due in some part the uneaten RGComplete that I had added prior to the thin batch of rots- I need to add rots and then add RGComplete accordingly. So, I did a water change, siphoned off about 4g of the 5g and set a drip to replenish the water. This morning it looked like 4-5 larvae still alive. Amazing all that can happen in a day... Fresh hatch last night wasn't high yielding. A rather large egg mass but only about maybe 30-40 larvae. Not sure what the difference was between this batch and the last. There was more ambient lighting after lights out (from the other larval tank), and maybe that was a factor. No rotifers in the bucket until the shipment arrives later today. I'm almost thinking as an experiment that I might see how many days I can get them to on RotiFeast alone, or at least until I run out of RotiFeast which probably won't be too long from now. Despite the potential convenience, the stuff is pricey and unfortunately doesn't reproduce itself after purchasing
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Sunday, April 14, 2013 12:06 PM
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On the morning of Fri Apr 12 I added the Rotifeast, by that evening the tank was totally cloudy. I think they were eating it but the tank couldnt handle the extra load. My BBS hatching attempt didn't appear to hatch. But I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. It didn't really look any different after 24 hours then it did originally. I kept the temp at 80 by submerging in broodstock tank water and kept an LED light on them. Wish I had a microscope. Apr 12 evening I transferred the remaining 2 larvae from the 4/4 hatch into the tank with newly hatched 4/11 batch. New rotifers arrived and I set up 3-5g pail cultures. On Sat 4/13, the larval tank with new and old batches was very cloudy from he Rotifeast so I did a 4/5g water change and siphoned the tank bottom. There were still the two larvae from the 4/4 hatch. I added an Aqualifter pump (3.5g/hr) with a sponge filter on the end at the dark end of the tank, flowing into a hanging specimen container with some activated carbon in it, and dripping back down into the tank, to try and combat some of the cloudiness. With the new rotifer culture, I discovered that even tho the room temp was 73 degrees, the unheated 5g pails of rotifers were at about 68 degrees, presumably from the evap cooling of the airstone. Too cold! Maybe this is what killed the last culture, in addition to too heavy of feedings? I put loosely fitting lids on the buckets and the temp went into the low 70's. I added heaters to 2 of the three cultures to bring the temp to 77 degrees. I'll compare unheated to heated cultures to see if one is more productive than the other. On Sun 4/14 there was only one larva left from the 4/4 hatch. The cloudy water had cleared a fair amount from the carbon filter I set up and the prior days water change. I saw two dead larvae from the 4/11 hatch. In the last batch I kept the light very subdued and indirectly lighting the tank 24x7. With this batch I've got the light directly over the tank. It's easier to observe them and they stay in the vicinity of the light (away from my mini-filter) and seem to be OK.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Monday, April 15, 2013 12:59 PM
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Alas, the last larva from the 4/4 hatch died at 11 days. New egg ball this morning. Out with the old, in with the new...
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Monday, April 15, 2013 1:20 PM
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Keep it up, Joel. I'm having somewhat similar (lack of) success with my P. cyanotaneia. I'll be updating my journal on them soon, so you might want to follow along, while I'll be watching your journal on these, as well.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Monday, April 15, 2013 1:34 PM
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Originally Posted by
I'll be updating my journal on them soon, so you might want to follow along, while I'll be watching your journal on these, as well. For sure. I've been making my way through your journal but falling a little behind so I need to get caught up. Hopefully I(/we) are close to success about the time that the juvy pair of Pseudochromis elongatus that I just got start spawning
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, April 19, 2013 1:14 PM
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There are about 20 fry kicking from the 4/11 hatch, which wasn't a very impressive hatch to begin with. On Wed evening 4/17 I fed a number of NHBBS for the first time to these 6 day old fry. Added a few more on the morning of 4/18. About 70% of the fry ate them, about 30% did not. You could tell by the color of their stomach. It didn't appear to be size related either- some small fry ate the BBS and some did not, and some large fry ate them and some did not. I think some fish were just lacking the confidence to eat the new food item. I'd see some of the fry that had not eaten any poised for a "strike" with bent tails, circling the food, but then after a few seconds they'd give up. There are an excess of 2 day old brine shrimp in there now and I think tonight I'll do a large water change. Last night I had a new hatch, the biggest yet! Maybe 150? Maybe more... It's hard to tell really, but easily over 100. I built a tumbler out of a 2L soda bottle. The bottle was submerged in a 10g tank, half full of water from the broodstock tank. Water was pumped through a hole in the capped end of the 2L bottle via Aqualifter pump, with the input to the pump at the opposite end of the tank, covered by a piece of sponge filter. The eggs were removed at approximately 5:30-6pm, and placed in the tumbler, under a clip-on style fluorescent bulb (turned on, of course). Around 7:30 the eggs began hatching, slowly at first and then a steady stream. By 8:30 they were coming out fast and semi-furious. It was the first time I'd been present for most of the hatching. I had a bad hatch a couple hatches ago and suspected either too low a flow or that they didn't like the lights being on all night. With this hatch, I've ruled out the lighting as an issue. The lighting from the "bad" hatch was much dimmer- maybe they like bright lighting, or none at all? The last hatch had no lighting, and it was only mediocre. The ball ceased tumbling after maybe 10 minutes and was "stuck" in the neck of the 2L bottle. Babies would get blasted up and out of the 2L tumbler. In the absence of "dad" moving the eggs around I think they liked the steady but gentle flow of the water to help them out of their eggs. About 4-5 times I shot a jet of water down on the eggs from a baster, to get them tumbling again, but the eggs would eventually settle back down in the neck and stick in there again. I think the "basting" may only have helped the hatched fry that were trapped underneath the egg mass.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Sunday, April 21, 2013 6:36 PM
