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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Tuesday, October 1, 2013 12:31 PM
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very nice thread. i love this species and one day i ll work with them. You keep them without Diadema?
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Tuesday, October 1, 2013 12:38 PM
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I have not kept any of them with an urchin at any point in time, and they don't seem terribly bothered by it. I put a bunch of PVC pipes in with them which they ignore. They mainly just cling to the sides of the tank (there aren't any "predators" in the tank with them, so perhaps they have just become comfortable). The male does spend most of his time in his tile condo though. He rarely even comes out to eat anymore but is nice and thick looking, so he is eating eggs to maintain his body condition I believe. For this reason, when you try them, I would suggest to keep a harem of one male and several females if you can (otherwise you won't have any eggs!)
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Tuesday, October 1, 2013 12:47 PM
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okay, thanks. I will probably keep them with one to several urchins though
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Wednesday, October 16, 2013 10:46 AM
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Okay, so I had a nice group of perhaps 40 when I started my most recent run, collected over a period of 3 days. These hatched on Sept 24th, 25th, and 26th and were collected from the tank the following morning via turkey baster/flashlight method. I started them with L rots and live phyto (Iso, nanno, tetra or cheatoceros). They were put in the 1 gallon fish bowl which I like because it allows me to do substantial water changes daily or every other day, but not use up a ton of water/salt and were lit 24/7. On day two (or day one, depending on what day the larva hatched), I added apocylcops and some nhbbs (not for the younger ones, but because there were a few in there that were a week or so older). Every day or at least every other day, I did 50-75% water changes (sometimes to just thin out the rotifers). They also got nhbbs every day since there were ones of various ages in there. Eventually the older ones died out. At day 4, 5, and 6 I could tell that some of the younger ones were eating bbs and were looking pretty good, however I usually would find a couple dead in the morning. By the time they were about a week old, I started to see the usual pattern of drifters listlessly floating around before they died. I had 10-15 left at Day 5, 6 and 7. By days 9,10,and 11 I was down to just five, and several of them were drifting despite already being on bbs. Day 11,12 and 13 I added some more rots back in, just in case they needed super easy prey to capture to bounce back from being drifters. Day 13, 14, 15 I added some more apocyclops. Day 14, 15, 16 they were not looking good and I was down to four. Day 16, 17, 18 I only had one left, and he was a drifter. Not looking good for this run! I just dumped in the usual live phyto and some bbs just because I felt bad totally abandoning it until he was dead dead dead. Day 18,19, 20 I did a 80% water change since I hadn't really even looked in the bowl for a couple days. The phyto was thick and I couldn't see the lonely larva drifting or laying on the bottom. I wanted to see if he was dead. The angle of the fish bowl didn't allow me to determine if it was laying on its side or on its stomach. When they lay on their side they almost always die and don't bounce back. I added Euterpina since he would still get up and swim a bit occasionally. Day 19,20, 21...The previous record (or a day or two beyond!) and he is still alive. I tried pulling him into a turkey baster to get a closer look at him and he would swim like mad when in the baster, then just stop. I couldn't get a great look at him and was concerned that he would die expending all that energy frantically swimming! He looked dark and solid and didn't seem to have a pinched stomach area, but I couldn't see orange in the gut indicating he was eating the bbs. Did a 60% water change just in case he made it to the next day. Yesterday was day 20, 21, 22 and I decided to pull him out with the baster, put him in this little dish thing and look at him under the scope. I got this new cheapy one that doesn't zoom as much so I can get a look at larger larva that I can't with my compound scope, but it is a bit annoying to use so I just have the one picture for now...  That is a D. lineatus going through (or done with??) meta! He has been clinging! I tried to get a pic from the bottom, but the tiny plastic dish was too scratched up to focus on the little guy. He has stripes that go across his body rather than down like the adults. His nose is not elongated yet either, and I am not sure how long that will take to happen. My guess is this started a couple days ago when I stopped seeing it in the water column. When I went to put him back in the bowl, he was clinging to the small microscope dish so hard that I couldn't get him out of it! I had to blow him out with the turkey baster  The adults have been in the egg laying lull that they seem to go through every couple weeks, but I think they are about due to start laying/hatching again. I haven't even peeked in the tile condo for a bit so I don't know if there are any eggs ready to hatch or not. The next run I want to try adding copepods at earlier time points. Perhaps these are like dottybacks in that if you add copepods a bit before meta, survival is much higher. Also, I want to make sure around day 20-25 is accurate for meta. It's possible that this guy is somehow from an older batch (although highly unlikely since you can tell them apart based on size early on). Hooray!  )
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, October 21, 2013 8:52 AM
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Took some pictures on Friday since he/it seems to be developing the stripe that goes down the length of the adult fish:   The tail spot is also becoming more noticeable. Every time I go in the room it is a heart racing hunt to find him in the fish bowl. It used to be if I didn't spot him in the water column I assumed he was dying and now if I don't spot him clinging to something I assume he's dying. This is very stressful! He seems to have realized where the bbs cluster in the fish bowl (or just accidentally ended up there) and will swim through the swarm occasionally. So I hope he's getting enough to eat! This week I am going to seed as much tisbe as I can in the bowl too, just in case he needs more pods. This weekend I gave a dusting of Golden Pearls (100-200uM, I believe) but didn't have the chance to watch and see if he ate any. Probably didn't since there is plenty of live food in there for now...
