Breeding Journal, Species: Sphaeramia nematoptera

General
Species:  Sphaeramia nematoptera
Social Structure:  Pair
Size of Individuals:  2"
Age of Individuals:  unknown (were mated when I acquired)
Date added to Tank:  4/6/2011

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  16g
Substrate Details: crushed coral 
Filtration Details:  linked sump with live rock, air driven skimmer and macro algae
Water Changes:  roughly 25% every two weeks
Water Temperature:  79-80
Lighting:  florescent
Lighting Cycle:  12/12
Other Tank Inhabitants:  none

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  mixed frozen foods
Feeding Schedule:  3-5x a day, what can be eaten in roughly 15 seconds

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  5/15/2011 (First date in my possession)
Spawn Time of Day:  evening after lights out
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  5/15/2011, 6/1/2011, 6/23/2011, 8/10/2011, 8/25/2011, 9/6/2011, 9/28/2011, 10/14/2011 
Courtship Details:  Twitching.  secondary dorsal fins seem to get larger on female.  Males fins tend to get much more tattered as spawn gets closer
Egg Size:  unknown (in mouth)
Egg Color:  unknown
Egg Count:  unknown

Hatch Details
Hatch Date: 
Hatch Time of Day: 
# Days after Spawn: 
Larvae Description: 


Larval Tank Details
Temperature: 
Size of Larval Tank: 
Substrate Details: 
Other Tank Decor: 
Filtration Details: 
Lighting: 
Lighting Cycle: 
Water Changes: 

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types: 
Feeding Schedule: 

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start: 
Days after Hatch: 
Date of Settlement End: 
Description of Fry: 

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature: 
Size of Grow-Out Tank: 
Substrate Details: 
Other Tank Decor: 
Filtration Details: 
Lighting: 
Lighting Cycle: 
Water Changes: 
Size at Transfer: 
Age at Transfer: 

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types: 
Feeding Schedule: 

Additional Information

(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 



You will be required to provide photographic or video evidence in this thread of each event submitted for the MBI Program.
If your thread does not contain these photos the MBI Committee will not be able to approve your reports. PHOTOS AND VIDEO S MUST BE PLACED IN ADDITIONAL POSTS, NEVER IN THE FIRST POST IN A JOURNAL.

The last two attempts I attempted raising the fry in a 10g, and I am going to give it a whirl in a 15g feeding tub this time around.  Only a few days from release and the father is holding strong, so I am expecting a decent release.
 
I have setup to tub and started a rotifer culture.  It is my intent to clean the tub and reduce down the water level as low as I can when they release.  Sieve out the rotifers in the culture and replace the water I have removed with water from the brood tank.
 
Attached are pics of the pair and the tank.  I have a light I will be hanging over the tank.  No heater...ambient in room is 78-79F.
 
Rotifers are being raised on RG+.
 

Update from 8/19.  Papa was looking like was going along great.  Checked for larvae three hours after lights out on 8/18 for larvae and no sign.  I had noticed during the day on 8/18 that his mouth was looking less bulged, but I had noticed this on his last release too and still wound up with several hundred fry.
 
In any event, When I woke up on the 19th, he was no longer holding and there were no signs of larvae in the tank.  On the 18th, a heater had been added to the tank @79 degrees and flow through the tank turn to minimal.  Maybe 1g per hour and a sponge placed over the overflow to prevent larvae from esacaping should the release after I went to sleep. 
 
In any event, there were no signs of release and he was ready to eat at lights on.  

Well, got another batch of eggs last night 8/25-8/26.  Noticed the male hiding and not eating this morning.  Looks like he might be carrying a larger load this time so hopefully I can get some pictures of an egg mass this time.

Out of request I attempted to get a video of the male carrying and him refusing food.  What wound up happening is the female was scared of the camera and ran back to the male (assumably to protect).  She usually is quite happy to abandon him during feeding, and was doing so prior to me brining the camera into the room.  At that point she refused to eat too and stayed right next to him.
 

The interesting thing I should point out for those who have observed Banggai and are trying to xreference them to PJs, in Banggai I have noticed that the longer secondary dorsal fin tends to be on the male.  In the case of my sole PJ pair, you can clearly see the banner fin is much longer on the female, in fact the male does not appear to have any at all. 
 
I have found in Banggais that the male (given long enough time frame and proper nutrituion between spawns)..will develop a much longer banner fin...PJs seem to not hold this scenario at all...at least for the pair I am working with.

Congrats on the next batch (be sure to update your journal opener with the new spawn date too)!

thx for the reminder

Well I got almost an identical repeat.  He seems to have lost the batch on the night of the 3rd.  I checked at 1am before going to bed, by morning he was empty and eating.  No sign of fry in the water.  I honestly think he is swallowing, but I am going to try Chad's collector on the next batch. 
 
The one successful hatch I had there were several hundred in the water colum, and even the few I missed during siphoning were still floating around in the AM. 

Didn't take them long, I woke up this morning (9/6/2011) and he was holding again.  I might move him around day 7 to a seperate tank.

So far so good, he is still holding at this moment, but this tends to be the night the eggs disappear.  I have the larvae trap in the tank with them and the flow is turned down.  His mouth is extremely buldged...so we will see what happens.
 
Just cleaned out the tank for the fry.

Well another lost batch.  A bit confusing as he has release several times..and he seemed to be doing fine, but this morning he was empty, the trap was empty and no signs of eggs or fry.

spawn tonight...occurred between the 27th and 28th at night after I went to sleep, so probably after 2AM, 5 or more hours after lights out.

 
How long after lights out did he release the fry?
 
Good luck on this next release.

