Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)

General
Species: Pseudochromis aldabraensis (Neon Dottyback)
Social Structure:  Pair
Size of Individuals:  Male @ 4", Female slightly smaller @ 3.5"
Age of Individuals:  Unknown
Date added to Tank:  Jan 2013

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  20g high, plumbed to central system of approx 250g
Substrate Details:  bare.
Filtration Details:  Central sump: 75g Rubbermaid tub with BM NAC9 Skimmer, 10g submerged bioballs, live rock, carbon in mesh bag.
Water Changes:  ~25% (80g) monthly
Water Temperature:  80F
Lighting:  Ecoxotic Stunner directly over tanks, dual 4' shop light for indirect lighting
Lighting Cycle:  1 hour shop light, 12 hours shoplight+Stunner, 1 hour shop light (14 hours total)
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Snails (astrea and 1 striped turbo), hermit crabs

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Hikari frozen mysis, Hikari frozen brine shrimp (regular and algae enriched), PE Mysis, Rod's Food blend
Feeding Schedule:  Once daily, as much as they will eat

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  Feb 24, 2013
Spawn Time of Day: Unknown. Sometime after the lights went out.
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  2/24/13, 3/6/13, 3/16/13, 3/24/13, 3/31/13, 4/7/13, 4/14/13
Courtship Details:  Female was seen in the cave next to the male at one point but I've only seen this once. The mating is pretty rough on the female and the next day she has missing scales and torn fins. The male usually forces the female to stay at the top of the tank where she has her own PVC caves, but as spawning time nears the male lets her spend more time in the open (and lower in the tank) where she can feed without being harassed.
Egg Size:  approx 1.5mm
Egg Color:  white
Egg Count:   possibly 150

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  4/11/2013
Hatch Time of Day:  started at 8pm, watched until 8:30 pm, lots of eggs hatched after
# Days after Spawn:  4
Larvae Description:  Active, "wagging" tail and swimming in place, occasionally darting quickly 
Consecutive Hatch Dates:      3/20/13,  3/28/13, 4/4/13, 4/11/13, 4/18/13


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  79F
Size of Larval Tank:  10g, half full
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:  none
Filtration Details:  none
Lighting:  screw-in type fluorescent bulb and reflector
Lighting Cycle:  24x7
Water Changes: 

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Rotifers (Brachionus plicatilis (L-type) + RGComplete), mix in very small amounts of NHBBS to start. Increase NHBBS feeding daily until about day 25 where rotifers are stopped and only NHBBS are fed.
Feeding Schedule:  keep tank loaded up with rotifers at all times until roughly day 25. NHBBS fed 2x daily increasing daily with number fed.

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  Noticed change in behavior on 5/16, slight change in color on 5/17
Days after Hatch:  35 days from 4/11 to 5/16
Date of Settlement End:  5/19
Description of Fry:  Fully colored, but tail and dorsal fin started out mostly transparent but color after 5/19

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:  80
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  10g tank filled with 8g water
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:  Marco Rocks rubble rock piles
Filtration Details:  None
Lighting:  clip on LED light
Lighting Cycle:  14 on, 10 off
Water Changes:  weekly, 75%
Size at Transfer:  just under 1 inch
Age at Transfer:  38dph

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  crushed flake, TDO-A, NHBBS. I only really see them eating the NHBBS, even though they did appear to be eating the TDO prior to settlement. They don't go up to the surface now like they did when they were larval.
Feeding Schedule:  2x daily

Additional Information

(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 
Tank has several 1" PVC tubes, mostly opened but two of approx 5" length have endcaps. Two more open PVC tubes are suspended from the top of the tank in the rear and provide a retreat for the female, and that is where she spends most of her time except when feeding.


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.

This is a video filmed a couple of weeks before the first spawn, with the male and female sharing a cave together. The male has her so well hidden in the cave I thought for several minutes that she had jumped out of the tank!
 

 
And here's a video of the first eggs that I saw. I actually almost missed them- they are white eggs in a white tube and I probably missed a spawn or two until I knew that I really needed to look hard for the eggs. I bought an LED spotlight that I can shine in the tube that helps me see what's in there, and I used that for filming the videos in the tubes.
 

In both spawns so far the egg ball is gone the next day

New egg mass this morning, the biggest yet. The first one was the biggest, the second was about half as big, but this latest third one is about 50% than the first. I'm hoping third time is the charm... They seem to be settling into a 10-11 day breeding cycle. The eggs were laid sometime between just before lights out last night and 11am this morning. I still haven't caught them in the act...

Went to check on the eggs at lunch. Looked like there was only just a tiny mass of maybe 15-20 eggs left in the cave. I was kinda bummed and assumed the male ate them. Then as I was walking away I saw the mass floating off in the front edge of the tank. Looks like a big chunk of the eggs broke off and left a small group behind. If it was close to the male's cave I would've left it alone in hopes that he pulled it back in, but it was far away from the cave.
 
It was bobbing in some filth in the corner so I snagged it with a specimen container and hung the container in the tank. I ran an "Aqualifter" pump to the specimen container and the egss are bobbing around gently in the container now. They all still look healthy and I can see tiny dark dots in them so I think that means that they are viable.
 
It's pretty awesome to see the egss close up. I've only seen them hidden at the back of the cave before. Seeing the little mass inside the egg is really exciting.
 
It's not a great tumbler but I had to make do with what I could on a lunch break I hope it doesn't matter that they bump into the sides and bottom of the container. I guess it can't be any worse than the male continually bashing into them inside the cave. If the male doesn't eat the eggs in the cave it will be interesting to see if I have better luck with the "cave-eggs" or the "tumbled-eggs".
 
I'll try and snap some new photos or a video tonight!!

I've seen some mention of the eggs turning "white" when fungused. Does the whole egg turn white or just a white ball inside the egg? Most of the eggs in my eggball have a grayish dot, but others have a large white dot. Are the ones with the large white dot unfertilized or fungused?

 
I had a couple pictures too but I haven't quite figured out yet how to post  a pic that isn't hosted at an external url...

Tonight I  could see the embyos moving around inside the eggs. Doing quick little darting motions and flips. The egg mass seems to have gotten heavier, as it's not really floating any more. Or maybe my Aqualifter is getting clogged a little.
 
Unfortunately I'll be out of town this weekend so there's not much I'll be able to accomplish with these other than potentially getting them to post-hatch. But if that happens it will be a first for me so I'll be excited just to see that happen.

I think these should hatch out tomorrow. I used a 6x magnifying glass against my camera lens to get some closer shots:
 

Attached Image(s)

Yesterday I wasn't able to do any fish work until 7:30pm. But I thought that would work out perfectly- from what I've read, the eggs should be hatching on the 4th night after spawning, just after lights out. So I figured I had time to get there, settle in, remove the pump to where the eggs were, and watch the hatch occur. However, when I got there, all the eggs were hatched out and it looked like it hadn't freshly occurred.
 
Based on this info, and my earlier statement on March 17: "The eggs were laid sometime between just before lights out last night and 11am this morning", this would lead me now to believe that the eggs were laid on March 16th before lights out, and not the morning of March 17th as I had assumed. If the eggs were laid on March 16th, with a 4 day hatch time, they must have hatched the night of March 20th and I missed witnessing it by about 22 hours. This would seem to be the case, based on the condition of the remaining egg sack- it didn't look very "fresh". Either this, or they hatched in under 4 days. My heart sank...
 
However- there was still ONE very active larva in the container! YES!! HOORAY! I took photos and video and will post them up later today. Thankfully I picked up a magnifying glass, I don't think either of my cameras would have been able to document anything of value without it. It will be my first larva ever! It is the most exciting and rewarding thing I think I've ever done in keeping fish!
 
Now that I know that I can get some fish to hatch, I need to get some BRT's and some food cultures revved up for the next batches...
EDIT: So, to summarize this:
* Last viewed eggs on Mar 20 @6pm. Eggs still in tact
* Checked eggs again on Mar 21 @7:30pm;
* The eggs had already hatched out, unwitnessed.
* The egg mass did not look freshly hatched.
* Based on appearance of egg mass and other reports that the eggs typically hatch after dark, I am assuming that they hatched the night of March 20, after 6pm, 2-3 hours after I last viewed them.

Hooray for your first larva!

Are you going to try to keep the loner alive or are you just going to wait for a bigger batch?

I'm going to wait for a bigger batch- one that I can refer to as "larvae" instead of "larva"
 
I've been holding off on setting up some food cultures until I had a reason to do so, so I don't really have a support system in place for this round, and I'll be out of town this weekend. I probably won't be ready for the next round of eggs in about 5 or 6 days (if all goes accroding to plan) but hopefully the next round after than, in a couple weeks, I'll be more prepared.

 

Attached Image(s)

New batch of eggs discovered on 3/25 @ 5pm. Spawn occurred sometime between 7pm on 3/24 and 5pm on 3/25. Still not sure if the act is occurring the night before after lights out or in the morning. I need to make more time to observe prior to the spawning. I can tell pretty much the day or day before it will occur by the size of the female.
 
I've been researching what I need to get a rotifer culture going. Going to order up a batch of rots tomorrow. Not sure if I can raise this batch on something else like Rotifeast in the interim, if I can get that at my LFS in the meantime.

My P. fridamani would spawn in the evening before dark.

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

 
That seems consistent with the prior batch of eggs, assuming a 4 day hatch time. If these eggs hatch tomorrow then they were most likely laid on the evening 3/24.
 
Just ordered up my rotifers, a couple batches so I can try to get in an early feeding before the culture gets going and hopefully enough to start a couple cultures in case on crashes. Also hoping they arrive in time for this hatching, but that might be too much to ask for...
 
The father is still watching the eggs and hasn't eaten them or pushed them out of the tube yet. This is the longest he's left them to develop on their own. I'm debating about removing them tonight, or leaving them in the tube until tomorrow. I have been feeding the parents a little more food than usual lately, and leading up to the spawn. But he doesn't really come out to feed much since the spawn- he just stays in the tube with the eggs all the time, occasionally nipping at a piece of food that floats by, which is different than his usual behavior as well. I guess now after a few attempts he is becoming a better dad.

Got my order of rotifers this morning. Got some extra for immediate feeding and some others to get a culture going.
 
Pulled the eggs from the pvc tube on my lunch break and put them in the specimen container again hanging on the side of the tank with some flow going in. The male was doing a great job of watching over the eggs this time. He would not leave the tube even as I raised it above the water level and poured the eggs into the container. The eggs came out without a single bad one in the batch, and a couple larvae popped free during the transfer.
 
Going to set up my hatch tank shortly and get the rotifers settled... woohoo!

On the early evening of 3/28, I siphoned ~5g of tank water into a 10g tank. I removed the specimen container with the eggs from the broodstock tank and placed it into the new 10g tank and set it up with a heater and airstone (with the specimen container submerged in the 10g tank so that hatched larvae could swim out).
 
There were 2-3 larva that had hatched, and I didn't want to put the pump (aqualifter) output moving water against the eggs in fear of sucking some larva into the pump input. I didn't really have an adequate tumbler, so I just put a small airstone in the specimen container in the vicinity of the eggs.
 
Not sure exactly where I went wrong, but I think the airstone near the eggs was insufficient. In the last egg mass, there were a number of "dead" eggs in the mass, but when they hatched it was obvious that the there was a hatch. In the new mass there was no noticeably dead eggs. However, very few of them ever hatched. Only about a dozen ended up hatching.
 
Since a few had hatched out during the day, and I'd read some people left the lights on 24x7 for the larvae, I left the lights on all night on the 28th. I think either having the lights on all night didn't trigger them to hatch, or I didn't have enough flow on the eggs after I removed them from the cave. Those are really the main two things that I did differently.
 
In any case, I've got about 10 larvae and they are healthy and swimming around and eating. I was hoping for many more to hatch, but it is still positive personal progress. I've added a large amount of rotifers and add several drops of RGcomplete 2-3x per day to tint the water green. I've also got two half-full 5g batches of rotifers culturing that get RGcomplete 2x/day.

Discovered a new egg mass this morning just after lights on, which leads me to believe that they are probably spawning the prior evening. That would make this latest spawning cycle only 7 days.
 
Checked the larval tank this morning (4dph) and I could only count 5 larvae, but they still appear active and in good health.

Day after my last entry, on Aug 2 there were 4 larvae. Then those four larvae dwindled to one on Apr 3.
 
