Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis fridmani

General
Species:   Pseudochromis fridmani
Social Structure:  large male, smaller female. I have 2 pairs.
Size of Individuals:  two inches males, and lightly smaller females 
Age of Individuals:  unknown          
Date added to Tank:  paired 8/29/15  

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank: 20 gallon breeder   12x12x32 inches        
Substrate Details:  1 inch PVC pipe bits, capped
Filtration Details: sponge filter          
Water Changes:  10 % weekly
Water Temperature:  80
Lighting: LED strip lights, undercabinet style         
Lighting Cycle:   14 day, 10 night
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Single neon goby   

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  frozen mash, fish eggs, nori,  otohime B2       
Feeding Schedule:  usually a goodly amount, twice daily 

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn: 9/13/15
Spawn Time of Day:  morning   
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  9/22  
Courtship Details:  male swims in and out of the closed off tube, female swims freely .
Egg Size:  1mm spheres
Egg Color:  off white
Egg Count:  can't count. I am guessing about 100.  The ball of eggs is about 1 cm in diameter.  

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  
Hatch Time of Day:  
# Days after Spawn: 4                    
Larvae Description: Very tiny, transparent slivers with black eyes. No sign of yolk sack. Smaller than clownfish larvae, perhaps half as large.                   


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  80F
Size of Larval Tank: 17 gallon BRT, filled to 5 gallons with bleach sterilized saltwater                   
Substrate Details: heater and airstone , central standpipe, not in use.                  
Other Tank Decor:  none
Filtration Details:  water changes
Lighting:  18 watt
Lighting Cycle: 14 day, 10 night                   
Water Changes:  none yet

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  S-rotifers for now, then Apocyclops panamensis, 
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
 s
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 
Just a note: The broodstock came from Tod Miller's captive bred dottybacks.  They were raised in a larger tank (55 gallon?) with live rock.  The fish were 8-9 months old at first spawning, and they have been in my 20 gallon tank for about 2 months. The 4 black ocellaris clownfish don't bother with them.  Another pair I moved in mid August, into a broodstock tank with better water quality, is not yet spawning 2 weeks later, however, the female is still very small.
 
I had tried to keep a pair of dottybacks with a larger group of black ocellaris clownfish (about 80 juvenile fish in a 10 gallon juvenile growout system) , and the black fish pestered the dottys too much. I had to remove the dottybacks.  They seem to do best in a less crowded situation.
 
For pairing:  
Pair 1)I put 5 in a 10 gallon (juvenile system) with no other fish and little by little, the dottybacks perished or were killed? until there were 2 left. Sometimes I found the bodies, sometimes I did not. No clue.  The dead ones looked perfectly fine to the naked eye, so It is unclear how they were killed.  The remaining pairs seem very healthy. They were moved to a broodstock system in mid August 2011.  
 
Pair 2) Put 7 in a 20 gallon(different juvenile system), and the same thing happened.  These fish were with the 4 black ocellaris. The blacks ignore them.  This pair spawned at the end of August 2011.  I was unprepared to raise them, and the eggs were eaten soon after spawning. The female of this pair died, and has been replaced with a captive bred female from Sustainable Aquatics, February 2012.  Paired up 2/19/2012.
 
In all cases the females are signifcantly smaller than the males.

For the Hatching report, I am reporting on Pair #1.  I hatched these eggs in a brine shrimp hatcher (Airline is glued into the hole in a cap of a 2 liter soda bottle. Bottom is cut off of the bottle, cap screwed on tight, and the whole thing was upturned in a 3 inch PVC T fitting.  Flexible air tubing was fished through the arm of the T and the whole thing was partially submerged in a heated aquarium.  Air was supplied to make bubbles. Clean saltwater was added, eggs were added and 2 drops of methylene blue was added.  This bubbled for 4 days at 83 degreesF.  Each day, I fished the eggs out to have a look under the microscope.  In the evening of the fourth day, 4 premature dottyback larvae were swimming in the hatcher, and I get them out using a transfer pipet and  took pictures on a plastic petrie dish through the microscope.  Then I put the larvae into a prepared BRT.


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pair #2: female

 
They are not really this blue.  It is an arifact of my camera.  They are the traditional orchid color.
    male:

 

August 31, or perhaps August 30, I was out of town:
OMG, We have eggs!
These are the pair in the growout system.  The water quality is not the greatest, but they've definately spawned!

I'm excited!

What a welcome surprise home Kathy!

This morning:

Congratulations, Kathy! Nice photos.