Live and Learn

 I only caught the tail end of one release, and that was about 4 hours after lights out.  The other successful release happened after I went to bed, which was about 2.5 hours after lights out an they had not released yet.  So I am guessing at this point around 3 hours or so after lights out.

Well, his mouth has grown substantially and he looks like he is ready to bust.  I am debating stripping him, as my guessing that the substially enlarged mouth is always the result of hatching.  My Banggai's mouth always grows markedly when hatch has occurred. 
 
This is the night of the cycle when they all seem to dissappear, but lately, by this point his mouth is shrinking, not growing.
 
I honestly did not spend much prep work this time around because of so many consecutive failed batches.  I setup two new cultures tonight.  If I had more rots or some reasonable alternative foods, such as apocolypse I might just go ahead and strip.
 
Regardless, I have reduce the flow through the tank and put up a sponge on the overflow.  I will watch over the next few hours and decide what to do.

I can't take pics because I have left my camera at my store for the last week. =/
 
Additional, note.  The female was doing alot of biting alot at the male this morning.  Normally this is part of the behavior I see from her when she is preparing to release eggs, but she doesn't look swollen.
 
Also, seeing as how Reeds was so kind to send the Roti Complete, I have decided to use it the BRT with the fry. 

I opted to leave the eggs in his mouth, although they I did put the snagger in the tank.  I did not get to bed until about 5AM, so I figured if he had not released by that time he would hold.  I woke up this morning and he is still holding.

Release started 1AM (4 hours post lights out) on 10/5/2011.  2 fry in snagger at this point, none seen in the water column.  These guys are releasing very small.  None seen in the water column at this point.   I highly doubt I will be able to raise these.  The last succesful release I had, the fry were at least 2x the size.

He is still holding the eggs this morning.

this fry a are reallly small i have tried them with l rotifers with no success someone told me that they have to be raised with s rotifers  goood luck

Note: tank temp 80 solid last 5 days, was 77-78 early in the holding.  Salinity ~1.022

Well I decided to strip as this is the night he seems to always swallow.  Attached are some scope shots of eggs.  I will try to get pics up tomorrow of my make shift tumbler and eggs.   Personally, the heartbeat in the vid was exciting for me..my first.
 
Editing to add for someone curious:  Stripping was as basic as catching in a specimin container (like you see at LFS when they bag your fish) and making him mad.   He swam right in to the container.   Stick my fingers in container and chase him for a few seconds and they are all released.
 




 

 
 

I have read info stating that S or SS are required, but I cant get a source, and further info seems to indicate S really are just smaller Ls and the size diff is pretty insignificant.  I have only found small amounts of info on 'successes' on PJs or Apos and each report is so vauge, almost like raising them was nothing. 
 
I am honestly totally amazed that that PJs and Apos are listed as bred, when the only source of info I can find is a 'for sale' sign on ORA, which of course does nothing for breeding them.
 
I kept up hope after my last successful release because the fry (well some) were actually decent sized, closer to 3mm some a tad larger.  But most reports seem to indicate closer to 2mm, which is insanely small.
 
None-the-less, I am bound and determined.  Cultures, Andy, I am waiting =).

Some additional photos,
 
and vids.
 
#1: male carrying

 
#2: Eggs collected

 
#3: Eggs in makeshift tumbler

Well some hatched last night, but seemed to be dead pretty fast.  Today I kept an eye on things and corrected the crappy tumbler I made as needed to keep the eggs flowing.  I scoped a few eggs this evening, and it seem liked there was more development, but no signs that any of the eggs were still alive.

The female is nipping quite a bit again, so will probably have another batch soon.  I think I am going feed them exclusively Rods over the next several weeks and see what happens.  During the times of consitent and successful spawning of any of my cardinal pairs, they were receiving exclusively Rods in healthy doses.

The male was holding eggs again this morning.  80 degrees, salinity 1.021

Well he finally started eating today.  I saw a few small larvae in the water column last night, but they were so small I didnt make much attempt to collect.  I did get a few and put them into the larval container that has some pods, and rots, but I don't expect much.
 
Side note: I did do a ph test on the system this weekend and found it is a bit on the low side, around 7.9.   Temps have also been swinging from the season change.  The system is starting to stabalize back to 80.

another spawn today, was noticed shortly after lights on.

he lost them on the 23rd.  no apparent cause.

spawning seems to be pretty solid at this point, every 14-20 days the male is holding again.  At this point he appears to be holdign to term, but I cant verify as I am usually out of town.
 
my assumption is if he is holding two weekends in a row (which is when I am home), he is making it to term.
 
I am planning on taking these guys with me at some point to my other location so I can continue to work on them.

No time to attempt to rear, but spawning is occuring like clock work every 9-12 days.  Feeding is pretty minimal.  2x a day very moderate amounts, but I beleive this is the 6th spawn in a row.  Lost count with being out of town and not keeping exceptional records.

egg transfer still continues like clock work.
 
Still not able to focus on this as I am traveling too much.

These guys were moved out of the breeding setup into an isolated tank on it's own filtration.  I am doing water changes, but feeding 25% of the water from this tank into my reef tank, and then returning the 25% back to this change.  This is being done 1-2 a week, and should provide relatively consistent parameters.
 
The tank will host softies and has a marineland reef capable LED light and small skimmer.
 
Other fish introduced to this tank at this point are my ruby cards. 
 
The PJs were moved to this tank on Sept 30.  the female was showing fin nipping aggression starting tonight (10/8)

Discovered today.  I have not been watching very close, as the pair have been very shy since being moved. 
 
Params: PH 9.3, Alk 10.5 dkh, Calc 440, Nitrates 0
Food mix of meaty foods, mysis, bloodworms, Rod's, spirulina & flake 
Feed schedule: (2x a day)