Breeding Journal, Species: Paracentropyge multifasciata

General
Species:  Paracentropyge multifasciata (Collected from Vanuatu)
Social Structure:  Bonded pair
Size of Individuals:  Assumed female: 2-2.5"; Assumed male: 3"
Age of Individuals:  Unknown wild caught individuals
Date added to Tank:  08 November 2013 (original pair), 11 April 2014 (replacement pair), 03 June 2014 (new female)  

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  20 gallon long QT tank
Substrate Details:  Barebottom
Filtration Details:  HOB Aqueon Filter
Water Changes:  As often as needed to keep the bottom clean
Water Temperature:  80-82*F
Lighting:  Natural Room lighting from the window currently (Plan is to introduce artificial lighting slowly as the species prefers dim lighting)
Lighting Cycle:  Sunrise to Sunset (after artificial lighting is introduced the plan is a 10am-10pm schedule)
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Pair of juvenile Picasso A. percula and a male P. fridmani

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Hikari mysis, clam on the half shell, etc. as I am finding what they will eat right now
Feeding Schedule: 3-4 times per day 

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn: 
Spawn Time of Day: 
Dates of Consecutive Spawns: 
Courtship Details: 
Egg Size: 
Egg Color: 
Egg Count: 

Hatch Details
Hatch Date: 
Hatch Time of Day: 
# Days after Spawn: 
Larvae Description: 
Consecutive Hatch Dates:      

Larval Tank Details
Temperature: 
Size of Larval Tank: 
Substrate Details: 
Other Tank Decor: 
Filtration Details: 
Lighting: 
Lighting Cycle: 
Water Changes: 

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types: 
Feeding Schedule: 

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: 
Starting the thread now to track my progress with this knowingly difficult-to-keep species. The end goal is to successfully rear eggs from them, but that could be a ways off. This is their first full day with me and they are readily eating mysis shrimp off the bottom of the tank and some from the water column. I attribute my success thus far on the high quality care of Kevin Kohen and his team at Diver's Den as they obtained the two as a special request from me. The pair was in the care of the staff at DD for three weeks prior to being offered to me, and I waited another week to order. Due to the outstanding efforts of the staff at DD, I would like to thank them fully for helping me with my endeavor. As of right now I have the pair in QT as the broodstock tank details show, they will be moved to a 65g aquarium where all of my broodstock fish will be kept after it is up and running. Updates will follow as successes and struggles (hopefully not too many struggles) happen and milestones are reached.


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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.

Good luck!  One of my favs!

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Short video of them eating their breakfast this morning:

Give me your clownfish.

 
They are my investment in the future should I end up a broke college student in the future, it's a bit too early for a return on investment.

Let me know if your desperate for a lot of beer money.

Good luck with the angels by the way. They look great.

I'm coming to the conclusion that these two fish will NEED frequent small feedings to do well, though it is still early in the acclimation process under my care. Something I naturally do every time I feed is keep a mental note of feeding behavior and these two fish aren't like the clownfish or dottyback in the sense that they won't gorge themselves until they have very plump stomachs. They'll eat a small amount then take a break, but will take a nibble after several minutes have passed. To cope with this and maintain their weight I feel that a minimum of three feedings will be necessary. An additional feeding or two each day would be ideal, IMO. This being at least until they gorge themselves, if they ever will. To help take care of this I think I will drop a clam on the half shell into the tank in the morning before school and then do 2-3 feedings in the afternoon after school (all depends on what days I work). 
 
On the breeding side of things, I think the interactions between the pair are fun to watch. There isn't any physical aggression (fin nipping, attacking, etc.) between the two, but an occasional charge from the larger individual (we'll just call him the male for now) towards the smaller individual (presumed female). I would compare this charge to that of what a female clownfish would do to a subordinate male. Now the female angel will stop in its place curve the body slightly. She won't move until the male nudges her with his mouth (I've seen him nudge the inferior portions of her anal and dorsal fin, as well as the inferior portion of her body before the tail starts and sometimes the caudal fin). Not exactly sure if this is part of solidifying the formation of the pair to keep the female from changing male and keeping the presumed male on the track to becoming male if not already. It could be interesting, and something I will try and get a video of. I'm also going to see how it continues, if it does, into the display tank where they will hopefully spawn in the future.
 