Last night I had another hatch, a big one! I think there must be 100 larvae. I removed the egg mass from the tube at 5pm and put it in the specimen container, and hung the specimen container inside the larval rearing tank. I put the Aqualifter pump output in the specimen container, gently flowing out towards the egg mass, with the water trickling down the side of the specimen container and into the rearing tank. I shut the lights on the tank out at the usual broodstock tank time. I guess either lack of flow of leaving the lights on all night was the problem with the last hatch, where only about 10 of the eggs hatched.
 
I ended up hatching the eggs out in the tank with the single larva from my last hatch since there was only a single larva in there. Didn't seem worth it to set up a new tank yet for this new batch. The sole survivor from the last hatch is still kicking, he's about 50-60% larger than the other larvae, and darker.
 
I'll get some photos of this latest hatch and I have some photos of the rearing tank and cultures that I need to get posted up.

It all starts with just one! Good job!

-Adam

Pics of the larval rearing setup, 4/2/13:
 

 
 
 
 

Attached Image(s)

Another installment in the "Poorly Filmed Videos, by Joel" series.
 
Fresh batch of dottyback larvae, 4/5/13. Best hatch yet (by far!). 1dph.

Finally "caught them in the act" yesterday. 5pm, both were in the tube, no eggs yet. But this morning there was a fresh egg mass in there. So they're definitely spawning in the evening, as suspected, but now confirmed.
 
It's a bit unnerving when they are in that tube together because there's absolutely no sign of them in the tank- it makes me panic a little. Need to shine a flashlight in the tube to see them. The female was all the way back against the endcap in a U-shape with her head against one side of the pipe and her tail against the other side of the pipe and her body pressed against the endcap.

Got a new batch of eggs hatching tonight!
 
On the downside, had a rotifer crash yesterday. At siphoning time last evening I noticed they weren't very dense in numbers and today it looks to be toasted. Ordered up another culture today. Started hatching some NHBBS shrimp last night.
 
Since the hatch, the only dead larvae I saw were the morning after- there were about a half dozen. Since then I haven't had more than a death or two that I have seen. However, after a really skimpy feeding last night, I found about a half dozen dead this morning and about another half dozen dead at lunch. This is either a big turning point in their transformation, or due to starvation. Starvation seems to be the likely culprit in this case.
 
My routine thus far was to siphon off 1/3 of the rotifers from two 5g buckets every two days thru a coffee filter and add those to the rearing tank. It was a LOT of rotifers. Every day, 2x per day, I add about a dozen drops of RGComplete and .5ml of Prime water conditioner to the rearing tank. Seemed to be working very well until the rotifer crash.
 
I went to my LFS looking for frozen rots. They had them, but my top-notch LFS guy suggested "Rotifeast" instead. Said someone locally uses it instead of live rotifers for rearing clownfish larvae, and the frozen rots "explode" after freezing so they aren't as good. So I gave it a shot on my lunch break and it seemed like they were taking to it well, in that their guts were getting filled up with "white". I'll know for sure when I check them again later based on their guts. I'm also wondering if the rots will stay suspended in the water.
 
I can't believe it's only been 7 days.

When I checked the tank in the evening it was pretty obvious it was in decline. The water was also getting pretty cloudy, prob due in some part the uneaten RGComplete that I had added prior to the thin batch of rots- I need to add rots and then add RGComplete accordingly. So, I did a water change, siphoned off about 4g of the 5g and set a drip to replenish the water. This morning it looked like 4-5 larvae still alive. Amazing all that can happen in a day...
 
Fresh hatch last night wasn't high yielding. A rather large egg mass but only about maybe 30-40 larvae. Not sure what the difference was between this batch and the last. There was more ambient lighting after lights out (from the other larval tank), and maybe that was a factor.
 
No rotifers in the bucket until the shipment arrives later today. I'm almost thinking as an experiment that I might see how many days I can get them to on RotiFeast alone, or at least until I run out of RotiFeast which probably won't be too long from now. Despite the potential convenience, the stuff is pricey and unfortunately doesn't reproduce itself after purchasing

On the morning of Fri Apr 12 I added the Rotifeast, by that evening the tank was totally cloudy. I think they were eating it but the tank couldnt handle the extra load.
 
My BBS hatching attempt didn't appear to hatch. But I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. It didn't really look any different after 24 hours then it did originally. I kept the temp at 80 by submerging in broodstock tank water and kept an LED light on them. Wish I had a microscope.
 
