Breeding Journal, Species: Pomacentrus moluccensis

General
Species:  Pomacentrus moluccensis                     
Social Structure:  Group of 3, two paired off
Size of Individuals:  Female- 2" Male- 1.5"
Age of Individuals:  At least 2 years      
Date added to Tank:  12/15/12

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  300g
Substrate Details:  Gravel
Filtration Details:  Sump/refugium with LR, macroalgae and skimmer
Water Changes:  ~Every other week, sometimes more often
Water Temperature:  74ºF-79ºF (fluctuates)        
Lighting:  High Output LED and MH
Lighting Cycle: 8 hours per day               
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Lyretail anthias, 2 Lubbock's Fairy wrasses, 3 Condei Fairy Wrasses, 2 Kleins Butterflyfish, Vlamingi Tang

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Formula One and Formula Two flakes, Frozen Cyclops, Mysis, Brine and Oysterfeast and Rotifeast
Feeding Schedule:  Two to three times per day

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  Unknown, been in tank together and spawned regularly for over 2 years.    
Spawn Time of Day:  Unknown, possibly in the morning
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  7/29/13 (first recorded), 8/15/13
Courtship Details:  Not observed
Egg Size:  1mm (?)
Egg Color:  Transparent with a yellow yolk, changing to transparent with the larvae visible inside
Egg Count:  ~500

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  8/4/13, 8/21/13
Hatch Time of Day:  Beginning in the evening, complete by the next morning
# Days after Spawn:  ~6
Larvae Description:   Tiny elongated fish with eyes and pectoral fins.  Can be very fast to evade capture.  Mostly transparent with a few black dots.  Operational mouth (visible under microscope)
Consecutive Hatch Dates:     


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  78ºF
Size of Larval Tank:  10g (half filled to avoid water changes)
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  None
Filtration Details:  None
Lighting:  Shop light, compact fluorescent
Lighting Cycle:  10 hours per day
Water Changes:  None, top off only using RO/DI and fresh saltwater

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Live Rotifers
Feeding Schedule:  Constant

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
 
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 
Eggs were taken care of by parents until approximately a day before hatching.  They were then scraped off the spot where they were laid and tumbled in a kreisel until hatching.  Once hatched, the free swimming larvae were placed in the larval tank.
 
Larval tank has two air lines in it along with a heater, one air line bubbles over the heater to minimize the chance of larvae coming into contact with the heater.  It is blacked out around the sides and has green water to help with prey visibility.
 
Originally thought this species was Amblyglyphidodon aureus, however, it has been determined that this species is in fact Pomacentrus moluccensis.

Mom (left) and Dad (right):

 
Eggs at day 5:

 
Egg sample day 4:

 
Egg sample day 5 (with dead egg):

 
~1 day old larva with seemingly full gut:

 
Lavae in larval tank, top down:

 
Would have gotten pics and info up earlier but I have been busy.  I should have daily updates from now on.

Day 2:

Forgot to mention that the numbers have dropped dramatically and I am not sure exactly why.  Possibly water quality but I have been doing more water changes and have been adding water through out the day via drip.  I have around 100-150 left.

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

Did u take these guys home from the store our just remove the eggs if So there first spawn would have been over a year ago

I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.
Steve Irwin

This was the fist time anyone noticed they had spawned and I have been taking care of them for months now.

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

Na they been spawning for we'll over a year maybe longer I watch them spawn about every 10-15 days but congrats on getting them to make it as long as u have

I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.
Steve Irwin

Ok cool I'll change that part.  Thanks!

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

Allso they been in that tank since shanny and Jeff owed the store at least 2 years just so all the info is right allso the mass die off could be from some of the smaller fry not being able to eat the Rotifers as thy might be to big for these fry

I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.
Steve Irwin

Thanks Bill I updated the first post.
 
Day 3.  Not the best pic but I wanted to get him back in the larval tank before he overheated under the microscope lights.  Not much apparent physical change but this particular one and many others are visibly bigger when viewed with the naked eye.  The die off seems to have stopped for now thankfully.  The die off being caused by them not being able to eat is definitely possible.  I did read that it is possible to attain a 99% success rate with these guys using rotifers but I don't know which strain was used to achieve that or what strain I have.
 