Looking through images, it is similar to this just so you have an idea of what the touch is that I'm talking about. Does anyone know if this is indicative of anything? 

From the last picture, it looks like you may be feeding too much astaxanthin to your C. multifasciata... lol
Nice fishes you have there.
I hope you have them spawning soon. Keep us posted.

Anderson.

Thanks for the encouragement. A minor update: the male ate flake food as aggressively as he eats mysis shrimp. I'm super excited about that and hope the female takes to flakes soon as well.

Feeding Video:

A few minutes after feeding to show how they are doing

Looking good!  The belly bumping sounds encouraging.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Thanks! I haven't been around enough to observe the fish as often since their first few days. As a result I haven't noticed the behavior this past week if it is still happening, which I hope it is. Going to see if I can't get them on to flake or pellets starting this weekend. I will be soaking one or the other in thawing PE mysis and see how that goes (it is how Kevin told me they get most of their fish on to dried prepared foods).

Sadly, this will have to be put on hold for awhile now. The female of this stunning pair of fish isn't doing well as of this morning's feeding. Rapid breathing, unable to maintain voluntary posture, and now stuck to the filter intake. I have extremely little hope that she will make it much more than a few hours. Looking back I should have come up with a way to feed her in her own area so she could get more. Comparatively speaking, she got the least amount of food at each feeding. She was also not very adventurous in trying new foods like the larger one is (which I may note is eating flake food without issue). Should the male live through January and in the display, I will be contacting Kevin about getting a smaller specimen (maybe even a juvie) to pair up with him at a later time.

kthomas, this is very sad news.  I really hope she recovers, you may ask if someone else in your local club has a quarantine or other tank to house the female for a few days so she can eat food without competition.  
 
If you want some unsolicited advice, here's something I read about and did once to recover a fish.  Put it in a bag of water at the same salinity and temperature as the display tank, but also dissolve fructose in the bag.  I don't remember how much fructose.  Just by respirating for a few hours, the female will absorb enough sugar to hopefully tide her over for a few more days until you may get her eating again.  
 
Just don't put the bag contents back into your main tank, it could cause a disaster.

She passed away shortly after I posted earlier. The main focus is going to be keeping the male in good shape and getting the display set up and cycling. From there, I'll slowly add in what I have for fish (probably the angel last so some algae and other things grow for it to graze on). After all fish I have are in the display tank I will then see what I can do about sourcing a small individual or two or possible getting another pair of angelfish for a fuge drum I will set up to work with them until I can get another multibar.

Sorry to hear.  I would suggest you quarantine a new fish and then add them both to the display at the same time.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

More bad news. It turns out that the death of the female wasn't completely due to starvation like I had initially thought was the case. Yesterday I noticed that an orchid dottyback and the male looked ill with the orchid having skin discoloration; the multibar had fin damage from the disease; both having rapid breathing, and shaking in the water column from discomfort. I contacted Kevin of the issue and he did suggest I get my hands on Ionic Copper and Formalin to treat the fish (this would cover Cryptocaryon, Amyloodinium, and Brooklynella). I was unable to find any stores or anyone who had a copper medication other than Cupramine (this cannot be used with Formalin). The next best thing was a friend who gave me some Chlorquine Phosphate, which reportedly works well for the treatment of the three listed diseases above. The clownfish pair are the only surviving fish in this tank and are undergoing treatment. Here's hoping for the best!
 
On the bright side, Kevin noted that he is going to stand behind both fish and will provide me with a second pair of these beauties after I'm through this mess of a situation. Kevin is great to work with, and himself and his team do a wonderful job at DD. I will never be able to thank them enough for all of the support and work they have provided me so far.

FWIW, if you use Formalin, you don't need to use copper.  Both Formalin and especially copper are hard on the fish - not gentle treatments.  If the fish is too far gone, it won't stand the copper treatment on top of the Formalin dips.  Chloroquine phosphate also covers all three diseases, and is my preferred method of treatment.  I sure wouldn't call CP "the next best thing" - in my opinion it IS the best thing.  That's great you found some as it can be difficult to get your hands on.  CP is very easy to use though, and gentle on the fish compared to Formalin and copper.  I quit using copper about 10 years ago when I discovered a better method of treatment (Formalin).  Now that I discovered CP some years ago I don't use Formalin much either.  I'm always surprised to hear that people still use those nasty copper treatments.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Well guys, this project is back on!
 
