Of all the marine ornamental fish possible to breed in captivity (meaning that they could be done some time),arguably Centropyge pigmy angels are the most difficult and challenging.This despite tremendous efforts by seasoned experienced breeders and well staffed and funded commercial and academic facilities.And this is not just a matter of finding the right larval food,there are previous aspects that must be adressed before we start the actual larval raising game,which are:
1-obtaining large numbers of healthy developing eggs.This was treated in:
http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=51596 2-incubating them until they become feeding larvae.
3-raising the larvae.
I will now deal with the second point.One could think that there is no need for this step,and that the eggs could be merely dumped in the larval tank,as happens with some food fish rearing.But seemingly these eggs and prolarvae need to be kept floating in undisturbed conditions.
So I am incubating the early stages in 2L white trays.I first put a black plastic sheet at the bottom,since the eggs are invisible against a light background,but then found that the hatched prolarvae show early pigmentation and are easy to see.They look very much like a well fed adult Artemia (though tiny),with the head bent downwards,and the oil globule seeming like the Artemia egg sacs.
This is a prolarva caught in the moment of hatching,see the broken "shell" (chorion) and the embryo pulling out of it:
And this is how a free prolarva looks,under a scope,you don´t see the yolk sac in direct view: