Breeding Journal, Species: Orchid Dottyback (P fridmani) Pr 2

General
Species:  Pseudochromis fridmani.  Wild-caught as juveniles.
Social Structure:   Breeding pair.
Size of Individuals:   Male 3" TL, female 2.75" TL.  Male previously bred for me, new female.
Age of Individuals:   Male was purchased Nov 2010 about 1.25" at the time, and female was purchased Feb 2012 1.75" at the time.
Date added to Tank:  Female added Feb 25, 2012.  Male added Mar 3, 2012.

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  20 gallon (24x12x16") plumbed into 160 gallon broodstock system.
Substrate Details:  Fine dusting of sand.  Decor includes a few pieces of 1" PVC (including one at the surface which the female likes), a 1/2" piece of PVC that only the female fits into, and a few small pieces of live rock.
Filtration Details:  Central filtration via sump.  200 micron filter sock, 2 gallons bioballs, EuroReef RS-180 skimmer.
Water Changes:  Bi-weekly 50%.  Tap water filtered with sediment filter and carbon block (chloramines in tap water).  Resulting ammonia in water is treated with ClorAm-X.  Top off is RO/DI.
Water Temperature:  82F
Lighting:  14,000K LED strip.
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours light, 10 hours dark
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Non-breeding pair of Percula Clownfish, a couple tiny hermit crabs.  Clowns removed and swapped for breeding pair of Banggai Cardinals 08/02/12 after I noticed the Percula female was constantly harassing the Dottyback female.

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  They mainly eat a homemade mash and TDO EP1, with PE Mysis (which isn't their favourite) a few times per week.  They were fed live blackworms heavily Apr 15 to May 6.  Possible spawning trigger?
Feeding Schedule:  3 times per day.

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  May 20 or 21, 2012.  Eggs gone by evening.   Possibly they have spawned before and I haven't noticed. 
Spawn Time of Day:  I believe it is usually morning to midday.
Dates of Consecutive Spawns: 
May 27, 2012 afternoon.  Eggs gone by May 29th.
A few poorly observed, unrecorded spawns.  Appeared to all be eaten (or?) in the first couple days.
June 16, 2012.  Eggs pulled June 17th. (see notes)
June 22, 2012.  Eggs gone by morning of June 26th.
July 7, 2012.
Several poorly observed, unrecorded spawns.  Egg mass kicked out of cave on 3rd or 4th day.  Under microscope the eggs appeared to not be developing (unfertilized?).
08/23/12.  First batch to hatch.  Collected a few in a larvae snagger.
08/29/12.  Missed hatch, info not known.
09/04/12.  Observed about a dozen fertilized eggs days of hatch.
09/11/12.  About 30% fertilization.  First batch collected for culturing.
* I was away from the fish room for the winter, so spawns weren't recorded. *
*See 07/06/13 note below*
07/05/13.  Smaller egg ball than usual.
Courtship Details: The male swims up to the female's face, turns around and wiggles while slowly moving towards what I believe is his nesting site (haven't seen eggs there yet).  He goes about 6" away, then swims back to the female's face, and repeats.  Very cute.  He appears to be trying to convince her to follow him.
Egg Size:  1 mm.  Measured via a 40x loupe with 0.1 mm graduated markings.
Egg Color:  Clear with a clear dot, as a mass they appear "salmon" in color.  Before hatch two black eyes can be observed.
Egg Count:   Unable to count accurately, approximately 200-400?

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  Aug 27, 2012.  Just a few hatched, only 10% fertilization or so.  Larvae not retained.
Hatch Time of Day:  Wee hours, early morning, before lights on.
# Days after Spawn:  4th night.
Larvae Description:  3 mm.  Quite clear, difficult to see.  Two black eyes.  Shaped like carrots.
Consecutive Hatch Date:
09/01/12.  Didn't observe, missed hatch.
09/07/12.  Observed about a dozen fertilized eggs day of hatch.
09/15/12.  Decent hatch, somewhere around 30-60% fertilization...hard to judge.
 
Larval Tank Details
Temperature:   82F
Size of Larval Tank:  10-gallon BRT filled to 6 gallons.
Substrate Details:   None, white acrylic bottom installed.
Other Tank Decor:  Air stone, heater.
Filtration Details:  None.
Lighting:  7 watt incandescent bulb from day 1-(tbd)
Lighting Cycle:  24 hour lighting for first 36 hours.  Light goes off for the first time on the second night.
Water Changes:   tbd

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  B plicatilis rotifers added at about 20/mL.  Enriched with N-Rich PL Plus.
Feeding Schedule:   Continuous.

