Incubating Centropyge eggs and prolarvae.

A nice dream,AndyAnd it´d make sense,these larvae are about the same as any of the smaller benthic newly hatched larvae.
And yet it is only a nice dream.Unfortunately chances of success are close to nil.
As I said before,of all the raisings possible to do,this is arguably the MOST difficult.Not impossible but veeery close...  

I don't know. Cleaner wrasses have eggs that are supposed to be a third smaller than these guys. If you _really_ want a challenge....

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

But they weren´t raised,right?.I mean that considering the marine ornamentals possible to raise in captivity (those that at least once were raised),arguably pigmy angels are the most difficult.

Things remain bad.I don´t give up easily,but I´m running short of ideas.
They look nice at day 1,and start dying on day 2 and the rest on day 3.Very few survive,and reach day 6,where larvae are ready to go hunting.
So,I can´t say I failed raising the larvae,I didn´t even get some larvae to start the game.This is a pre-failure.
But I keep trying different things and will report if I find something.

Well, you at least know that they've been done. My suggestion would be to increase the water volume. Have you seen the video Karen made of rearing the Genicanthus? Those are some mighty large ponds she was working in. I'm sorry. I need to get back to the wrasses and beat my head against the same wall. Maybe bouncing ideas off each other we can knock a few bricks loose. Or get concussions.

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

Right Andy,this is something I am considering,among many others.Though we landlocked hobbyists can´t afford the luxury of huge volumes of NSW...
Yes,keep working with sixlines,may be they aren´t that difficult.May be nobody tried it before?.

I have a 20 gal. "pond" cycling now. My idea is to float downwellers in there giving a lot more volume and quick conversion of ammonia. I'll probably try it first without water movement inside the downwellers other than what flow is going on in the pond, but it would be easy enough to add drip lines later.

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

Time to report some (very faint)progress and update.
Prolarvae keep dying in 3rd-4th days,no matter what.This and the quick "reabsorbtion" of the dead ones,lead me to believe bacteriae are the culprit.
Experimenting with different SG showed that prolarvae develop just the same at 1.015,1.020 or 1.025.
Culturing them in NSW vs ASW showed no difference.
I am currently hatching the eggs in a tray with H2O2 treated water,and next afternoon,move the prolarvae to small dishes and subject them to different treatments;antibiotics,H2O2,with an untreated control.Results seem to show that H2O2 helps,though for a short time,as they keep dying.
So my new move is to keep the dishes under slow but continuous water exchange.With 1.020 new ASW and the same plus H2O2.
Cultures for Vibrio show lots of them in the control and only 5 CFU in the H2O2.
Now in the 5th day,unexpectedly I have several live larvae in the control,some free swimming,while only one in the treated dish.
So I put a light over the dishes and begin to supply copepod naups, less than 100 mics.

Very interesting Luis!  I'm following along and cheering for you! 

Thank you so much Mindy,for following this thread!I imagined everybody was following and holding their breath waiting for the next chapter of this endless drama...But no,the audience seems to have moved to more positive topics!.Time to end it and move away...
Anyway,the last chapter is as bitter as the rest:two swimming larvae were found early in their 6th day,one in the control,sliding on the bottom;and one in the H2O2 treatment,swimming actively at the surface and with good reflexes.
By the evening of the 6th day they both were gone.

Well, I'm still watching at least. I'm just in work purgatory right now. Must typeset more books....

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

 
I survived the "little indians saga" (L. amboinensis) several times. This is one is a piece of cake and just as interesting and, I'm sure will be sucessfull at some point.
Keep going Luis !

Anderson.

Hi Luis!  I was just reading MattP's C argi journal from 2007 and he made it to day 5 as well.  Matt suggested day 5 was the starvation time.  Are yours feeding at all?  It doesn't sound like you are offering food yet...maybe Matt was mistaken about the 5 day starvation.  What is your next plan of attack?  A downweller seems like a good method maybe...?  Of the small handful of people successful with Dwarf Angels, are any of them sharing culture information?  I can't seem to find any...
 
Did I miss it somewhere or have you not specified which specie you are working with?

You have came pretty far if you got them to day 6! Impressive!
 
Curious, how did you get a pair?

-Adam

No,starvation time is 9 days for Peter B,and a couple of days more for Stanley B,I think I recall.The prolarval period ends at about 5 days,and feeding begins only then.
This is a prolarval death issue,which is not referred by any of the pelagic raising reports.Yet it also happened to two other breeders in MBI,so the problem does exist at the hobby level.We can not even start the raising game.
The few times I had some larvae,I did provide food,see above.
They must be mostly C.loriculus,but upstream in the system I have a spawning pair of flavissimus,so some can be mixed in there.
Pairing them is merely keeping two different sized ones separated with an eggcrate fence for some time. 

