Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis tapeinosoma

Stitched image of a larva at 12 hours post hatch.  You can see rotifers and copepod nauplii in its gut:
 

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The seed flat heaters are doing a great job.  They are keeping the BRT between 79 and 81 F all day long.
 
These larvae seem to really love to eat Apocyclops copepods!  The copepod population has pretty much been consumed.  There are very, very few copepods left after 24 hours, but still quite a few rotifers.  Fortunately, I was ready with a bunch of rotifers, grown with RGComplete, so they have the rots as a backup food source, while I ramp up more copepods for them to eat.  I added about 500 ml of dense Live Isochrysis, about 25 drops of RotiGreen, 10 drops of AmQuel Plus, and about 20 drops of RGComplete, all mixed together with about 500 ml of fresh, aged ASW and slowly dripped all of the above into the BRT.  I also fed some more sieved rotifers and a few more sieved Apocyclops copepods.  I do have an airstone with very gentle air bubbling in the BRT, and the food mix described above is being dripped directly into the airstone bubbles, to mix it as thoroughly as possible.
 
Still hundreds of larvae swimming and striking at food in the greenwater in the BRT.  Lights staying on 24/7.

Well, this is getting really annoying.  I woke up this morning to a large number of dead larvae.  Did I overfeed?  I don't know.  I did drip in the feed last night very slowly -- at a rate slower than 1 drop per second.  I examined the guts of some sampled larvae - both those still alive and those dead on the bottom, and found them all to be full, so I really don't think they are starving.  Could it be pH change from the additional live Iso?  If so, then why don't I get a big dieoff when I first add Iso immediately after hatch?
 
I probably have 50 - 100 larvae still alive.
 
I added more copepods this morning.  The rotifer population in the BRT stays high, and they look nicely enriched, and have lots of eggs.

I would say maybe DO, but you are running lights 24/7, correct?

Jonathan Foster

FishEye Aquaculture

This morning, very, very few alive.  Yes, Jonathan, I am running the lights 24/7.  It's not ammonia or temp.  I measured the pH this morning, and it is a bit low: about 7.4.
 
Bacteria, perhaps?  Maybe I need to use some Erythromycin?
 
Geez -- I haven't gotten them past 48 hours yet.  My fish sitter at least got some to 4 days! {rolleyes}
 

I've been having some issues with waterborne bacteria in my tanks. I had a couple of clownfish batches have massive die-off and the survivors waste away to nothing, despite ample enriched rotifers, and die before meta. They were just skinny, like they were starving. This last time, after 3 days, they looked really thin, so I moved them to a clean tank (not chlorine sterilized) with UV sterilized water from the system, fed them, green watered them, and heat and air as usual.  They now look plump and are eating like crazy.  
 
I'll do it again if I have to.  
 
I think this may be the problem for a lot of us with die-offs early in the process.  It seems like it was the culprit for me.  I'll probably have to do it again, if I don't put them on the flow thru system water, which I think I can do pretty soon.  In the transfer, some of the fouled water HAS to transfer with the larvae, so I am not out of the woods yet.

As some background, I had not connected my UV to the big new system yet, as I put the finishing touches on it.   I noticed the water looking a little cloudy, so I hooked up the UV, and now it's clear again.  There is strain of bacteria that is going around my basement, blooming in the water.  I've seen this in all my systems recently.  UV is the only thing that clears it up.  Well, bleach would, but that would be a drastic solution.

I've been privately emailing some experienced breeders, and have some suggestions that I will document during the next hatch and larval rearing cycle.
 
Meanwhile, I opened the gate to see what would happen today, since it is now 11 days since the last spawn, and they usually spawn every 11 or 12 days.  She came over to his side immediately, but didn't seem to be "ready", and after just a few minutes, she went back onto her side without spawning.
 
I decided to clean up their tank some (there was a lot of cyanobacteria all over the back, sides, and the divider) to try to make it more "presentable" for some photos I wanted to try.
 
Wow!  What a difference in their behavior with the algae and cyano removed from the divider!  They can see each other again!  Immediately, they started "facing off" at the divider again, much like they did when they were new arrivals.  The male was really, really trying to lead her over to his side.  I opened the gate again, but this time, with the divider quite clean, the hole in the divider did not stand out, and neither one of them seemed to be able to find it.  She clearly wanted to get over to his side, but could not figure out how.
 