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, October 28, 2013 12:50 PM
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Sad news! This guy died on Saturday  I think it may have been nutrition/feeding related as I hadn't spent a ton of time making sure it was eating this week and getting the right number of prey items of the right size... Starting over!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Thursday, October 31, 2013 10:56 AM
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Eight, nine, and ten days ago I had a few D. lineatus hatch each night and I just added them to the BRT with some dottyback larvae that I have going. Last night I was pulling random larvae into a turkey baster for inspection and by pure dumb luck I ended up pulling a D. lineatus. It looked pretty good from what I could tell, so at least one eight, nine or ten day old D. lineatus larvae is still kicking. Who knows the next time I will see it!
The male has been brooding a decent batch of eggs and I am also artificially incubating an egg tile. I am hoping to get a relatively nice batch soon to work with, and will try to focus more on using copepods to feed instead of rotifers to see if I can keep more of them alive.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, November 4, 2013 12:28 PM
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I had about twenty larvae hatch last night. They were collected with a turkey baster and put into about 1/2 gallon of broodstock water in a 1 gallon fishbowl. The fishbowl is clamped into a heated tank, so it won't be at room temperature this time. I started the larvae off with Euterpina and Apocyclops, no rotifers (as least, none today!) and some tetraselmis. There is a rigid airline in there for water movement.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Wednesday, January 15, 2014 8:30 AM
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That last run was short...only a couple of days.
Then I waited until there was a decent spawn and I pulled the tile, replacing it with a new one. I collected three days of tiles and the first tile had probably two days of eggs on it. I put all three tiles into a water pitcher that was hung in the broodstock tank and put two rigid airline tubes in to move the water. The eggs took this very well and hatched out (90% or more). I ended up with a nice amount of larva (perhaps 50, maybe more). Right now I am at days 14, 15, 16, and 17 and they are in a one gallon fish bowl with rigid airline tubing. They were started off on rotifers and green water, then I started only adding back in Euterpina or Apocyclops copepods instead of rotifers after day 10. Around day 5, IIRC off the top of my head, I started adding in some nhbbs. I only have 10 (maybe a little less) at this point, but they seem to be eating the nhbbs. Today I hope to give them some enriched bbs and there are plenty of copepods in the fishbowl still. Some of the smaller ones have white/silver in their bellies, whereas the older/larger ones seem to be focusing more on the artemia. I am hoping to see a couple settle soon! Fingers crossed that I will have more than one settle out.
On a sad note, two of my older females died in the last several weeks. I don't know the cause...was it old age? Inadequate diet? Something else? I bought a new female but she doesn't eat great yet, so I doubt I will get eggs from her anytime soon.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:42 AM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Thursday, January 23, 2014 12:36 AM
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Oh come on...it's only a matter of time...do it do it do it!!!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, January 27, 2014 10:57 AM
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Days 26,27, 28 for the two I have...I got some pics last week/this weekend of the striping on them and this is the best of them: 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, January 27, 2014 5:50 PM
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I wasn't on the forums much when you started this journal, so I didn't see it before. These are some strange little fish with really strange looking eggs! Reading your thread through I was really rooting for you with that first one you had settled, and was so sad to hear it died!
Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Friday, January 31, 2014 10:37 AM
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I was sad too But now I have two and they have made it longer than that first one. I have been focusing on feeding more tigriopus and other harpacticoids, in additional to enriched bbs. They seem to have zero interest at this point in prepared foods, but that doesn't surprise me since they mainly cling to the bottom and don't spend much time in the water column at all. The last few days the side stripes have started to develop. At first, this had me freaking out because I didn't realize the side stripes were coming in; I thought that they were laying (dead) on their sides. But now I know better I still have moments of paranoia and I squirt them with the baster to make sure they are still alive. So far, so good. I think they are just the cutest things!  This pic was taken last week or so, but shows how the snout is elongating a bit better than the side view pic does 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Sunday, February 2, 2014 5:07 PM
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Found one of the juvies dead Friday night, so down to one Grrrrrrrrr Probably going to get ready for a new attempt soon. I'm down to one spawning female so I'm not sure how many eggs I'll get to start with, but it is what it is.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Sunday, February 2, 2014 6:24 PM
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Ugh. That is so frustrating when you've brought them so far!
Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, February 3, 2014 8:27 AM
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You're telling me!
Last night I moved the loner to my "hatching chamber" that I usually use for shrimp hatches. I clamped it into one of my larger broodstock tanks (50 gallon). I added a bunch of copepods (misc harps and Tigriopus). I am hoping that a copepod only diet will be better than trying to feed him enriched bbs since those tend not to hang out where the juvenile is. Also, he seems to suck on the surfaces....not with his suction fin, but with his mouth. He's so small though, it's really hard to tell if that's truly what's happening.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, February 3, 2014 10:40 PM
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The last little juvie was alive when I left for work and dead when I got home :$/)/@&/$-!
Perhaps he was eating the enriched bbs after all? Ugh! Now I have to start over. Again.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Monday, February 3, 2014 10:53 PM
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It only takes one! Baby it!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Diademichthys lineatus (Yellowstripe clingfish)
Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:43 PM
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Nooooooo!!!!!
Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]
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