Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni

General
Species:  Pterapogon kauderni
Social Structure:  Mated Pair
Size of Individuals:  ~1"
Age of Individuals:  Unknown
Date added to Tank:  6/25/2013

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  29g
Substrate Details:  Crushed Coral
Filtration Details:  Wet/Dry
Water Changes:  Once a month
Water Temperature:  78ºF
Lighting:  CF
Lighting Cycle: 11 hrs per day                
Other Tank Inhabitants: Macroalgae, sponges, peppermint shrimp 

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types: Home made green food (frozen mix of seafoods, greens, and several other additives), frozen brine shrimp, mysis, cyclops, live tigger pods                
Feeding Schedule:  3 times a day or more

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  7/19/13
Spawn Time of Day:  Night
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  02/13/14
Courtship Details: Female dances around male                
Egg Size:  ~5mm
Egg Color:  Pink/orange
Egg Count:  5

Hatch Details  (2/13/14 spawn)
Hatch Date:  3/11/14 fry stripped from male 
Hatch Time of Day:  Male stripped in afternoon
# Days after Spawn:  26 (day of spawn = day 0)
Larvae Description:  Mini adults with black and white lines.  Fully formed eyes and functional mouth.  A few have not developed their swim bladders yet.                       
Consecutive Hatch Dates:     


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  78ºF
Size of Larval Tank:  Breeder basket inside Broodstock tank
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:  Fake urchin
Filtration Details:  Wet/dry (Broodstock tank's filtration)
Lighting:  Compact Fluorescent
Lighting Cycle:  11 hours a day
Water Changes:  Every few months

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Live enriched baby brine shrimp. Enriched with RotiGreen-Omega. Live tigger pods starting on day 6.
Feeding Schedule:  Brine shrimp 7+ times a day via automatic feeder. Tigger pods once per day.

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  3/11/14 (already settled when stripped) 
Days after Hatch:  0
Date of Settlement End:  3/11/14 
Description of Fry:  Mini adults with black and white lines.  Fully formed eyes and functional mouth.  A few have not developed their swim bladders yet.          

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:  78ºF
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  20g
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:  Fake zip-tie urchins
Filtration Details:  Fluval C2 Hang on Back filter and Reef Octopus BH1000 Skimmer
Lighting:  Low power LED strips (normally used for under cabinet lighting)
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours per day
Water Changes:  Every other week
Size at Transfer:  About the size of a quarter
Age at Transfer:  57-60 days

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  Frozen cyclops and brine shrimp and live tigger pods 
Feeding Schedule:  No less than twice a day

Additional Information

Miscellaneous Information: 
This pair is captive bred from a colony of over 100 individuals which has been breeding for over 5 years.  It is unknown how old these individuals are.
 
I have already submitted and attained spawn and hatch reports for my old bangaii cardinal fish a few years ago in a different journal.  This journal will only have reports coming after hatch.

Here is the male holding his first clutch.  You can see his jaw is distended and his gills are stretched.

So today is day 18 since they spawned and we figured he was just holding the babies now so I decided to strip him.  To my surprise he had five, maybe, halfway incubated eggs.  They have eyes but also a lot of yolk remaining.  So I threw them into a kreisel with enough flow to tumble them.  Altolamprologus who is my partner in crime may have figured out why they are so under developed AND why last time I had a breeding pair in this tank they took 32 days to incubate.  The tank is cold.  I sometimes put seahorses in this tank and it runs without a heater.  Hopefully in the kreisel at a higher temp they will speed up.  I will be adding a heater to this tank immediately.

yay for problem solving... yeah I notice lower temps all my banggai's will hold upwards of around 34-37 days... I run them at 80 and get about a 21-22 day hatch out. day 18/19 strip will yeild about half already ready to go. good numbers imho!  

The temperature of the display tank has been adjusted to a steady 78ºF. The pair spawned again on February 13, 2014 and we expect fully developed babies around March 6. 

All of my work is done with the help of member altolamprologus (Heather Mutschler).  She shares all credit evenly with me for our accomplishments.

22 perfect, hungry little monsters!  They were stripped from dad on day 26 and are in a breeder basket in the main tank.  They are being fed seven times a day with live, enriched baby brine shrimp. Some are still developing their swim bladders.
(19 in this pic)

All of my work is done with the help of member altolamprologus (Heather Mutschler).  She shares all credit evenly with me for our accomplishments.

You mention an automatic feeder in your report...what sort of automatic feeder are you using for feeding live bbs?

It's a peristaltic pump inside a refrigerator with a flask and magnetic stirrer.  Then a line goes to their breeder net and a time controls the pump and stirrer.
 

All of my work is done with the help of member altolamprologus (Heather Mutschler).  She shares all credit evenly with me for our accomplishments.

And BTW all 22 babies are alive and well and are now eating frozen baby brine, tigger pods and live baby brine 7 times a day.

All of my work is done with the help of member altolamprologus (Heather Mutschler).  She shares all credit evenly with me for our accomplishments.

I was thinking it was a setup like that, but figured I would ask.  Thanks for the pic!  I have the same digital thermometer lol.
 
Hooray that they are all still alive!

Well today is day 57 after leaving dad's mouth and we have 16 not so baby babies.  We had five that for some reason never developed swim bladders or their swim bladders never functioned properly and between days 40 and 50 we lost all five.  We suspect they died because they had to use a ton of energy to remain in the water column by swimming upwards all the time and they were also half the size of their healthy siblings.  We also lost another one to unknown causes.
 
The rest of them have been moved to their grow out tank and on about day 45 we reduced their feedings from 7 times a day to 2 times.  Also, they are eating some frozen foods such as cyclops and occasionally some frozen spirulina enriched brine shrimp.  We still feed live copepods with almost every feeding.
 
A few of the remaining individuals will have to be culled due to a gill deformity.
 
Here's a few of them:
 

All of my work is done with the help of member altolamprologus (Heather Mutschler).  She shares all credit evenly with me for our accomplishments.

73 days old.

 
No deaths since the last update and all are vigorously eating multiple frozen foods but we still feed different types of copepods just for variety.
 
Also, after 2.5 months of healing from having his babies stripped and being fattened up to rep are to breed again, we put our male back in the tank with his female.  As soon as the female saw him, she rushed over and began to sim against him and curl her tail around him.  Almost as if to display her happiness and recognition of him in his return.  We were both very surprised to see this reaction between the two after over two months of being separated.
 
Now for more babies!

All of my work is done with the help of member altolamprologus (Heather Mutschler).  She shares all credit evenly with me for our accomplishments.