Luis, how are you keeping the eggs floating?  I.e. do you have pictures or diagrams that show how they kept until hatched?  This is/was the biggest issue I've come across with pelagic eggs - they need to be kept off the sides/bottom so they can hatch.   Perhaps there is something in that first step which limits them later on?

Yes,I first collected the eggs straining the outflow in a 400 mic sieve and then flushed them into a dish.None of the eggs floated after that,and none hatched.
Now I collect them in a net and gently wash them into a tray which is left undisturbed.Many eggs there float and hatch.

 
Ack, sorry I missed your info about feeding the larvae.  I will go back and read it again.  Hmmm...I guess "we" have some experimenting to do, I hope it is possible at hobby level.

Arc--If they are in still water the eggs should float well on their own, not quite on the surface but in the higher water column. If they don't, you should up the quality of mama's diet.
 
I have my 20 gal. tank cycled and waiting for me to build downwellers, racks, and water circulation devices (drip tubes). Now, I'm just waiting for a break in work (two more new books came in yesterday) and probably the time change to get back to the wrasses. Enough of the day 4-5 deaths!

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

Luis - thanks for the info!
 
Andy - It's odd, I feed all fish the same thing (rods original formula everyday / breeders every couple of days/ live mysid / frozen mysis /  TDO /  other pellets from 3-4 other companies everyday / frozen pacific plankton (Rods)
 
I only collect the clear eggs - the white ones aren't fertilized.  I get about 1/2 of the fertilized eggs to float for a bit, then they all sink over 2-3 days.  When I've used re-circulators to keep water moving (no airstones) they all stay suspended.  The trick is timing the re-circs to stop when they hatch so the pro-larvae aren't getting smashed around.  That and zero space is holding me back at the moment..... as well as having plenty of demersal spawners taking up BRT's.
 

Absolutely.We found a particular problem here at the hobby level that larger breeders haven´t noticed or addressed:under our conditions pelagic eggs fail to develope into feeding larvae.
This happens to Kate,Andy,Arc and myself.And I don´t put Alex in the list because mandarins are the only pelagic spawners that can be raised.
I imagine that if something is found that works for one of us,it will work for everybody,and that will be a big step forward into the future of breeding.

Has anyone tried to get "them" to talk about their successes with dwarf Angels?  Maybe they don't want to publish their secrets, but maybe they would be willing to share a bit on these forums?
 
I refer to them as "them" because I'm not sure what they are...organizations?  Scientists?  Hatcheries?

I don't think it's entirely a secret. They have the room and money to use really large volumes of water. I think that's the main issue. There was a PDF somewhere, though, that talked about an institution's first year or two of work in trying to raise ... maybe tangs? ... and they talked about having to get past this hurdle, too, from what I recall. I don't believe they went into detail, though.

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

Hmmm...well that doesn't seem that difficult then.  It would take some money and some space.  What about the details though?  Upwellers in large volumes of water?  Or something else?  There has to be some information out there.  Who was raising them in Hawaii?  Maybe we just need to start asking questions...?

Frank is one of the people in HI. http://www.rcthawaii.com/news/1.htm

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

You can see one of Karen's rearing tanks in the video here:
 
http://www.marinebreeder.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=204&t=6707
 
It also helps that she can do her work in the lovely Hawaiian sunlight, I'm sure.

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

Mindy,if you have some time for reading...
http://library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/CallanCK2007.pdf
 

Thanks for the links guys.  I'm all over it. 

And Mindy,if you finished with the above,you should see this: http://www.oceanicinstitute.org/pdfs/Marine_Ornamentals_Research_a31979.pdf
and I´m not sure if reading this is encouraging.
A well known and well funded Institute,located in the best possible place.
Staffed by experienced and well known researchers;Laidley,Shields,Chat.
19 tanks of 1,000 L each
Parvo.cultures.
Many,many thousand of eggs produced daily.
Results of this project based on such a sheer set of means?:Some "dozens" of juvs,and not without some problems.
How do we hobbyists stand in front of this?

If you feel discouraged, just keep in mind that Frank Baensh is their "neighbor", has done several species and is still on business making history. If we only knew what he does...

Anderson.

 
Innovation based on cooperation and shear numbers. Like we always do.

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

Yes Luis, I finished reading all that, and will read this new link today.    You will get it Luis, I have a feeling about this one.

