Breeding Journal, Species: Pseudochromis springeri

General
Species:  Pseudochromis springeri
Social Structure:  Pair
Size of Individuals:  ~2.5 inches
Age of Individuals:  Unknown
Date added to Tank:  Early January 2014

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  half of a 29 gallon plumbed to larger system
Substrate Details:  Crushed coral
Filtration Details:  Live rock, live sand, protein skimmer, bioballs
Water Changes:  As needed...infrequent
Water Temperature:  ~80F
Lighting:  Fluorescent strip light
Lighting Cycle:  6AM to 9PM
Other Tank Inhabitants:  none in their section       

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Pellets, frozen mash, frozen mysis, frozen enriched artemia, live blackworms
Feeding Schedule:  At least twice daily

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  2-7-2014
Spawn Time of Day:  Evening, usually around 5 PM
Dates of Consecutive Spawns: 2-14-2014; 3-9-2014; 3-16-2014; 4-6-2014; 4-18-2014; 4-24-2014, 5-12-2014, 5-18-2014 
Courtship Details: When the female is quite gravid, the male begins to try to lure her to his PVC tube by darting out, wiggling in front of her, and then darting back into the tube.  Occassionally, she has been gravid and he didn't court her and she would keep going into and out of the PVC tube without him.  They seem to still be trying to sort things out a bit since they aren't very...coordinated.--Now that they seem to have things down pat, the male darts out of the PVC den and finds the female.  Then he darts back to the den, attempting to lead her.  She eventually follows, but it usually takes several attempts.
Egg Size:  ~1mm round
Egg Color:  Clear at first, with a slight pinkish hue
Egg Count:  Not counted, but estimate hundreds

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  5-16-2014
Hatch Time of Day:  7PM for the first hatch, after lights out for the second hatch (with straglers before and after)                  
# Days after Spawn:  5 (maybe 4, not 100% on exact spawn date for that particular spawn)
Larvae Description:  To the eye they are clear with three small black dots, small yolk sac, ~3 mm long, quick                         
Consecutive Hatch Dates:    5-22-2014           


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  ~80F
Size of Larval Tank:  17 gallon BRT, start with about 5 gallons and add a gallon every day/couple days  
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  None
Filtration Details:  None
Lighting:  Fluorescent strip light
Lighting Cycle:  24/7
Water Changes:  As needed, mainly just increase the water volume  

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  L strain rotifers, Apocyclops panamensis added with a focus on day 3, OtoA starting on day 4 or so, nhbbs starting on day 7-8,    
Feeding Schedule:  Constant, with additions as necessary

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: 



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The two fish were the same size at purchase (captive bred).  They were placed in a 29 gallon tank with a divider and immediately started brawling.  They were separated until both healed.  Then I would open the divider occasionally for a couple hours, separate them once the fighting got too bad, and then repeat on a new day.  Eventually the intense fighting lessened and now the go-between pipe is left open and the fish choose which side they would like to be on, but they are often on the same side with little aggression.  They really beat each other up at first though :/
 
This first spawn was a bit of a botched spawn.  The female had been looking gravid for a couple of days and Friday late afternoon I saw the male very frantically trying to get her into the PVC den he likes.  I didn't hang out and watch for the spawn, but later I saw an egg ball in/falling out of the go-between PVC pipe.  

Not sure what exactly went wrong or if the eggs were ever fertilized, but the egg ball disappeared and I never saw one in the "den" the male chose.  The female is starting to look plump again, so hopefully the next spawn will go a bit better for them
 
(I'll get pics of the parents later...totally forgot!)

Here is the pair:

 
The female:

Another botched spawn today. I found the egg all by the divider screen. I pulled it out, and put it in a flask for tumbling. I highly doubt they will last long, even if they were fertilized.

Found another egg ball, laying on the tank bottom.  I pulled it out and to the eye it looked like it may be fertilized.  The eggs are clearish with a pink hue, and there were only a few white eggs which I am guessing were not fertilized.   I rinsed them in new ASW, and then set them to tumbling in an inverted 2L bottle

 
Sorry for the blurry pic, but it was difficult to focus on a moving egg ball and since it had been tumbling nicely for the night, I didn't want to mess things up by removing it from the container for a pic

Another botched spawn last night.  These guys are really having a hard time getting the hang of things!

Jeezus Shannon...my god what AREN'T you breeding?!  You're making me look bad...real bad!

lol well, my clown pairs aren't doing much breeding for me and unfortunately these guys don't really seem to know what they are doing!  
 
But I do have lots of creatures and I can't help but try to pair them up...
 
 

This pair has laid several more egg balls, but after they spawn the male goes through the PVC gate to the other side of the tank and the eggs are left somewhere random in the tank. So this week I capped the gate so he couldn't leave the side that has their spawning den. Today is spawn day and I saw the female out and about and looking thin. I peeked in the PVC den with a flashlight and saw the male curled up around an egg ball!

I have no idea if they are fertile or not, but this is at least a step in the right direction!

He still has the egg ball...

this is very good!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

I agree

The egg ball is significantly smaller though, so I don't think he did a great job fertilizing the eggs. Hoping they get better with each spawn!

