Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish

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KathyL
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Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Saturday, April 5, 2014 4:57 PM
Breeding Journal DataSheet
This first post should be updated regularly to include new information as events take place or changes are made to your system

General
Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish 
Social Structure:  pair
Size of Individuals:  about 3.5 inches
Age of Individuals:  unknown
Date added to Tank:  4/5/14

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank: 20 gallon high               
Substrate Details:  sand bed, well established
Filtration Details:  live rock in sump
Water Changes:  10 % weekly
Water Temperature:  80 F
Lighting:  ambient, under cabinet fluorescent lights.
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours day, 10 hours night
Other Tank Inhabitants:  none

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  frozen mash of shrimp, spirulina, krill, fish, scallops, etc. Also frozen fish eggs with algae, Hikari mysis, a little flake .  Not all foods fed at each feeding.  I switch it up.
Feeding Schedule:  twice daily

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  4/8 or 4/9 not sure ,
Spawn Time of Day:Initially, eggs noticed in the morning of the ninth.    Subsequent spawns occur early, just after lights come on.                
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:   4/13, 4/18, 4/24, every 5-6 days mostly.  8/5 , 8/1/15
Courtship Details:  Not sure who is female, who is male.  One very aggressive fish, presumed male, hides except for attacking the other one. The other one cowers in the corner. Sometimes she swims down to the aggressive one. Scared one loses color in the facial area, whereas the aggressive one looks normal. Aggressive one tends the eggs, (but not very much) so perhaps it is the male. Subesquent thoughts concur.  After a while, these two appear to get along OK for the mos part.  Female is not stressed, fins are intact.
Egg Size:  Ultra tiny: approximately 0.5mm diameter 
Egg Color: clear to slight yellow                 
Egg Count: about a thousand.  Its amazing.

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  4/27/14 , and thereafter 2.5 days after spawn.
Hatch Time of Day:  night
# Days after Spawn: 3.5                        
Larvae Description:  1.5-2mm long, clear, clear eyes, undeveloped mouth                  
Consecutive Hatch Dates:  4/11/14, 4/16, 4/21 , 8/4/15


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  78F
Size of Larval Tank:  17 gallon BRT, filled to about 10 gallons 
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:  none
Filtration Details:  airstone and heater   
Lighting:  compact fluorescent clamp light  
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours day, 10 hours night
Water Changes:  none at first

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Initially: rotifers, ciliates, P. crassirostris nauplii, O. marina, live Isochrysis, RGgreen
Feeding Schedule:  continuous

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
 Spawn is a bit loose, meaning the eggs are not tightly next to each other for the most part,  but covers about 1/3 of the outside area of a 4 inch diameter clay pot. The pot is covered with eggs on the shadowed side, not on the well lit side.
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 
Controlled Breeding and Larval Rearing Techniques of Damsel Fishes
G. GOPAKUMAR1*, BOBY IGNATIUS2, I. SANTHOSI1 and N. RAMAMOORTHY1
Asian Fisheries Science 22 (2009): 797-804
http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/5727/1/11.pdf
 
Danilowicz, Bret S. and Brown, Christopher L. 1992. Rearing methods for two damselfish species: Dascyllus albisella and D. aruanus. Aquaculture 106: 141-149



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<message edited by KathyL on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 8:42 AM>
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KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Saturday, April 5, 2014 5:01 PM
Gift from a friend, these are a spawning pair. Let's see what happens.
These have almost recovered from the stress of moving them.  They temporarily lost color in the head region, but it is coming back as expected.
 

<message edited by KathyL on Saturday, April 5, 2014 10:18 PM>
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 1:04 PM
OMG, Three days later we've got about zillion eggs! They spawned!
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shannpeach
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 1:49 PM
Holy moly!  That was fast!

KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 6:33 PM
Here are the eggs:
With Papa:

 
Thousands of tiny eggs:

 
One egg under the scope this morning.

 
More eggs this afternoon at about 4:30pm.

 
I scraped them off and put them under the 40x powered dissecting microscope. I am thinking they must be fertile… :-)
 
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shannpeach
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, April 10, 2014 10:57 AM
That is A LOT of eggs!
 
Are you concerned about the aggressiveness of the (assumed) male?  Do you think there would be the same amount of aggressiveness from the mean male if they were in a larger tank?

KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, April 10, 2014 7:19 PM
I have no idea.  Do you?
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shannpeach
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, April 10, 2014 8:16 PM
Nope! 

KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, April 10, 2014 8:43 PM
Unless I put these in the growout sump, I don't have a larger tank available. I could also put them in a sump connected to a broodstock system, but I'm taking down that system, so that's not so great, and in addition, at 3 days, these guys are still in quarantine.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, April 10, 2014 9:02 PM
It's entirely possible he would just terrorize her in a larger tank.  I have no idea...I've never had any damsels 

shannpeach
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Sunday, April 13, 2014 6:03 PM
Did these hatch yet??  

KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Monday, April 14, 2014 9:03 AM
They did hatch, but I did not collect larvae.  too busy at the moment, perhaps next time.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Monday, April 14, 2014 9:04 AM
I am now thinking the aggression was part of the mating ritual.  It seems to be toned down now, everyone is eating well, and the two co-exist.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 12:57 PM
I have more pics of eggs, but can't post them right now. The cool thing is that I was checking eggs under the scope last night and tthought they were close to hatching but not yet ready. I was wrong. This morning I needed the Petri dish and saw that I had left it on the scope overnight. When I picked it up to wash it I noticed little swimmers in there. They hatched in the Petri dish!

The eggs dont need to be attached to hatch. Cool.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 1:20 PM
So you could try a scrape-and-tumble approach if needed...awesome
 
Any plans to do anything with them soon? I'm excited for you to try!  Are you thinking you will start with rotifers, or will you go right to parvo?

KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 8:18 AM
They are so tiny at hatch, about a mm in LENGTH! Also, I don't think they have a mouth yet. Or fully developed eyes.  I'll keep them with P. crassirostris at first, since that's the smallest copepod nauplii I have.  I am setting up a kreisel for them.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 8:33 AM
Oh my goodness, yeah, those are tiny!  
 
How big is your kreisel?  Are you going to just take a portion of the nest then to try?  I can't imagine it would be easy to feed 1000 larvae on just parvo!

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, April 24, 2014 12:55 AM
It's a 2 gallon kreisel, so 8 liters approximately.  I'm going to try for 100 eggs per kreisel, maybe 2 kreisels, so I can test things. I'm guessing 20% of the eggs won't hatch, so I'll end up with 10 larvae per liter.  We'll see how it goes.  Waiting for eggs….
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Saturday, April 26, 2014 10:37 PM
I am in the process of re-doing the basement, so I did not use the BRT for this nest. The stand for the BRT is too close to the system I am taking down.  I did, however, put up the kreisel on the mildly heated shelf.  These eggs were laid a couple of days ago, on the OTHER clay pot in the tank. The first pot, I had cleaned off the gravel/sand that the male keeps throwing on it, and I guess they didn't like it.  These fish take almost no care of the eggs, and they kick up sand all the time, so there is a layer of eggs interspersed with sand…  I tried to rinse off the sand before getting pictures of the 4 inch pot.  The nest is so large that I can't get it all in the picture, as it wraps around the pot.  When I look at the eggs under the scope, the eyes are not black, but when I've waited in the past for that to happen, the eggs hatch before I can capture any.  So I am thinking that Tonight is the night. I put the scraped off eggs directly in the kreisel, in the hopes that they will just hatch there and continue developing uninterrupted. Eggs that scraped off as singles, are somewhat neutrally buoyant and are circling the kreisel.  Eggs that came off attached to other eggs have sunk, but still I think they will be OK.  We shall see.
 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Saturday, April 26, 2014 10:53 PM
Morning #2

evening #2

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Saturday, April 26, 2014 10:58 PM
When they look like that, they hatch that night.
:-)
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Sunday, April 27, 2014 7:44 AM
They did not hatch last night.  So it must be tonight. Eggs are still alive.  I put the pot with the majority of the eggs in a bucket with airstone, to preserve the vast majority, and just to see what happens.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Sunday, April 27, 2014 9:31 PM
Many hatched this afternoon in the kreisel:
kreisel

 
fuzzy white things are larvae:

 
at 40x under scope:
no eyes, mouth, in other words--prolarvae


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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Sunday, April 27, 2014 9:34 PM
I gave the kreisel a light Isochrysis dose and lots of Parvocalanus.  More damsels may hatch out tonight.  The bucket appears to be unhatched, but it is harder to see them in there, and the temperature is about 75, as opposed to 78 in the kreisel. More to come!
 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Monday, April 28, 2014 8:21 AM
OMG! Overnight we had a massive hatchment! The kreisel has hundreds and I didn't think I put that many eggs into it.  The bucket is just thick with them. I'll keep that as a starvation test. But I've already fed some to some larger fish, and haven't made a dent in the bucket population.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Friday, May 2, 2014 9:56 AM
By Wednesday (2 days later) they developed pigmentation in the eyes, and were certainly able to avoid the pipet, in my attempts to capture one in order to look under the scope. By Thursday there was a huge die off, in both the kreisel and the bucket.  Many floaters and motionless ones. I did a 25% water change with siphoning and skimming the surface. I think there are still some live ones in the kreisel, but its hard to tell, as there is a bloom of isochrysis.
 
