Breeding Journal, Species: Elacatinus Oceanops

Matt: Apocyclops is the one on the right:
 
http://www.ummfish.com/6line_egg_02_2010-7-9.jpg
 
Sorry, but I love that photo.
 
It's a copepod that's native to the Caribbean so I doubt you'll see it in the UK any time soon, unfortunately. And it would probably be fairly invasive so it would likely be a bad idea to send you any. It's really pretty darn easy to culture. Unfortunately the naups are also probably just a little too large for really small fish larvae. It works great for bigger larvae, though.
 
There should be one that's similar in the waters around Great Britain. Can you make it to the coast for any collecting?

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

excellent, the uk is really missing out on these sort of feeds,  i havent tried collecting,  but live very close to the see so proably should, im getting rots into mine,  but would like a good second food for them
 
any links on how to tow etc for wild feeds?

As I approach Day 21, I am wondering ...
Do larvae need to sleep? I've kept a bright light on my gobies 24/7, since I seemed to lose larvae in previous hatches overnight.
These constantly awake larvae are alive, but don't seem to be growing.  Matt1001 has reached metamorphosis at Day 23, but my babies don't seem nearly large enough.  That could be because I've not fed them NHBS, but rather copepods instead, or it could be because I've not let them sleep.  I know how much I need sleep, but do fish larvae?
These little guys are constantly darting at rotifers and other foods. Constantly.  Don't they ever get tired?
 
I've been feeding the tank with RGcomplete. I think it works fine, as long as the tank has a surface overflow to a sump.  I am filtering the overflowate through a 100 micron filter, and then a 53 micron, and the water is still just thick with rotifers and A. panamensis.  The sump also has a sponge filter to help with ammonia control.  I've got a UV hooked up, but the bulb appears to be burned out, so meh, that's useless.
The return is just a trickle, and the larvae seem to have no interest in the overflow, yet it is finely screened to prevent loss there.

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Interesting I was lighting 24hrs but I think that keeps them feeding constantly, which could be a good thing = more food. Or a bad thing = more energy expelled, so I introduced a 6hr light off period
I don't think I really got a decent amount of nhbs into mine as I've had issues with consistent hatching.

Are you able to get a pic that shows the density of you Rotifers?

Matt: I've never towed--being 2,000 miles from the ocean, sigh--but the idea is simple. Tow the net behind a boat or find someplace on the coast where you can get a net into the water while the tide is heading in or out.
 
Kathy: Is it time to switch to larger foods? Although you do have copepods in with them. Hmm. No ideas. Sorry. I hope they keep going.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

In the October 11 post, i said that the female of the spawning pair died right after spawning the last nest.  This evening, as I was feeding the brood stock, I happened to notice a neon gobie in the sump two levels down from the neon gobie papa. So i misspoke.  I never found a body. The female disappeared, but did not die. She must have jumped, landed on the tank cover of the tank below, and then wriggled to the edge and over to splash into the sump below that.  If I can catch her, I'll return her to her mate.  She's been in there for 3 weeks, with no additional food, other than what grows there. The overflows going to that sump are filtered through a 100 micron bag.
 
Really sweet.  I didn't lose her after all.

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That's great news

I'm glad you found her before she starved, Kathy. I found a clown the other day in a similar situation. I'm fattening him up again now.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

This morning as i was checking the gobies, I noticed that the water had not cleared of green algae. It's a sure sign that the rotifers are in trouble.  Usually quite thick in this larval tank, there were quite a few dead roti bodies and junk in the water, Lots of A. panamensis, and fewer living rotifers than previously. I did a 5 gallon water change, trickling it in, as the gobies don't seem to like water changes.  The gobies continue to strike at food constantly, and seem OK. They should be living on the panamensis now anyway. Their bodies are becoming less translucent, more opaque, and I keep imagining them getting some blue, which really isn't true, but I remember the last time I raised gobies, I imagined metamorphosis long before it happened.
 
With the light on all the time, there is some green algae growing on the sides of the tank.  I think that's OK, because it must provide some food for the rots and the cyclopoids.  I'm using less RGcomplete, particularly since the rotifers appear to have declined.  I wonder if the overpopulation of panamensis might have contributed to the decline of the rotifers.  In my rotifer culture bucket, the rots and panamensis seem to thrive together quite nicely for a long while, and then the rotifers eventually suffer.  Of course the rots may have declined because they over populated the larval tank.  I have maybe 8 larval gobies in 15 gallons of water, and the gobies could never keep the population down by themselves.  I filtered the overflow water thru a plankton filter, and removed tons of rotifers twice every day, but even that was not enough.