Kevin got a replacement pair soon after the loss of the first and all went well for about a month. Sadly the male in the pairing succumb to an illness, and Kevin went on the hunt once again for a new pair. I then was update at the beginning of the year that shipment from Vanuatu was coming in and Kevin was hoping for a decent pair. Well, a good pair he found! The fish were placed in his office tank and over the course of three months, were acclimated to captivity. By early March, PE mysis and brine shrimp were a staple in their diets and would be consumed greedily. Over the course of March, Kevin took the time to start training them to eat pellets for me. He told me that they will eat NLS and TDO pellets, but not with the same vigor as mysis or brine shrimp. Now come to today, I have the pair acclimating!
 
The customer service couldn't have been better in any way. My mom brought the box in while I was at school and texted me that the box was heavy. On a side note, I received and email from Chris to check up on the arrival of the pair (the service just at this point was astounding). Not really believing my mom, I rush home after school and try picking up the box. Much, much heavier than anticipated. The box is taken to the QT room and opened up to reveal two very large bags for the fish and a small bag of pellets from Kevin. As I take the bags out to temperature acclimate the two, I realized rather quickly that they were displacing 5 gallons worth of water! The size of the bags was awesome, and the pellets were the icing on the cake for this shipment. Not sure I can ever put into words how much I appreciate this level of care for just two fish. Kevin is a pleasure to work with, and is definitely going to be one of two sources for future purchases.

I've been forgetting to get my updates in all the places I've been keeping a thread on my experience with the species. Here are some updates that I haven't posted and a new one for today.
 
4/11/2014
The box with 5g of water for both fish:

Just after acclimation:

 
4/14/2014
Quick little update on the new pair:

They have settled in well and seem to be catching on to the idea of where food comes from rather quickly. Not begging like my clowns do, but will stare at me when I'm in the room.  Both will eat PE mysis readily, but are still at a stage of what I consider needing 4 feedings per day. They typically won't eat more than a few large mysis shrimp per sitting (they are still small, I would say the small one is about the size of the original female and the larger just about half an inch larger), and as such will keep up with smaller more frequent feedings. They might eat some more in a sitting if I bumped the temp up some (76ish right now), but that'll come slowly after several weeks. Brine shrimp is taken with the same amount of gusto, but more shrimp is eaten due to a smaller size.

On the pellet/flake front, they don't pay these foods any attention. I did slip a couple pellets in with a mysis feeding today and one of them tried a pellet, immediately spitting it out. 

Just for the sake of variety, I through in a clam on the half shell today. They were very cautious of it. The smaller one took very tiny nibbles out of it, but nothing more than that. 
 

4/24/2014
Two week update (slightly early):

Both appear healthy so far. However, I noticed today that one has some kind of abnormality on its anal fin that was not present Tuesday (had school and work yesterday so my brother fed them and he didn't pay attention). It looks like a small bubble on the end of two anal fin spines, or possibly a cyst. Whatever it is, I can't get a picture of it with the fish in the water and I'm not sure I can catch it without stressing both out too much. I think I'm going to just observe it over the next few days and see what happens. 

They are still eating mysis and brine shrimp well and I'm thinking about trying nori soon just to give them some more variety. One has some interest in Cobalt Flake food, and will take a few small bites from one flake. 

Also, looking at the two fish closely, they have different patterns of color. One has some yellow bars between the brown barring in the white area, and the other does not. I find this interesting since both were collected from the same area (Vanuatu) and aren't that different in regards to size.

Just a short video of the two since they didn't want pictures taken:
[youtube]XEST8eweXvo[/youtube]
 
4/28/2014
I have good news!

The presumed female of the two is developing a very nice plump belly. The male isn't getting near as round. I think this is a sign that they are doing well since thy are obviously able to put in weight. The next battle will be to get them eating a wider variety of foods. 
 