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
This journal is for a newly established pair.  The male was half of a spawning pair that bred for me summer and fall of 2011.  Female disappeared in December 2011.  New female purchased Feb 2012.  The new pair accepted each other easily.  New female was significantly smaller than the male.
 
Breeding Journal for male with his first female:  http://www.mbisite.org/Fo...0827&mpage=1#60827
 
 
 
LINKS:
Chart showing P fridmani hourly embryonic development:  http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/10/breeder
 
 
NOTES:
 
2012:
 
June 16th spawn date is estimated.  Eggs found June 17th, and observed under microscope.  Eggs appear to not be fertilized.  Tumbling produces no development even though eggs are maintained for 6 days. 
 
In July I noticed female Percula was harassing the pair keeping them contained in their PVC caves.  I wondered if this was causing the fertilizatioin failure.  Later it was determined the harassment was indeed causing the fertilization failure. 
 
Aug 2nd I removed the Percula clowns and added a breeding pair of Banggai Cardinals to the Dottyback tank instead.  This solved the fertilization problems, although it took 6 spawns (6 weeks) for the male to begin fertilizing more than just a few eggs.  Even the 6th spawn was only 40-60% fertilization.
 
2013:
 
Mid-June the female developed two growths or cysts on her chin/jaw.  She continued to feed just fine, and the growths went away after a few weeks.  http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=83916
 
07/05 - The pair final have a spawn after a 2 month hiatus.  Almost all of the fish in the breeding room quit spawning when I ran out of homemade mash and fed only store bought mysis, plankton, and brine shrimp for about 3 weeks.

 
Male:

 
 
Female looking gravid (Apr 1):

 
 Eggs!  (May 21)

Eggs are already MIA.  Not sure how long they were actually in there before I saw them.  They were still in there this afternoon, but now I can't see them anywhere.  Not sure if he ate them or accidentally lost them.  At least Orchids breed often so I shouldn't have a long wait for another batch.

The pair have been spawning regularly, and in my sporadic observations the male appears to be eating the eggs in the first couple days.  I haven't been watching him very closely though.  I decided to pull a large wad of eggs I found today.  I looked under 40x magnification, and the eggs appear to be 17-21 hours old according to the embryonic development chart you can find under "LINKS" in my datasheet above.  So I'm going to call these eggs on day 2 today.
 
I put the eggs into a pop bottle brine shrimp hatcher, added 3 drops methylene blue, and set it to 1 bubble per second which seems to be the minimum needed to keep the eggs from settling in the bottom.  I messed around with using an airstone instead to provide gentler tumbling, but couldn't get it right.  Might experiment again later.  I set the tumbler into the sump of the broodstock tank, and put a loose fitting lid on it.  Fingers crossed! 
 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Well, over the days the egg mass broke apart in the crappy ghetto tumbler.  About half turned blue (dead).  The remaining half are little globs of 2-20 eggs floating around, some stuck to the sides of the tumbler.  Under the microscope, the eggs are not developing, but not rotting either.  Which I think is weird.  The yolks have turned white although the rest of the interior of the egg is still clear.  Not sure what's going on, but I do know they won't hatch.
 
I ordered an Aquabreed 200 and an Aqua Lifter Pump from BRS to make a water driven tumbler.  I tried using a PhosBan reactor with my Banggai eggs which worked significantly better than the ghetto pop bottle tumbler (the eggs lasted 6 days), and might be good enough for the Dotty eggs.  It takes a lot of flow through the PhosBan reactor to keep an egg ball tumbling though - a MaxiJet 1200 is barely enough.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

June 22nd spawn taken today (2 dps):

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Looking at the eggs under 250x magnification I don't think the eggs have been fertilized.  The male seems to abandon the eggs or kick them out of his cave on day 2 or 3.  When I have tumbled the eggs I have seen no development. 
 