Here is a video of the male courting her, and "leading" her with his body language, and tail quivers.  You can see the hole in the middle of the divider that is clearly open, but it is invisible to them:
 

 
And here are some pictures of them while courting.  The male's colors get REALLY, REALLY bright:
 



 
 

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So, I decided I had better replace the old divider with one that has a hole in a place they would more likely find it.  Since they seem to spend a lot of time at the lower back corner of the divider, I took a new divider, and put the hole near the lower back corner.  This time, she found it almost immediately:
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/t61YDoCvcwY

 
 

What happened next was quite unexpected.  Instead of leading her to the capped PVC on the far right, like he usually does, for whatever reason, he led her to the top, uncapped PVC.  That gave me a chance to observe (and photograph and also video) the actual spawning behavior.  (Time for the Parental Controls to kick in!)
 
Basically, the female spends most of her time upside down, releasing the eggs very slowly.  The egg mass stays attached to her until the very end.  During the entire spawn event, the male repeatedly fertilizes the eggs as she is extruding them.  Sometimes, she will just lay on her back on the bottom of the PVC, breathing heavily, and if I didn't know better, I'd think she was in trouble!  But at the very end of the spawn, the egg ball is freed from her, and she swims away just fine, and in this instance, she immediately returned to her side of the divider.
 
Here are some images of the spawning:
 


 
This was snapped of the female less than one second after she finished, and was exiting the PVC:
 

 
And here is the video:
 

http://www.youtube.com/v/U1o25srUP3o
 

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Cool stuff! Great documentation.

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

Wow, just Wow!

Great stuff!! Thanks for sharing.
 
 

 
To me that seems like a good bit of food if the RotiGreen and RGComplete are anything like Rotigrow plus. 

Hmm.... I _guess_ I'll have to approve your spawning report now. Nice photos, Jim! I'm off to watch the video now.

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

Oh, very cool documentation Jim, thanks so much for taking the time to document so well and share it with us!
 
What do you use to cover the hole in the divider?

Thanks, everybody!
 
I cover the hole with the same PVC contraption shown on the first page of this thread.  I could simply use a PVC cap / plug combination, but I already have the street elbows and cap....

Awesome pics and videos Jim. I believe you set the bar for documentation quality for the rest of us. You inspire me!

Oops sorry I missed the details on the plug Jim!  I'll go back and look.  What brand of heat mats are you using?  Or did I miss that too??  lol

No, sorry, I did not specify the heating mat that I'm using.  It is a HydroFarm brand, 17 watt, 120 Volt mat, model # MT10006.  The website is www.hydrofarm.com.  I'm using two of them under my BRT -- each covers approximately 1/2 of the BRT area.  They are based in Petaluma, CA, which is just a few miles from me.  I found them at a local Orchard Supply store.  Perhaps they are available in a wide range of markets, or perhaps they are only available in markets close to their home base?  I don't know.....

Well, so far I haven't been able to catch a break with these guys.  Dad had a hard time keeping the eggs in the uncapped PVC cave.  The first night after this spawn, I found the egg mass laying on the sand behind the PVC caves.  I used a turkey baster, and replaced the eggs into the PVC cave that they spawned in this time, and then moved the PVC cap from the capped cave to the one they chose to spawn in, in an effort to help keep the eggs contained in that PVC. 
 
This morning, I found the eggs on the sand again.  This time, they had come out the front of the PVC.  I once again replaced the eggs into the PVC, but today when I came home from work, there were no eggs to be found.
 
I guess Dad ate the eggs this time.  I'm guessing that my disruption of his environment by cleaning the tank on the day of the spawning was just too much for him.
 
I'll have to wait for the next spawn, and try to not be such a disruptive influence next time.
 

Time for an update.
 
The most recent spawn happened exactly 11 days after the previous spawn, on March 22nd.  Unfortunately, I didn't think she looked quite "ready", and also, I had a large order arrive from Reed Mariculture that day, and so I didn't open the gate, and arrived home from work to find that she had laid her eggs on the outside of her PVC again.  Arrgh!
 
So, the plan was to wait another 11 days, and to open the gate on days 10, 11, and 12 (if necessary).  I've been feeding them well, and everything has been going according to plan -- until today.
 
The female seems to be "not well" today.  She isn't eating.  She is resting on the bottom of her PVC cave, near the front, where she can see out.  She is alert, and if I wave my hand at her, she responds, and seems to swim normally, but then quickly returns to her resting on the bottom of the PVC behavior.  The male is fine, and acting normally.
 
I did a moderate water change, and gave her a 5 minute FW dip.  She seemed to handle the dip just fine.  Swimming around some, not too frantic, and kind of "hid" next to the pH probe I had in there.  I took advantage of the dip to examine her closely.  No white dots are visible, either large or small.  The only odd thing about her appearance is that her pectoral fins seem to have some odd dots or bumps, and have a reddish tinge, like they are irritated.  Everything else about her looks normal and healthy.
 
After the FW dip, she went back to the same behavior as before -- resting on the bottom of the PVC, at the front of the top cave, where she seems to be interested in looking out at her world.  She is not hiding.  Her breathing is not labored.
 