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Thing is, that mama gobie was quite fat when she decided to travel, and now looks none the worse for wear.

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I like your description of imagining meta, I've been getting that for a long time, but they seemed to die after turning slightly blue, so I wasn't sure if it was a positive thing or a sign they were on there way out

Vision is essential to this job.
 
I got new eyeglasses. Looked into the laval BRT where my one survivor is. Saw lots and lots of little 3 spot swimmers in there.  I took some out to look under the microscope--medusae! I have hydroids.
 
They did not come in on brine shrimp cysts, because I didn't use any.  Might have been from the A. panamensis or the rotundiformis.  If so, I am in deep trouble since I've been feeding rotifers and copepods to everything, including brood stock.
 
Hydroids are the most likely explanation for why 7 of my larvae died the one night I turned the lights out. Stung to death, because they couldn't avoid the medusa or hydroids nematocysts. 
 
If anyone has an idea how to get rid of these things please inform!  Do berghia eat them?

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I despaired of getting mama goby out of the sump full of live rock, and other paraphernalia.  Decided to train the mama goby to swim close to the net.  I installed the net in the tank a few weeks ago, and left it there.  Then I fed the mama by squirting frozen food into a submerged cup near the net.  For weeks I continued to do this, and soon the gobie would swim through my fingers when she saw my hand entering the water.  Then she would swim into the cup.  I kept positioning the cup closer and closer to the net.  These fish are smart.  If I missed getting her out on the first try, I might never gain her confidence again. 
 
This morning I put food into the cup, waited for the goby to enter, then swooshed the goby, cup and all out of the water and transferred her back to her home tank with papa goby.
 
Papa seemed quite overjoyed! He kept swimming next to her, and then tempting her to join him in his PVC tube, swishing his tail inside the tube.  Mama seems no worse for wear.  I look forward to more eggs.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Kathy, if you could can I get a pic of the hydroids?  doesn't have to be in journal PM is fine....
 
I has a theory I'm working on:p

Pelagically yours,
~J      

Unfortunately, I bleached that tank when the last goby larvae died, and I didn't get any pictures. If they pop up again, I try to get a shot.

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Well, it is one month later.  I again despaired of ever seeing another goby egg, and today I was thinking of buying another round of 5 brood stock, when this evening--you guessed it: Mama and Papa goby laid a new nest of eggs! Yay! 

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Any news on these guys? Did the hydroids return?

Well, they kept eating the eggs on day 2, or else the bristle worms were eating them. They've spawned a couple of times since my last post, never keeping the eggs more than 2 days.  This time I transferred their eggs and pipe to a sterilized heated bucket with saltwater and methylene blue and an airstone to keep the eggs moving on the morning of Day 2.  They should hatch on day 6 or thereabouts, so wish me luck.
 
Parental units have a replacement pipe which papa went right into within a minute of placement.
 
Don't know about the hydroids. When I use the BRT for clownfish, they don't stay in there very long.  If I find some more, I'll document.

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Good luck with this batch. Odd that they started eating eggs after doing well previously.

What is your feeding regimen like? I saw you are using rotundiformis and A. panamensis but in what ratio do you combine them?


Joe

Thanks for the well wishes.  I combine the rotifers and the panamensis in the ratio in which they co-culture.  My best panamensis culture is the one that sprang up in my rotifers.  I do have a separate panamensis culture, but it isn't as robust.  I have no idea what the ratio is, but there are gobs more rotifers than cyclopoids.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Awesome. That's exactly what I wanted to know

What size sieve do you use to strain them? I imagine you're only catching the first stages of nauplii if you're also straining for S rots.


Joe

i've used a 53 micron screen.  Recently I tried to catch something smaller with a 27 micron after the 53 micron, and got nothing, so all the value is in the 53 micron.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Well, an update is in order.  I have one for sure, and maybe more 17 day old gobies in with a LOT more 7 day gobies.  Everyone is eating well and darting around.  They all seem to like the same lighting and flow levels, as I see them in a cloud of larvae very near the area of highest light and also near, but not in, the flow from the airstone.  I've been pretty consistant with rotifer levels, and I have a culture of small size  rots.  There are A. pananmensis in there, and I am feeding the tank with Rotigreen frequently so the rotifers are never empty.  Light, a single 18 watt CFL, is going 24/7.  I have a good feeling about this batch.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Congrats it's sounding good

4 days later, and they are bigger, and still going strong.  I can feel my luck getting better!
Mr Long is 21 days old, and the rest are 11 days, and I think passed some critical point.  Mr Long is less transparent, thicker than the rest, but still no color.  I will look anxiously for it each day….
 