Apr 12 evening I transferred the remaining 2 larvae from the 4/4 hatch into the tank with newly hatched 4/11 batch. New rotifers arrived and I set up 3-5g pail cultures.
 
On Sat 4/13, the larval tank with new and old batches was very cloudy from he Rotifeast so I did a 4/5g water change and siphoned the tank bottom. There were still the two larvae from the 4/4 hatch. I added an Aqualifter pump (3.5g/hr) with a sponge filter on the end at the dark end of the tank, flowing into a hanging specimen container with some activated carbon in it, and dripping back down into the tank, to try and combat some of the cloudiness.
 
With the new rotifer culture, I discovered that even tho the room temp was 73 degrees, the unheated 5g pails of rotifers were at about 68 degrees, presumably from the evap cooling of the airstone. Too cold! Maybe this is what killed the last culture, in addition to too heavy of feedings? I put loosely fitting lids on the buckets and the temp went into the low 70's. I added heaters to 2 of the three cultures to bring the temp to 77 degrees. I'll compare unheated to heated cultures to see if one is more productive than the other.
 
On Sun 4/14 there was only one larva left from the 4/4 hatch. The cloudy water had cleared a fair amount from the carbon filter I set up and the prior days water change. I saw two dead larvae from the 4/11 hatch.
 
In the last batch I kept the light very subdued and indirectly lighting the tank 24x7. With this batch I've got the light directly over the tank. It's easier to observe them and they stay in the vicinity of the light (away from my mini-filter) and seem to be OK.

Alas, the last larva from the 4/4 hatch died at 11 days.
 
New egg ball this morning. Out with the old, in with the new...

Keep it up, Joel.  I'm having somewhat similar (lack of) success with my P. cyanotaneia.  I'll be updating my journal on them soon, so you might want to follow along, while I'll be watching your journal on these, as well.

 
For sure. I've been making my way through your journal but falling a little behind so I need to get caught up.
 
Hopefully I(/we) are close to success about the time that the juvy pair of Pseudochromis elongatus that I just got start spawning

There are about 20 fry kicking from the 4/11 hatch, which wasn't a very impressive hatch to begin with. On Wed evening 4/17 I fed a number of NHBBS for the first time to these 6 day old fry. Added a few more on the morning of 4/18. About 70% of the fry ate them, about 30% did not. You could tell by the color of their stomach. It didn't appear to be size related either- some small fry ate the BBS and some did not, and some large fry ate them and some did not. I think some fish were just lacking the confidence to eat the new food item. I'd see some of the fry that had not eaten any poised for a "strike" with bent tails, circling the food, but then after a few seconds they'd give up. There are an excess of 2 day old brine shrimp in there now and I think tonight I'll do a large water change.
 
Last night I had a new hatch, the biggest yet! Maybe 150? Maybe more... It's hard to tell really, but easily over 100.
 
I built a tumbler out of a 2L soda bottle. The bottle was submerged in a 10g tank, half full of water from the broodstock tank. Water was pumped through a hole in the capped end of the 2L bottle via Aqualifter pump, with the input to the pump at the opposite end of the tank, covered by a piece of sponge filter. The eggs were removed at approximately 5:30-6pm, and placed in the tumbler, under a clip-on style fluorescent bulb (turned on, of course).
 
Around 7:30 the eggs began hatching, slowly at first and then a steady stream. By 8:30 they were coming out fast and semi-furious. It was the first time I'd been present for most of the hatching. I had a bad hatch a couple hatches ago and suspected either too low a flow or that they didn't like the lights being on all night. With this hatch, I've ruled out the lighting as an issue. The lighting from the "bad" hatch was much dimmer- maybe they like bright lighting, or none at all? The last hatch had no lighting, and it was only mediocre.
 
The ball ceased tumbling after maybe 10 minutes and was "stuck" in the neck of the 2L bottle. Babies would get blasted up and out of the 2L tumbler. In the absence of "dad" moving the eggs around I think they liked the steady but gentle flow of the water to help them out of their eggs. About 4-5 times I shot a jet of water down on the eggs from a baster, to get them tumbling again, but the eggs would eventually settle back down in the neck and stick in there again. I think the "basting" may only have helped the hatched fry that were trapped underneath the egg mass.
 