Anybody have any ideas what is going on with her?  Advice welcome!
 
 

To simply reiterate my advice over email - with no photos, and with no vectors in for new parasites, and with redness in the fins and loss of appetite, "bacterial" problem cropped up in my head.  My reaction, based solely on what was presented above, may have been to hit with Maracyn SW or Maracyn II SW.  If it's "wrong", it won't be damaging (minus any biological filtration implications).

So, I came home Thursday night (same day I reported the problem), and she was looking better already.  Swimming more normally, no more resting on the bottom of the PVC, and interested in food, but not taking any yet.  I did dose with Maracyn that night, and as of yesterday morning she was eating again.  This morning, she is back to her usual self, and actually rushed up to the turkey baster to take food from it!  I'll keep dosing the Maracyn per instructions, just so as to not create some monster, immune strain of bacteria, but it looks like this mini-crisis is over.
 
The next spawn is expected soon (Monday will be 11 days), unless her illness has put her off of her schedule.  We'll see what happens.
 

Good to hear! I've had so few success stories with fish disease that it's nice to hear one that seems to be ending well.

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

I've had good luck wih Myracin II as well.

Oh I'm glad she perked back up for you Jim!  Would the Maracyn II affect developing eggs?  Maybe her next batch is a write off anyway?

Thanks for all the words of support and encouragement, everybody!  She continues to do well.  And it was regular Maracyn, not Maracyn II, FWIW.  And I really can't imagine that Erythromycin would have any negative effect on any eggs she might lay.  If anything, it would probably help keep bacterial infection down.
 
Today is day 10 since the last spawn.  I opened the gate to see what would happen.  Basically three things:  1)  The female was NOT interested in going over to the male's side at all, 2)  The male excitedly went over to the female's side, and kept trying to "lead" her over to his side, passing back and forth through the gate, wishing she would follow him, and 3)  The female kept shooing the male out of her half of the tank, getting more and more aggressive as time went by.
 
After just a few minutes of this, I closed the gate again.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.
 

Finally, I get to make a positive update!  (Keep reading)
 
After the last post, I opened the gate each day April 2nd through the 5th.  Each day was basically a repeat of what I reported in the previous post.  The evening of the 5th, I came home to find the female in an odd predicament:  she had eggs coming out of her ovipositor, and the same egg mass was going into her mouth!  It was as though she started eating the eggs as she was laying them, and somehow got stuck with neither process complete.  She looked quite stressed, so I caught her and gently removed what remained of the egg mass from the outside of her body.  I gave the eggs to the male.  The female calmed down after this, and things went back to normal.
 
For the last few days, she has looked more and more gravid each day, so I've been opening the gate each day, and still, the male has been eager, but she has been unwilling -- until today that is.  She eagerly went over to his side today, and within minutes, was laying in his capped PVC cave.  The previous spawn events had a duration of something like 15-20 minutes, but this time, she was in there for more like a full half hour.  She came out very noticably thinner, and there is a nice large egg mass in the male's cave, which he is tending.
 
I have a good rotifer culture ready,  a backup rotifer culture going, plenty of fresh RGComplete, plus a fresh order of RotiGreen Omega and ClorAm-X.  I've been practicing on my ocellaris clowns, and getting nice survival and growth of the clowns with the "tried and true" protocol of rotifers grown on RGComplete + greenwater technique using RotiGreen.  Now, if the male tends the eggs and doesn't eat them, maybe I'll have another chance at raising these guys in 4 days.
 
 

Time for a brief update.  This is day 5 for this batch of larvae, and they are still going strong!  For these guys, rotifers + RotiGreen seems to really rock!  Copepods, schmopepods (did I really just say that?). I will be giving them some copepods in the near future, but will stick with rotifers as their main diet for now.
 
I suspect that the problems I had with the earlier batches were due to pH swings caused by the high pH of the live phyto, but I'm just guessing.  I've fiddled with too many variables to really know exactly what has made the difference.
 
I sacrificed one to the microscope gods yesterday.  Comparing the un-resized images of younger larvae I took earlier, they really aren't growing that much in length right now, as much as they are plumping up.  Here is a stiched image of one at 84 hours:
 

 
I've basically been dripping in about 20-25 drops of RotiGreen Omega + the same amount of a stock ClorAm-X solution (12 tsp. per liter) diluted in appx. 500 ml of new, aged, half-strength salt water about twice a day.  The rotifer density is staying around 23-30 per ml, and I've not had to add very many rotifers.  It seems that the rotifers are growing in the BRT at a rate that more or less makes up for the rate at which they are being eaten.  I have added a few rotifers about every other day, but not many.  The half-strength salt water I'm dripping in is making up for evaporation, keeping the SG at 1.026.  I'm watching the pH, and if it drops below 7.2, then I add about 5 drops of the Alkalinity part of B-Ionic 2-part buffer to the next feeding drip, and that slowly brings the pH back up to about 7.3.  Whenever I drip stuff in, I make sure to keep the rate below 1 drop per second, and to drip into the bubbles from the air stone.  The seed flat heaters I have under the BRT are keeping it between 78 and 79F, with no heater in the tub to cause any trouble.
 
