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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Saturday, March 16, 2013 10:31 PM
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What a bummer day.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Saturday, March 16, 2013 11:34 PM
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These things happen. I am sorry to hear it, but happy to report that you now have several reports approved!
check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website: http://kathysclowns.com Captive bred clownfish and more (Wholesale to the trade.)
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 1:25 PM
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Drum roll...... FANFARE!!!!! While I never intended achieving "success" with this species to be an example of "it only takes one" -- well, here we are. My oldest fry from the January 8th hatch is at 60 Days Post Settlement today! It has been living together with a sibling from another hatch, at first in the same 2 gallon fishbowl, and for the last couple of weeks, in the same larger growout kreisel. The two are quite gregarious -- they hang out very near each other almost all the time. The Bluestripe fry are much less "friendly" that way. The larger fry is about 4.25 cm or so now, and the smaller one is just slightly behind in size, being just shy of 4 cm. They continue to thrive in the copepod soup I have them in, with a constant supply of Tigriopus, Nitokra and Apocyclops, plus additions of Acartia and Arctodiaptomus, plus some Moina salina from time to time, too. Here are some pictures taken this morning. The first one was taken in the kreisel, with my Secchi stick in the background to serve as a metric ruler. The water in the kreisel is a bit murky from the live phyto in it, though, so I scooped the 60DPS juvenile out with a 600ml beaker to get a better picture without having to shoot through so much greenish water for the second picture. Meanwhile, after missing the hatch on the night of March 15th, the next batch of eggs was a very weak one, and there was basically nothing left to hatch on the night of the 24th. The pair in Tank #1 continues to spawn every 9 days, but they also tend to alternate between large, healthy spawns, and small, weak spawns. The spawn on March 25th was a nice, large, healthy spawn, so I'm looking forward to a decent hatch next Tuesday, April 2nd.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 1:30 PM
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Congrats!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 1:35 PM
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Congratulations, Jim!
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 1:40 PM
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That is really sweet Jim. Congrats on your achievement and thanks for your dedication on this project. It is REALLY awesome !!!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 2:41 PM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 3:16 PM
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What a beautiful acheivement!
check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website: http://kathysclowns.com Captive bred clownfish and more (Wholesale to the trade.)
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 4:34 PM
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Congrats! You're making me jealous!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 7:01 PM
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Absolutely fantastic!!! Congrats Jim!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, March 29, 2013 9:27 PM
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Congratulations Jim! Amazing work!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 12:52 PM
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Thank you all for the words of praise and encouragement! Well it looks like most of the eggs the male in Tank #1 was carrying, and were due to hatch tonight, hatched last night instead. He still has a few dark, mature eggs this morning, plus a whole bunch of new, yellowish-white ones. ARRRGGGHHH! I may still get some fry out of this batch tonight, but it appears that he hatched early on me, and I missed most of them. On the bright side, the parents are eating well, getting fatter, and obviously healthy, since they are spawning regularly. I discovered the heater in Tank #2 had failed off -- not a big deal, since the room is warm enough, the temp was only down to about 74-75 F -- but I've replaced the failed heater, and have brought the temp back up to around 78 F, so maybe pair #2 will start spawning again. They, too, have been eating well. Meanwhile, as an aside, the lone redstripe in the 65 gallon gets along just fine with the lone banded pipe. They more or less ignore each other. There is absolutely no aggression between them.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Saturday, April 20, 2013 1:15 AM
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Finally, after a long break, the pair in tank #1 spawned a nice, big batch of eggs this morning. I think the lights from the Pseudochromis cyanotaenia larval tank has been keeping them up at night, and messing with their sleep / diurnal cycle. I have been hatching and enriching a bunch of BBS for the P. cyanotaenia lately, so the excess get fed to the pipes. I have noticed a definite correlation between the pipes getting fed Dan's Feed enriched BBS and spawning with the redstripes. I'm going to have to just keep hatching, enriching, and feeding the BBS, it seems!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 1:28 PM
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More anecdotal evidence of the value of the Dan's Feed enriched BBS. The pair in Tank #2 spawned this morning, for the first time in about 2 1/2 months! Woot!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 12:57 PM
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The pair in Tank #2 have some companions -- two Yellow Coral Gobies (Gobiodon okinawae). I am convinced that they eat they pipefish fry whenever they hatch. I have never snagged any more than one or two of the fry from this tank, and this most recent hatch was no different. I set the snagger for three straight nights, leaving it running all night each time, and didn't snag a single fry. I had been feeding this pair very well, and he carried more than 90% of the eggs to term, but I still didn't get a single fry out of it. To me, the only explanation is that these tiny little fish are fry-eating monsters! Both pairs have spawned again within the last week. I have a couple of fry from a hatch from tank #1 that are about two weeks old now, and have been in the "walk like an Egyptian" phase for about two days or so now. The challenges I still face with these are (1) capturing a decent percentage of the fry when they hatch, and then (2) getting a decent survival rate out of those that I do catch.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Tuesday, July 2, 2013 2:39 AM
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I think I have made a significant discovery while working to photograph these fish in regards to sexing them. It is well known that it is fairly easy to sex the Bluestripe Piepfish (Doryrhamphus excisus) by examining the snouts, and looking for extra "bumps" on the snouts of the males. I have personally observed this phenomenon, and it is an accurate and easily detectable manifestation of sexual dimorphism in D. excisus. Prior to last night, I had not previously observed such "bumps" in Dunckerocampus baldwini. I was taking some photographs of my primary breeding pair of D. baldwini last night, and while examining the photos, I noticed the same type of "bumps" (more accurately described as white conical spikes or protrusions) on the snout of the pregnant male of the pair that are absent on the snout of the female, which I had never before noticed. The phenomenon is more subtle with this species, but it is clearly visible, as shown in the two photographs displayed below. I will try to get some similar images of the other breeding pair of these that I have, to confirm this sexual dimorphism. Meanwhile, I just wanted to document it here: Female without any snout bumps: Male with clearly visible white conical snout bumps:
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Tuesday, July 2, 2013 2:48 AM
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OK, those images were shrunk down by the MBI site, and show less detail than I had hoped. Here is another attempt: Female no bumps: Male with bumps:
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Friday, July 5, 2013 7:07 PM
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Very interesting! I know that janss have very small bumps on the males, though those are very very small. It would be hard to sex in a fish store, but possible. That would be really great for people interested in breeding. Now we have to see what other species have them. I will be looking. I can't wait to see what you find with the other pairs.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Saturday, September 28, 2013 4:38 PM
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I finally managed to get some decent pictures of the other pair. Not only does the "bumps on the snout" part hold up, but now that I've gotten good pictures of the snouts of two different pairs, I'm noticing another sexual dimorphism: The males have a yellow coloration along the lower portion of the snout that the females lack. Here are some closeups of the snouts of the other pair, where you can clearly see both the bumps and the yellow stripe on the male that are lacking on the female: Male: Female:
<message edited by JimWelsh on Saturday, September 28, 2013 6:14 PM>
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dunckerocampus baldwini
Saturday, September 28, 2013 4:41 PM
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Those are Great shots!
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