Ai ta certo,meu amigo
Frank B.could raise some Centropyge at about the same time as the OI (they both argue about who was the first) and he made it in a garage fish room,i.e. at the hobby level.
Yet he is a pro researcher on the subject and probably the 3 hawaian parties who acomplished this, interchanged some info,though this was not admitted.
And Frank collected and used local wild plankton.In this respect,he was a perfect replica of Martin M.,who was at the same time attempting the cherubfish in Fl.without success...

Luis,
  The Ocean Institute link you gave above very briefly gave two problem areas that they had to address to get the delicate pro-larvae to survive past day 2 - water quality and turbulence.  As you are using completely still water, turbulence shouldn't be it.  But what about water quality?  Either you or Andy had said that bacterial blooms are likely a problem.  What are your sterilization protocols?  My guess is that a major difference between hobbyists and research scientists is the level of stringency in sterilization.  I work in a microbiology lab and we make a clear distinction between disinfection and sterilization.  Hydrogen peroxide does not sterilize anything, it merely disinfects.  When we sterilize glassware, etc it has to be autoclaved.  Have any hobbyists attempted to autoclave glassware and perhaps culture water prior to inoculating it with "disinfected" eggs?  Just a thought.
 
Good luck and good work.
 
John   

John,indeed,a sterile or at least Vibrio less prolarval incubating medium will be a sound way to rule out the bacterial factor.
I have treated the water with Cl,and given the eggs a 1hr bath of formaline 1ml/gal or H2O2 1ml/L.
The catch is that the prolarvae must then be kept alive for 5+ days,and therefore you need something that kills bacteriae but not the prolarvae.I could do this with 1/10 of the above doses.
The obvious difference between hobbyists and commercial/academic facilities is that they use Large tanks and NSW.This is what we need to explain; why large tanks are better.
It seems size does matter after all

Following along with interest, and excuse me if I ask a bit of a silly question, but why cant uv be used?  I understand that water movement has to be nil or as near to nil as possible, but why cant the flow through the uv be really slow, and then sent back to the eggs via downwellers etc?  

Proud member of the first dedicated breeders site in the UK
Marine Fish Breeders Club - UK
H.Zosterae - 60 DPS

Indeed UV can and should be used.  A larger UV with slightly reduced flow rates will take care of a lot of the bacteria in the tank.  I've got a diagram of something that might make it easier for a hobbyist to build I'll post once my system is set up.  Granted space is an issue for most of us,  but this should be pretty easy for most folks to build.
 
The biggest hurdle is that nature just doesn't want every fish to survive - hence the difficulty of raising fish with the limited numbers that we have.  1% of 1000 is 10.  Those 10 then need great water, food sources that are compatible with all the different mouth sizes, the right temps, etc.   Meta will claim 50-75% of those (averages of course) while those 2-3 leftover still have to find the right sized food to eat, not get caught in a corner, have zero defects, etc.   It's a hard task to accomplish.
 
Not impossible, just very hard. 

Sorry. Late to the party again. Story of my life lately. Big to-press deadline tomorrow and I have 4-5 books that are still trying to make it. Fortunately, I'm at the point where a lot of my work is done and now I'm waiting on others.
 
I'll be trying a little different approach on my next runs. I have a 20 gal. tank already cycled with a pump inside for circulation. The eggs will be disinfected then transferred to a downweller inside this tank. So, I'm hoping that if accumulating ammonia is the problem, the cycled tank will help. I'm hoping that the already-present population of good bacteria will help take up space where bad bacteria can live and will help slow down the growth of bad bacterial populations somewhat. I'm hoping that the extra water volume will help mitigate any problems with large fluctuations in water parameters like when I use small hatching vessels. I'm hoping that circulation in the main tank will help solve stagnancy issues without creating turbulence in the downweller that will hurt the eggs.
 
Basically, I'm doing a lot of hoping. But I guess that's what we're here for.

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

Thanks for the opinions
An UV experimental system is the next step in my plan.

One thing I totally forgot that WILL make a differnce:  Pro-biotics!  Yep, I mean those you can buy off the shelf.  I've cycled tanks with nothing but 2-3 capsules a day for a week.  Put fish in and everything is groovy.  There are a few papers out there dealing with it, mostly for the foodfish industry.   Basically its put the good stuff in, let it grow and hope it out competes the "bad" stuff.   If anyone feels the need to test it - please do!  Grab a 10G tank and drop 2-3 capsules a day for a week into the tank thats running any kind of filter and try it out.  Heck even if the tank is up and running it can make a difference.  Why?  Mostly because we usually are dealing with small volumes of water.  In a 100+ gallon system obviously you'd use a whole heck of a lot more, and have it take longer before results would show up too.
 
Ill see if I can't find the papers and post em (or at least the abstract of them) after class tonight.