The parents' schedules is all wonky.  I came home on Monday the 16th to find that she had laid eggs right by the divider, only 6 days after the last spawn.  She kept looking at the egg mass over and over again, almost like she was pointing it out to me.  The male was also at the divider, and all excited.  I turkey basted the egg mass and gave it to the male, to see what he would do.  He immediately ate them.  Now I don't know what to do about their spawning schedule.  I'll have to just keep an eye on them, and probably let them have "play dates" daily to see what transpires.

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KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK JIM!

Looks very good!
Updates?

Sadly, yes.
 
They were doing GREAT through day 7, when I fed them some Apocyclops panamensis.  Day 8 they looked good, too, and I fed them more Apocyclops and also some Parvocalanus.  There were still plenty of rotifers in there, and I kept adding the RotiGreen twice a day.  I also started sprinkling in the tiniest amount of TDO A on Day 8.  At the beginning of Day 8, I started hatching some Artemia for them.  As of Sunday night (the night of Day 8), there had been very, very few deaths.
 
I woke up on Monday (Day 9) to a LOT of dead larvae -- more than half had died during the night.  At this point, the only changes in the protocol they had seen since hatch had been the introduction of the copepods, and the introduction of the small amount of TDO A.  My suspicion was that the copepods may have brought some bad bacteria with them, perhaps?  The dieoff happened basically two days after I introduced the copepods, and I also had massive dieoff two days after hatch in the earlier batches, when I had fed them copepods immediately upon hatching.
 
I immediately dosed with Erythromycin, siphoned out as many dead larvae as I could find, and then fed the NHBBS, after treating the NHBBS with Hydrogen peroxide and then rinsing with fresh salt water.
 
The larvae that survived continued to grow over the next couple of days, but there were fewer and fewer each day.  I continued to dose with Erythromycin each day, and also to feed NHBBS, but by yesterday morning (Day 12), they were all dead.
 
So, I made it to Day 11 with this batch.

The parents are giving me another chance.  Spawn today!

Could it have been due to the NHBS?

No, Kathy, actually the massive dieoff happened *before* I ever added any NHBBS.  I started them hatching on Sunday.  On Monday morning, I awoke to a large number of dead larvae.  It was only a little later on Monday morning that I fed the first NHBBS to them.
 

Time for a long overdue update.
 
There was another hatch in early May, but this time the A. panamensis had contaminated my rotifers, and as a result the rotifer culture was doing very poorly.  So, I didn't have enough rotifers for the larvae, and what rotifers I did have had a LOT of A. panamensis in them.  I started dosing Erythromycin on day one.  This time, there was no large, sudden dieoff at once, but just a steady dwindling, until the last larvae died on day 9.
 
The parents have been spawning regularly, but life and poor timing has wreaked havoc with my efforts to raise the larvae.  The next spawn was just before the solar eclipse in May, and since I was out of town for the eclipse the day of the hatch, I just let that one go.  The next couple of spawns came sooner than expected -- their spawn cycle actually dropped to 7 days, which is unprecedented in my experience!  As a result, I came home to eggs in the female's side of the divider one day, and another time, she was in the middle of laying them on her side again when I went to feed them.  That time, I let her go on the male's side to finish laying, but for whatever reason, he wasn't interested in fertilizing that batch, and when she was done laying the egg mass, he ate it.
 
That brings us to today.  First, I'll mention the other pair of these dottybacks I got in late December last year.  They have been separated, the female in the 210 and the male in the 65.  This morning, I went downstairs to feed everybody, and there was no sign of the male in the 65.  I don't know what happened to him, but he is nowhere to be found.  Odd.  So, I went to feed the breeding pair, and guess what?  The male is dead in the corner.  He was fine at the last feeding last night.  Everything looked normal last night.  Dead this morning.  So, I lost two males in two different tanks the same day, both for unknown reasons.
 
Ever get the feeling the Universe is trying to tell you something?
 
That leaves me with two females, one in the breeder setup, and the other in the 210, where I'll probably never get her out without tearing down the whole tank.
 
I'm depressed.
 

UPDATE!  The male from the 65 has been found, alive, in the sump!!!!
 
This project just got a reprieve.
 
 

Awesome news!

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

Good! I hope they get back to their amorous ways soon.

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