I noticed awhile back the female Clownfish harassing the female Dottyback to the point that the Clownfish didn't let the Dottyback swim the tank freely.  I am wondering if this stress may be causing the non-fertilization.  The male Dottyback is proven while the female so far is not.  On August 2nd I removed the Clownfish and put a new (to me) breeding pair of Banggai Cardinals in the tank with the Dottybacks.  Hopefully this will help.  The Dottybacks had eggs when I made the swap (and no longer have them now, assumed non-fertile), so I should expect to see a new batch of eggs in about a week.  Fingers crossed! 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Well, the Orchids have been laying a new batch of eggs every 7-9 days.  Their latest nest was laid on the 23rd.  I shined a dim flashlight into the tube yesterday afternoon to see how the mass looked and it appeared a bit dark so I figured that maybe there were some eyes!  So I put my larvae snagger in there lastnight to see if anything hatched.  Much to my delight I found a few larvae in the snagger this morning.  I didn't save them as it's just not worth it for so few larvae, but this is very encouraging.  As far as I know, this pair hasn't had any hatches before this.  The male kicked the rest of the nest out, so I was able to inspect it and see that there was maybe 10% viable eggs in the ball.  Hey, something is better than nothin! 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Finally got a half-decent fertilization on the batch spawned Sept 11th.  They are hatching tonight (5th night), and are about halfway done right now.  It's tough to guess, but there is probably 40-60% fertilization on this egg mass.  Much better than the dozen or so on the last batch (ugh).

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Excellent Mindy, thats great.
I didnt do will with my last batch, I wish you good luck with these.

Thanks Darren. 
 
I left the dim, 7W bulb on overnight for the Dotty larvae, and am concerned that this morning I do not see big bellies on them.  I have B plicatilis rotifers in the tank for them to eat at about 20/mL.  I'm thinking there is about 100-150 larvae and there is about 6 gallons of water in the BRT.  I used new ASW and I sterilized the BRT and culture medium by circulating chlorine bleach (1 mL per gallon) for 24 hours.  Then dechlorinated with sodium thiosulphate half an hour prior to adding the larvae.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

I've been away from the fish room over winter, so I didn't work with them at all.  They spawned Apr 13th with the eggs due to hatch tonight.  I am happy to report that the Orchids are getting much better fertilization these days although there are still many unfertilized (the light pink/orange ones).  I don't have an open BRT right now, and I'm headed to Cozumel on the 26th so this spawn won't be retained.  However, I am practicing hatching them a la Tal's method with vigorous aeration and a bright light.  I will collect a spawn when I'm back from vacation and begin working with them again.
 
 
 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Fail!  About 1/3 of the ball hatched, but almost all the larvae were killed by the aggressive aeration even when removing hatched larvae every 15 minutes.  I will have to review Tal's method, and practice some more. 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

fwiw- I've had pretty good luck using an Aqualifter pump to tumble using water instead of air. It has a steady but gentle 3.5g/min flow rate.

Ok thanks Joel, I will try that with the next egg ball.  I do have an Aqua Lifter pump sitting around.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

On the 11th I pulled an egg ball to inspect it, and put it back because it wasn't ripe.  On the 12th I checked again and it looked ripe, so I put it in a new tumbler I figured out.  I set a tall tumbler style drink glass in the BRT and filled the BRT so it was about 1/4" over the top of the glass.  I put the egg ball into the glass and added a rigid airline with a mild bubble count (2-3 per second??).  The egg ball would stay tumbling in the glass and the hatched larvae (and some unhatched dislodged eggs) would leave the glas.  I had a VERY good hatch - several hundred, maybe a thousand?  The 9-gallon BRT was loaded.  The resulting unhatched mass had about 30 white eggs in it, all the developed eggs appeared to have hatched.
 
Now for the screw up...
 
I left the light on for the first night (a 7.5 watt incandescent turned away from the BRT).  I added WAY TOO MANY rotifers and greenwater.  Yesterday there were less larvae, but still loads.  I turned the light out for 8 hours at last night.  Today there are only a handful of larvae and a ridiculous amount of rotifers (it looked like a rotifer culture).  I think the rotifers were the cause of the demise.  Better luck next time...

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

While I've been unable to test this, I've been advised to light P. fridmani larvae 24/7 until settlement when feeding them only rotifers. If you are feeding them copepods you can give them some down time as the 'pods have a higher nutritional profile. I'm hoping to try this myself soon.

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

Ok thanks Tal, I will try that.  I will be getting some Tisbe copepods soon and will get some Tigriopus going again soon.  I'm not sure if the nauplii of either of these would be suitable or not?  I can't seem to find any references...

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

When I came back from Cozumel I was out of homemade mash and all my broodstock were fed only frozen Mysis and Plankton for 3 weeks.  Most of my broodstock have been on a breeding hiatus since.  I made more homemade mash last weekend and have been pumping the fish full of food.  Hopefully things will start percolating in there soon!

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Still waiting for a spawn... 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

They picked up spawning again in July, but the male hasn't been doing a good job.  I'm hoping to collect a spawn soon here though.  I've got all winter now...

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

I've finally starting working with these guys again.  I've tried the last two egg balls, but I can't seem to get a good hatch.  The egg ball has been falling apart or the eggs don't hatch and just go white.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]