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

Sadly, the eggs are gone this morning. I could not have raised this batch anyway, as I'm going to MACNA for 3 days. Hopefully, they will spawn again.  Time to do a water change….

nice pictures kathy 

Thanks, 
 
They spawned again today Tuesday September 6, before 6:20 pm when I returned from work.  !!!!!

There seem to be fewer eggs today, and the male seems less attentive.

They will get the hang of it.

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

They spawned today, Monday 9/12/2011.  Nice big nest, slightly orange:

    I plan to pull the nest tomorrow, and try to artificially hatch them.  I was talking to Andy Rhyne on the plane to MACNA, and he gave me some tips.  One was to pull the nest early. I'll then check to see if they are fertile.  Something tells me that the orange color is a good sign.

Male ate the eggs in one day.  Today they spawned again.  I am not ready yet, so perhaps next week.

Sunday I was greeted with nearly dead fish when I looked into the growout system the spawning dotty pair are in.  I hadn't kept up with the water changes, and the dottys were lying on their sides in their hiding holes.  The Darwins were clearly stressed as well, but the orange ocellaris babies and grown fish were completely unaffected.  I did a massive water change, which raised the pH to near normal level, and all the fish recovered.  Thanks.  The dottys were scheduled to spawn that day, but I was just grateful they were still alive.  It's Tuesday now, and they are flirting, and the female looks rotund.
 
Meanwhile the pair in the broodstock system, that did not hold out hope that they would spawn since the female is TINY, did not come out for breakfast this morning.  I was more than concerned since I had absent mindedly left the cover open on their tank overnight.  I fed the tank, and they still did not show up.  I searched the floor and the neighboring sumps for live or dead dottys-- nothing was there. Finally I got my long handled pinchers to fetch out the PVC that the male likes to hang out in, and discovered 
 
 
 
 
2 orchid fish and a pile of eggs.  YAHOO! Not only not dead, but spawning! Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

Seems there is a virus that inserts that "I have nothing to add, I just want to be part of this thread" emoticon.  I didn't put that there….

This is great news. On a side note, be careful about moving the pipe when eggs are in it. I've done that before and the parents get spooked and eat the eggs. I don't even attempt to clean the tank when eggs are present.

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

That is just code, you typed "-" and "nothing" without a space.

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

Thanks, that's good info.  Unfortunately, I've moved them twice today, as I felt compelled to check again when I got home from work. Luckily there were still eggs.   I'm not too concerned about this nest, as its their first, but they are likely to spawn again in a week, so ….we shall have to wait and see.

  Oh good, I've fixed it now.  thanks.

Unfortunately, my brt is moved out of the way for an aiptasia flter. So I either have to find another spot to set up the Brt or use one of my low 20 gallon tanks for the fridmani.  I think I would do better with the BRT since it has a UV on it, and would likely keep them going for the long larval stage.
I have eggs from the PAIR#2, a large nest.  They are on Day 2 and the male has not eaten them, but I've been good and left him alone.  Amazing that they could produce such a large nest after last week's near death experience, and no eggs last week.  I think I'll pull the eggs this evening.

Kathy, how do you use the UV on a larval system?  Is your system flow-through?  What strength (watts, gph) are you using?  I'm wondering if I should try a UV on my Orchid larval system too, but am a bit confused how I would incorporate it.  Mine is flow-through.  I worry that the turnover through the BRT is way too low for the UV to be very effective.

Low flow is better for effeciveness in that it kills all the bacteria in the water flowing through it..  I have a small uV plumbed into the return line from the sump.. In my case, the sump is a 5 gallon bucket.

Today I pulled a 3 day old nest, or what remained of the nest. Just to look at it under the scope.
Most of the eggs were not well developed, but at least 3 looked close to hatch:

 
click on the videos:
 

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, I moved the pair that had been in the growout system to the broodstock system as I thought they were healthy.  They had their own cube.  Sure enough , the move did not deter them from spawning on schedule.  I was so happy.
 
Then this morning I found the male dead.  No apparent reason. Go figure.

Wtf?  Dang that sucks Kathy.  =[

It does….

sorry to hear it. Are you going to replace it?

RLTW

180 Gallon Mixed Reef

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

Yes, I did. I'm not sure the pairing is a good one yet. I bought a young unmated pair from Sustainable, and sure enough, one died within a few days of arrival.  The other one thrived.  After QT, I put the two singletons together, and they seem to like lunging at one another.  Neither one is getting caught or seems terrorized, and they seem to ask for it more often than not.  There are lots of hiding places in the tank, that the fish decline to use.  One is much larger than the other.  The supposed female from the original Pair #2 is the larger fish, which may be why they are lunging at each other instead of getting along, but I am not sure that dottyback pairs get along at all anyway.  I am not sure if they change sex, and the prolonged period of loneliness may have changed the supposed female to a male.
 