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Pair is getting ready to spawn tonight. The female was REALLY beat up, like I've never seen her before. Scales missing, tattered fins. I hope all goes well. Not sure what changed. I've been trying to raise the salinity a little the past week but I didn't think to measure it. Still about 20ish fry from 4/11 hatch, making them 10 days today. Been saying I needed to take some new camera footage, keep forgetting the camera... finally remembered it tonight, and the batttery died after a minute or two. grr! I did notice that there have been an increasing number of fry from 4/11 hanging out at the dark end of the tank, which seems odd. First there were one or two, then a day later three or four, and now there's about 5-6 that like to hang out in the darker end. Maybe they don't like the lights on 24x7? Who knows. Maybe it's just because it's less crowded.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Sunday, April 21, 2013 7:13 PM
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I've heard that Neons and other dottybacks can go off like that. It happened with my P. tonozukai pair. They were fine for a while (spawning) and then the male started getting really cranky to the point he killed the female. You should try separating them between spawns if the aggression continues.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 11:28 AM
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Thanks for the advice, Fishtal. I will keep an eye on them for now. They did act similarly, altho not quite as aggressive, early in their first spawnings. The aggression seems to have subsided a bit. They did not make a new egg mass. Kind of bummed- I liked the nice predictable 7 day schedule. When I said that nothing had changed I don't know what I was thinking... I forgot to mention that my skimmer pump died last week! Getting a replacement in two days. Maybe there's a deterioration in water quality making the female not want to spawn, which is making the male aggressive? Seems likely. In any case, I can't handle a new batch of fry at this point. I'm really struggling to keep any sort of density of rotifers in the tanks. The cultures are fine but there are too many fry. I've started feeding brine shrimp and a small amount of rotifers in the mornings and then a large helping of rotifers in the evening. By morning most everything is eaten. I'm letting the current brine shrimp go past the "newly hatched" phase, and supplementing them with AminOmega and RGComplete. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad idea, but as long as the fry continue to eat them I'll consider it OK. Later tonight I'm going to try some 'tigger pods', which I think are about twice as big as BBS, but if they'll eat them and I can get a culture going it might be a good new food source. I'm worried about feeding too much brine shrimp. If that doesn't work out I'll probably just double the number of rotifer cultures I have going, which is kind of a pain to have to deal with daily.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Sunday, April 28, 2013 6:42 PM
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I found an egg ball in the tank so at least these guys are spawning again. Been a busy week so I'm not sure when it was laid. Aggression levels are back to normal. Phew. The hatch from 4/18 has been getting second-class treatment over the past week. There was a lot of die-off due to underfeeding and water quality, but I did finally get in a water change and got the feeding back on track. There's probably about 40 larvae remaining. The hatch from 4/11 is holding steady. I counted 10 larvae today. It's day 17... hang in there little larvae... There are a couple that are really tiny, like they haven't grown since the first week, but they seem healthy so maybe they are just runty. One thing I've seen with the 4/11 hatch is some behavior where I thought a fish or two was "short circuiting"- they would dart around the top until they ran into the tank wall, sometimes flipping upside down. I've removed a few of these preemptively. But, as I observe them more and more, this seems like normal occasional behavior, maybe when they are hungriest? They zoom around the top crazy-style for a while, sometimes a long while, then they go back to normal. I wish I had back the ones I removed. Also, as the fish age, they spend less and less time under the light. It seems like most of the time they prefer to hang out in the dark end of the tank. There's usually only one or two or three under the light and the rest are down in the dark end. Other than that, not much new to report. Siphon rotifers, hatch brine shrimp, water change, watch, wait, repeat...
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, May 3, 2013 9:27 AM
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I mentioned a while back I was thinking of starting a tigger pod culture for feeding. In retrospect, bad idea. I was checking out some tigger pods the other day and they are way too big. Not sure what I was thinking. Started feeding some TDO-A. I think they're trying it a little. Still have some rotifers in the tank but I'm not sure if it's necessary any more, I may phase that out. Feeding TDO-A in the morning and a few BBS and then BBS at night. Down to 6 (maybe 7) larvae, day 22. Got some good video of day 19 that I need to get posted up (which I keep saying and not doing...)
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, May 3, 2013 9:50 PM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, May 3, 2013 9:56 PM
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So exciting and so close!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Friday, May 3, 2013 11:33 PM
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That's strange. I thought I had responded to your "what was I thinking?" post this morning. My P. cyanotaenia that are now at 28 days have been eating almost nothing but Tigriopus for about the last week. They love them! At the size yours look to be, I would encourage you to go for it with the Tiggers.
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