Egg ball is gone. I'm pleased with the progress though

Another egg ball yesterday and the male is guarding it in his den.  I will have to decide if I want to pull it tomorrow night (the night he ate it last time) or if I want to let him keep it and hope to get that last full day of incubation out of him...

This morning he still had it and it looks larger than the last egg ball did at this point, however, I'm not sure how well he fertilized.  Last time he ate the egg ball on this day by the time I got home/checked in the evening.  I supposed that will be the test...

He ate it during the third night last time. They spawned again today, a day early

He continues to eat it during the third night.  I didn't pull it yesterday because I didn't see any eye spots when I checked it with the flashlight.  However, now I wonder if the eggs were actually ready to hatch and that's why they keep disappearing the third night.  This time the egg ball was bigger before lights out than it has been in the past, so they are getting better.  Next time I will just have to pull it to find out.

I committed to pulling the egg ball the third day on the last spawn, but he ate it on night two 
 
There was another spawn yesterday, which means that if he doesn't eat it tonight, then I will pull it Saturday evening for a fertility check and possible tumbling.  Fingers crossed that I can finally get a hatch out of these guys!

I pulled the egg ball this afternoon. It looks like 1/3 to 1/2 the eggs are good and the rest weren't fertilized. Probably why he eats them on the third night.

I set them to tumbling and will probably sterilize them later as well. Tomorrow I will likely change the water out twice to help keep the bad eggs from killing the good ones, if I can.

No hatch.  Eventually all the eggs looked white/bad.  

I pulled the egg ball today, the third day and took some pics



Most don't look to be developing but I tossed them in the tumbler just in case.

Looks like the male FINALLY fertilized the egg ball somewhat. He kept the eggs the full time and I pulled them about 10 minutes ago because it's the fourth night. They started hatching nearly immediately. I set them to tumbling and will put them into a BRT later.

 
Day 2 and they look to be eating.  They have been fed rotifers and Apocyclops copepods.

Spawn yesterday (5-18) around 5 PM or so. Hopefully he fertilized it again

The larvae are still looking good (I think). I added more Apocyclops this morning and also Iso and a couple drops of RGComplete. They have been lit 24/7 so far.

End of day 3 today and still have a good number left (considering the relatively small egg ball at hatch)--I would estimate at least 50. I dripped in a gallon of freshwater and also had to add some RGomega to tint the water this evening. It looks like it cleared out a bit, but the BRT doesn't appear to be overrun with rotifers yet. Hopefully the larvae keep up with rotifer production.

Day 5 today. They got a sprinkling of OtoA yesterday evening and this morning as well.  I have been tinting the water with either live phyto (Iso), RGComplete, or RG Omega.  I added some more Apocyclops this afternoon as well.
 
The last spawn is the best yet!  It definitely paid off waiting for the male to figure out what he was doing

Tonight is night four, so I pulled it this afternoon (I work late into the evening/night) and set it to tumbling.  Fingers crossed that it hatches well!

Only a few hatched last night. So either I pulled them a day early and they really do hatch on the 5th night, or it was just a poor hatch. I pulled as many of the larvae that I could find out of the tumbler and put them in the fish bowl orb (temporarily) with live Iso and L strain rotifers.

Day 6 for the first hatch and I think they still look good. Added some RGComplete this morning and TDO A

At least half of the egg ball hatched today, so I suspect it's the fourth night and the not-so-great hatch was due to the tumbling/ hatch technique. I didn't have a chance to do the bright light hatch FishTal style.

It amazed me how I didn't realize how much the day 6 larvae have changed/grown until I saw newly hatched larvae again. I tried to take some pics of them in the BRT but none turned out. I did see a couple drifting larvae today. But the majority looked good to the eye. Maybe tomorrow I will grab one for microscope pics.

Whopping big hatch. They hatched out in the orb in a few gallons of water. Tonight I moved/cleaned a BRT and then I moved the larvae to that and added about 5 gallons of broodstock water as well. I added live Iso and a few drops of prime since there are some unhatched eggs in there as well. I added more rotifers as well since they cleared out the ones added yesterday pretty well.

The older batch seems to be going well. I added some live Iso.

Got some pics of the new hatch in the BRT



The day 8 group got Oto and a very small number of nhbbs this morning.

Pic of one of the older larvae (day 10, IIRC)


They still have rotifers in the BRT, and also get OtoA and nhbbs once or twice a day. I'm trying to keep the nhbbs limited though. If my Arctodiaptomus cultures were larger, I would mainly feed those, but I don't have enough. I will probably try to add a bunch around day 15 though--as many as I can, along with other copepods. If we get that far, that is...

Still have both batches going along.  The older ones have had some die off, often the larger ones.  Likely linked to the artemia.  They are also getting OtoA, and are now mainly on enriched artemia.  
 
Hopefully getting close to meta

Finally saw my first settled one from the older batch!

I was out of town for several days and my house sitter didn't feed the larval fish, so most of the older batch (except one...) died.  
 
Here is the survivor:


 
The younger batch has a couple alive yet, but they aren't settled.  They are only getting OtoB1 as of right now since every time I add bbs many of them drop dead.  

This guy is well over 60 DPS now:


 
I haven't collected anymore egg balls, but plan to start doing so again so I can give them another attempt