Why single fish seem to die on me: I think I may be trying to keep them in too close quarters.  I think 20 gallons may be the minimum for a happy couple.  Dang.  I should finish cleaning up the 20 gallon tank of death(it has been bleached and dry for a month now.) That can be their new home.
 
On another note, the Pair #1 has spawned again, I saw eggs yesterday, even though the female remains tiny and not great looking…If I get my act in gear, I can have a BRT ready for taking the eggs today, and try to artificially incubate them.  I have no confidence that the male will not eat them.

My little female used to hide in a Turbo Snail shell.  She stayed in there most of the time.  Anytime she came she was harassed by the male trying to entice her into his cave.  He would get frustrated after awhile and go after her, then she'd hide in her shell again.
 
From what I understand, all Orchids start as females (or possibly unsexed), and the dominant one changes to male.  Witt suggests sex change from female to male in his book. 

So these two may be trying to figure out who is the male.  The bigger one seems to be a bit more aggressive, so I hope it lands on him.

The male of Pair #1 did not eat the eggs yesterday, so I have been preparing a BRT.  I hope to artificially incubate the eggs this evening.  I am making a stand for the rotifers container and a BRT.

I'm getting better at this stand building thing. Finished it, minus the paint, in one afternoon.
 
I pulled dottyback pair #1's eggs, or rather dumped them out of the home pipe.  It's a smallish clump, but amazing, considering the size of the female.  The eggs were not well developed when I looked under the scope, so I think they need another 2 days at least.  I tried to use Witt's hatcher, but the air collected under the mesh until there was enough pressure to burst through the surface tension.  This worked for a little while, but when I went back to check on the eggs after feeding the fish, they had popped out of the tube and were on the bottom of the tank.  I put them into a brine shrimp hatcher with a drop of methylene blue, and a mild stream of air.  That keeps the eggs gently moving and there will not be a chance they will escape the hatcher.  The hatcher is partially submerged in the BRT, to keep the eggs warm.

I managed to hatch Orchid eggs out in a brine shrimp hatchery awhile back.  I started with only 20 or so eggs if I remember correctly and got about 6 larvae.  I think the air stream was too harsh though and knocked the larvae out of the shells a day early (seemed so in the development under scope).  The larvae were really weak.  If I end up tumbling eggs again I think I would add a short piece of airline tubing to the stem inside the hatcher and add a small air stone to get finer, gentler bubbles.

I checked the eggs this morning and there was only one that had a develped embryo in it.  I think if it doesn't hatch tonight, it won't hatch.  If it does hatch tonight, I'll have to put it in with some clowns I am hatching tonight as well, or perhaps into a goldfish bowl.

waiting for the hatch…also my clownfish that I'll test the new snagger with.

My snagger design had a major flaw and failed to snag, so I just did the flashlight and siphon trick.  I had another nest as well to put with it and the two clownfish batches went into one tank to grow up together. The one dottyback egg did not hatch, so that was that.
 
Yesterday, I noticed that Dotty Pair #1 has eggs again. I'll take a look tomorrow, and prepare for a hatch if the eggs are viable.
 

Nice pictures in the November 15th post, BTW, Kathy!  Good luck with the new spawn.

The pair#1 with the small female is still doing their thing.  They spawned an amazingly large  bunch of eggs, considering the female is tiny.  I've once again put the eggs in the brine shrimp hatcher in a tank water bath for temperature control, 2 drops of methylene blue, and when I checked the eggs there were many with eyes, beating hearts and body flexing.  There were also many cloudy eggs that will not hatch, and some undeveloped ones.  I'll have to work hard to be ready tonight, and my rotifers are recovering from a crash, so that will be an issue as well.  Maybe I'll set up a goldfish bowl chrysel since I don't expect too many in this nest to survive.
May 19, dotty eggs:

 

Well, they didn't hatch last night, and although I can still see some with good development, almost no yolk, hearts beating, they have not hatched this evening yet. I'll wait another hour before going to bed.  BRT is ready for them.

Not sure exactly when they spawned.  It was either the evening of the 17th or the morning of the 18th.  Anyway, I think they will hatch this evening. I pulled 4 premies from the hatcher this evening.  Now the lights are out, and we await the big hatch if there is one.
I'll post the picture of the premies, in hopes of getting a hatching report out of this.  After taking pix, I set them into the BRT.  I can't help feeling that I'll never see them again…it's such a big black abyss.
Click the video.