Pair is getting ready to spawn tonight. The female was REALLY beat up, like I've never seen her before. Scales missing, tattered fins. I hope all goes well. Not sure what changed. I've been trying to raise the salinity a little the past week but I didn't think to measure it.
 
Still about 20ish fry from 4/11 hatch, making them 10 days today. Been saying I needed to take some new camera footage, keep forgetting the camera... finally remembered it tonight, and the batttery died after a minute or two. grr!
 
I did notice that there have been an increasing number of fry from 4/11 hanging out at the dark end of the tank, which seems odd. First there were one or two, then a day later three or four, and now there's about 5-6 that like to hang out in the darker end. Maybe they don't like the lights on 24x7? Who knows. Maybe it's just because it's less crowded.

I've heard that Neons and other dottybacks can go off like that. It happened with my P. tonozukai pair. They were fine for a while (spawning) and then the male started getting really cranky to the point he killed the female.
You should try separating them between spawns if the aggression continues.

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

Thanks for the advice, Fishtal. I will keep an eye on them for now. They did act similarly, altho not quite as aggressive, early in their first spawnings. The aggression seems to have subsided a bit.
 
They did not make a new egg mass. Kind of bummed- I liked the nice predictable 7 day schedule. When I said that nothing had changed I don't know what I was thinking... I forgot to mention that my skimmer pump died last week! Getting a replacement in two days. Maybe there's a deterioration in water quality making the female not want to spawn, which is making the male aggressive? Seems likely.
 
In any case, I can't handle a new batch of fry at this point. I'm really struggling to keep any sort of density of rotifers in the tanks. The cultures are fine but there are too many fry. I've started feeding brine shrimp and a small amount of rotifers in the mornings and then a large helping of rotifers in the evening. By morning most everything is eaten. I'm letting the current brine shrimp go past the "newly hatched" phase, and supplementing them with AminOmega and RGComplete. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad idea, but as long as the fry continue to eat them I'll consider it OK.
 
Later tonight I'm going to try some 'tigger pods', which I think are about twice as big as BBS, but if they'll eat them and I can get a culture going it might be a good new food source. I'm worried about feeding too much brine shrimp. If that doesn't work out I'll probably just double the number of rotifer cultures I have going, which is kind of a pain to have to deal with daily.

I found an egg ball in the tank so at least these guys are spawning again. Been a busy week so I'm not sure when it was laid. Aggression levels are back to normal. Phew.
 
The hatch from 4/18 has been getting second-class treatment over the past week. There was a lot of die-off due to underfeeding and water quality, but I did finally get in a water change and got the feeding back on track. There's probably about 40 larvae remaining.
 
The hatch from 4/11 is holding steady. I counted 10 larvae today. It's day 17... hang in there little larvae... There are a couple that are really tiny, like they haven't grown since the first week, but they seem healthy so maybe they are just runty.
 
One thing I've seen with the 4/11 hatch is some behavior where I thought a fish or two was "short circuiting"- they would dart around the top until they ran into the tank wall, sometimes flipping upside down. I've removed a few of these preemptively. But, as I observe them more and more, this seems like normal occasional behavior, maybe when they are hungriest? They zoom around the top crazy-style for a while, sometimes a long while, then they go back to normal. I wish I had back the ones I removed. Also, as the fish age, they spend less and less time under the light. It seems like most of the time they prefer to hang out in the dark end of the tank. There's usually only one or two or three under the light and the rest are down in the dark end.
 
Other than that, not much new to report. Siphon rotifers, hatch brine shrimp, water change, watch, wait, repeat...

I mentioned a while back I was thinking of starting a tigger pod culture for feeding. In retrospect, bad idea. I was checking out some tigger pods the other day and they are way too big. Not sure what I was thinking.
 
Started feeding some TDO-A. I think they're trying it a little. Still have some rotifers in the tank but I'm not sure if it's necessary any more, I may phase that out. Feeding TDO-A in the morning and a few BBS and then BBS at night.
 
Down to 6 (maybe 7) larvae, day 22. Got some good video of day 19 that I need to get posted up (which I keep saying and not doing...)

So exciting and so close!

That's strange.  I thought I had responded to your "what was I thinking?" post this morning.
 
My P. cyanotaenia that are now at 28 days have been eating almost nothing but Tigriopus for about the last week.  They love them!  At the size yours look to be, I would encourage you to go for it with the Tiggers.