5/1/2014
Fantastic news to present for the three week update. I witnessed some prespawning behavior between the two of them. They formed a T, with the male's nose near the midline of the female's body. He did some minor showing off as well. I should have figured something was up with the female continuing to get plumper each day. 

 

5/12/2014
It's been just over a month with the new pair. They are doing great now, but I almost gave up around the third of May when the female was laying on the bottom and breathing heavy as I described in the thread in the fish disease forum. I thought I was going to lose her, but after getting a couple water changes done and shooting Kevin an email on the issue, she recovered with no other action taken. Kevin told me this can happen when some chemical that isn't supposed to be present enters the water or a parameter swings too fast. 

Both are eating very well now and I'm slowly expanding their diet. They both eat PE and Hikari mysis and regular and Spirulina brine with gusto. Since I use a turkey baster to squirt some food into their tank, they will nibble the end of the turkey baster. I have recently began thawing out and breaking up Ocean Nutrition Angel Formula into the mix and they eat it if the pieces are broken up small enough. If it isn't broken up, they don't think it's food since it will look like a flake. During the female's bout of issues, the male ate an entire flake after lessening the feedings with the female not eating.

The female is quite fat, and swims just a little odd because of it I think. I'm still unsure if she is gravid, packing in the food, or constipated. Any way to know how to rule out or know if it is constipation? I'm confident that the success will continue now that I've gotten to the one month mark and I can't express how vital Kevin Kohen and his team were in this since they did the acclimation to captivity for me. 
 
Some pictures, although blurry, that show some of their personality:



 

Video from today in an attempt to give everyone a better idea of how chubby the female angel is.
http://youtu.be/csXsDq17NCQ

6/3/2014
Sadly, a few days after I got the pictures and videos above, the female slipped into another episode of heavy breathing and inability to swim. I did water changes as I had before when she recovered, but recovery didn't happen. I notified Kevin Kohen of the situation and he told me they had a shipment come in a few weeks prior with several multibars and he had saved a juvenile in case something did happen. Taking Memorial Day weekend to think about whether I give this one more go or move on to a different species, I decided to go ahead with one last shot.
 
Since I couldn't bring myself to get another free fish, I did cover some of the costs for it since it felt wrong to get a replacement for a replacement. Anyways, the new female/juvie arrived at 10:30am sharp this morning and was in the divided QT tank with the male by 11am. She is smaller than the original female from my first pair, which will add to the challenge in some ways as she will need to be fed slightly more for growth as well.
 
Tal mentioned that some of my conversation with Kevin would be good to include in my journal for anyone else who wants to try any finicky angels in the future:
Pairing:
Though not just for finicky species, this was part of it. Kevin advised that I divide the QT when the new female arrived so she could adjust to the new environment, and highly recommended she get a larger portion of the tank. After 72 hours of being separated (all while being able to see each other) then the divider (egg crate in my case) can be removed so the two can physically interact without a barrier. At this point, observation for aggression will be needed so separation can be made if need be. Obviously, the divider should not be removed if one or the other is behaving aggressively at the sight of the other.



Just the male because it was an okay picture:

Feeding:
Since pellets and flakes are much easier to use in an automatic feeder, I really want my fish to take dry foods so they can eat more if I have a long work shift or am out of town and the sitter can't feed frozen like I can when I'm around. The second pair had been partially trained on to dry foods with Kevin, but refused to even look at them with me. Kevin suggests withholding all foods but the dry foods for 3 days. During this time frame, only the dry foods should be fed and hunger should overcome the obstacle keeping the fish from eating dry foods. As luck would have it, the male began eating pellets and flakes like a champ on June 1st without my withholding other foods. Not sure what the trigger was, but he has been eating flakes and pellets with gusto since then.

7/02/2014
Not much to report other than to say that the new female was readily accepted by the presumed male. The male is getting close to 3 months in my care, and the female is a day shy of 1 month. I'm also happy to report that they should be in their permanent 65 gallon home by the end of this month. The cycle is being a bit unusual by my standards as I haven't gotten an ammonia spike despite throwing in 6 feeder clams (ie clams used to feed fish). Bringing water to an LFS tomorrow for some back up testing and possibly some snails and hermits if all tests are good. 

Any updates?

Has been a long time...!