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

Great progress and pictures. thanks for documenting your work.
I think what you may have is this guy: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Pomacentrus-moluccensis.html
 
A. aureus is actually pretty hard to come-by (not sure why, really cool fish); often the lemon damsel is shipped in its place.
I tried to order A. aureus several times from different sources and always ended-up with the lemons.
 
Matt C.
 
 
 
 

I must agree with Matt C.You are breeding P.moluccensis
Which is bad and good news for you.
Bad because A.aureus is very easy to raise,close to clownfish.Instead you have typical difficult damsel larvae.
And good because your fish are smaller and better suited for a medium sized tank than A.aureus.
And your experience might well be a "first time" for this species.

After looking up some pics of P. moluccensis, I agree as well that these are not A. aureus. I'm going to change the info on the main post and then submit a classification request for P. moluccensis.

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

Day 6:

 
They are really starting to get big.  I'll try to get a ruler in there next time.  We have about 12-20 left and they seem to have stopped dying.  We are now doing more water changes and are dripping about a gallon of new water into the tank twice a day.  We are also putting a few drips of Prime into the tank a few time a day in order to help get rid of ammonia.

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

Day 12. We have about 3 left and they are getting big.  We decided that we don't want to risk any more deaths by catching them for photos. Hopefully they are getting close to meta and then they will be a little more stable and bigger so pics won't be a problem.  We are really happy with how far we have gotten so far considering it our first try.
 
 
 
As for the mass die off problem, we have been thinking about this and have come to the conclusion that the food being too big is not the problem.  For one, there were no real size differences among the larvae.  Also, since we are on day 12, they have to be eating.  We are now sure that the problem was ammonia.  This is because, although we were testing regularly, we weren't doing it enough to notice the spike before it reached a fatal level.  We are still experiencing great ammonia build-ups even now at day 12 and they were only more potent and happened quicker, when we had more larvae and deaths from other causes. 

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

So on day 15 we officially lost the last larva.  We think it was a combination between accidentally feeding the tank with some bad phyo and natural causes.  
 
Should have more very very soon.

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

That´s how most damsel rearing runs end,despite people believing they are easyas I said above:
"Bad because A.aureus is very easy to raise,close to clownfish.Instead you have typical difficult damsel larvae. "

 
So do you know what the problem most other people have when trying to raise them?  Is it food?

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

Got a new hatch today with about 250-300 larvae.  We are happy with the smaller amount and believe that it may be more manageable.  This round, we will be doing water changes more often and adding a little bit of prime as well.  These larvae also look better in general than the last hatch, which had many deformities such as bent spines and spinning larvae.  The deaths of these imperfect larvae may have contributed to the high levels of ammonia in the beginning and the resulting lower numbers near the end.

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

Hi Gordon! how big are the parents? 
Jeff and I did get yellow areus damsels from A&M and put them in the coral tanks to get rid of a flatworm issue. after carl took over the store i think there was still one pair +1 left in the smaller coral tank, all the other ones were caught and sold. so if they are big and laying eggs at the far side of smaller coral tank by the filter room, they have been there for awhile and have been laying eggs for a year before i left. but then again carl may have gotten new ones. congrats on getting them so far. i tried the lyretail damsels but the fry were too small for l strain rotfers. you'll need s strain rots or copepod nauplii. good luck

Is it the food,or is it the environment? Have you heard that before?
I don´t have the answer,but you should read this:http://www.marinebreeder.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=945

Thanks for the clarification Shannon.  We have been getting eggs from the ones in the big coral tank and we thought they were put in there more recently.
 
Also, thanks for the link luis a m.
 
Day 5 and the larvae seem to be doing much better than the first round.  We have 30-50 left and they are growing much faster than before.  We believe this is because we have a higher rotifer density in the tank and are taking care of any or most of the ammonia that presents itself. Many have visibly large, full guts.

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

How many rots/mL do you estimate you have this time compared to last time?

Sorry I have been MIA for a while.  Been very busy.  I could try to guess on a rots/mL count but it wouldn't mean much.  I don't have a microscope capable of letting me do an accurate count.
 
As an update, we again lost the last larva on about day 15.  We believe it was because we did not introduce artemia fast enough and the larva had already grown too large for rotifers.  Hopefully we will get another shot soon.

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

Good luck with that next shot!