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Mr Long would be 27 days old now.  I could not find him, for the past few days. It may be that he passed, or it may be that the others have had a jump in size, and now he is not so different from the crowd.  A couple of days ago, I dropped a 3/4 inch white PVC elbow in the tank, and now I can see little goby larvae silhouetted by the white.  The tub has become a soup of rotifers, A. panamensis, and algae.  I skim the bubbles off each day and top up the volume with fresh water.  I've been adding a lot of rotifers every day, and enough rotigreen omega to keep them fed.  The gobies have become noticeably larger and more opaque.  Tonight, I noticed one perching on the white elbow.  It appears to have a black stripe down its length, but it's hard to tell, through the soup.  If this is Mr. Long, that goby is 27 days old, and I would expect it to be going through metamorphosis by now.  The rest of them are 17 days old.  There are 15-20 little darters, I think.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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The one perching on the elbow is darker today.  I think it is Mr. Long. Feeding them rotifers, A. panamensis, and the tiny-est pinch of Oto A.

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Elbo percher must be Mr. Long, and must have entered meta, though I can't see clearly through the soup, and he never surfaces, so I could be wrong.  The others are growing, getting more opaque, and I can see pectoral and cauldal fins now on the larger ones.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Day 22:
Seeing a few with black lines from nose to tail.  Tried to get some pix:

 

 

 

 
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Had a good view today of a black goby perching on the side of the tub with a neon blue stripe from nose to tail! Several more with black stripes, many have disappeared.  I hope they are perching, and not some other fate.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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More than a week later, most of the gobies have settled, and metamorphosed! It is amazing that something so small and transparent could become a full bodied fish with a light reflecting neon blue stripe! They are still hard to see, and impossible to photograph, as they hide when I bring the camera out. About a week ago, my rotifers stopped multiplying, and the water got very green.  They have since been replenished/recovered, so the water clears periodically, enough to see to the mulm at the bottom of the tub. Today I counted 11 settled darters, with two large larvae showing signs of transformation.  It wasn't a very big nest, so I am pretty happy with this yield.  I do feel like I am back in the saddle again, having been able to raise them. The parental units have not spawned on schedule, so I don't have another nest to wait for.  I think I'll transfer these to a growout tank when the last ones meta, and start a new tub when I get eggs again. Maybe I'll paint the tub bottom white to facilitate viewing, or try a rectangular glass tank.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Here's what's making me happy in the fish room these days:
Still in the larval tub, recently weaned to Otohime B1:

There are 12 - 13 little gobies in there!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Excellent!

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

The parents were moved to an unheated tank last month to facilitate their breeding.  I think it got too hot for them in the system with the clownfish.  While I was at MACNA they laid a small nest! They didn't eat it today. I don't see eyes in the eggs. We shall see.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Hi Kathy what temp is your un heated tank? And how long we're they in it before a spawn?

The tank is about 77F right now.  It's been hot in STL, and although the house is air conditioned and the basement is more stable than the upper floors, there is a range of temperatures in the basement depending on the weather, and whether we run the AC or the heater. In the winter the tank will need  a heater as it will go down to 62F, but in the summer it will stay at around 78F while the AC is on. With no heater in the summer it will stay at 78F, and with a tiny powerhead, 80F.  They were in it for about a month before the first spawn in it.
 
They ate those eggs a couple days after they spawned, and since they've done this before, and I really want to try gobies again, I will artificially incubate the eggs the next time.  And the next time is here. This morning mama gobie looked like she could explode, and i guess she did, because I came home from work to a nice nest of eggs.  This evening, I cleaned out a bucket, put fresh saltwater, a tiny heater (80F), and 2 drops per gallon of methylene blue.  Added an airstone, and put the pipe with the eggs so that some of the bubbles flowed through it.  I attached the pipe vertically to the side of the bucket with a heater suction cup bracket thingy.  I rubber banded the airstone so it sits underneath.  Now we wait...

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The parental gobies were purchased from ORA September 2011, spawned the following May, so they are more than 2 years old.  I was told that they only live two years, so perhaps that was wrong.
 
I have another batch that I purchased from Sustainable, and they are still young.  We shall see.
 

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Just got a lot of 6 we'll see how they go.

I have a pair that I raised my self so I can test the age theory, as I have a sob for both of them

For the past couple of days the male has not been eating and I witnessed some tender care of the male by the also elderly female.  She has a bent back, but is still lively and eating.  Papa passed away sometime during the day. So that makes more than 2 years for the life a captive neon gobie. Rest in peace, Papa Gobie! 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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(Wholesale to the trade.)