Anyway, starvation time is 3 days, coincident to the formation of the mouth, and disappearance of the yolk:

 

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Friday, May 2, 2014 1:24 PM
Have you seen them strike at/eat anything yet?  

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Friday, May 2, 2014 2:39 PM
I'm pretty sure they are all dead, despite having lots of appropriate food.  Probably the kreisel is not ideal for them.  Once I get some space, I'll try a larger tub.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Sunday, May 4, 2014 11:33 PM
Still waiting to clear some space for a BRT, I still have the kreisel running on the shelf.  It has a bloom of Isochrysis, P. crassirostris, and I'm afraid a few brine shrimp….dont know how they got in there...
 
I scraped some eggs off the pot, and they look almost ready to hatch, so I added only 18 eggs this time to the kreisel.  Perhaps the other die off was because of too many larvae in too small a vessel. It may be a little early, so I'll add 18 more tomorrow if they remain unhatched in the brood stock tank.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 10:34 PM
good luck!
 

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Tuesday, May 6, 2014 11:38 PM
Just a side note - reading through about your pair, and knowing that Damsels are generally supposed to start life as females, it would make sense that the one guarding the nest is the male and the one cowering is the female.  Perhaps you should hang a section of large diameter PVC up by where she hides...will give her a more secure home.

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 3:17 PM
Matt, I put a second pot in the tank and she has taken up residence there. They are getting along better now though, and I frequently see them swimming together in peace if not enjoyment.

I continued to add 10eggs, morning and evening, to the kreisel until I noticed that the other eggs in the broodstock tank had hatched. By then,kreisel Iso and P. crassirostris had bloomed, so visibility was minimal. Yesterday I could not see any larvae, so I thought it had failed. This morning, however, I saw a couple of tiny swimmers with pigmented eyes trying to strike at food. I don't think they can miss, given the amazing population of pods in there. Pods look as dense as a rotifer culture.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 3:21 PM
If this works I will credit the success to the small number of larvae in the relatively small kreisel. My goal is not to produce large numbers of them, but to get one to 60 dps.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, May 8, 2014 2:51 PM
Gave the kreisel a bottom siphon, removing the largest brine shrimp, some more Iso and a small water chonge last night. This morning I saw at least 3 larvae darting for food.

To quote Matt, I ONly need one.:-)
<message edited by KathyL on Thursday, May 8, 2014 3:44 PM>
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, May 8, 2014 5:38 PM
But more sure would be nice!

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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, May 8, 2014 10:18 PM
If I get them to tomorrow I will have passed the first hurdle, getting them to eat past the starvation time. Then it will be the challenge to get them to meta. They look rather strong tonight.  Although they don't have the body shape of clownfish, and they are not big at all (their eye is about the size of the largest copepods they are swimming with) I think I can detect a bulge of dark food just posterior to the eye. Tomorrow will tell.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, May 8, 2014 10:27 PM
Meanwhile, the parents are doing some interesting things.  Normally, the presumed male has a white spot on its forehead.  The presumed female is rather washed out there, and doesn't usually display this.  
 
When I get home from work , frequently, I see them in the front corner of the tank, and they both have the the white spot on display.  By the time I get their food prepared, they are back to their usual coloring. 
 
This evening I was watching just before lights out.  They were active in the tank, swimming to the front corner and darting around and going to their hidey holes.  Both had lost the white spot, and the male was particularly black in the face. Both fish spent some time vibrating their tails, sometimes near the sand, and kicking up a small storm of sand into the body of the water.  In addition, the male, at times, did a swooping kind of dance in front of her, swimming in a U pattern, over and ove again. He also did a little cleaning of the spot on the wall where some of the eggs attached last time. (They were mostly on the pot, but there were some on the wall as well, and by some, I would guess, a thousand or so.)  The female does not look gravid, and indeed has never looked gravid, despite the weekly appearance of THOUSANDS of eggs. They are very tiny eggs, and these are relatively large damsels.  Just reporting the observations.  I have no idea what they mean, but I am expecting a spawn tomorrow, and I hope to catch them in the act, so I can know when they do it...
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KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Thursday, May 8, 2014 10:32 PM
Judging by the swimming patterns, I have a huge population of apocyclops in the kreisel.  I will try to reduce all copepods tomorrow, as they are so dense, they are eating all they phyto, and I fear that they will crash one day if I am not quick enough to replenish.
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KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Monday, May 12, 2014 10:41 PM
I did siphon out the copepods that collect on the side closest to the light.  I siphoned out 500 ml of them.  the copepods were 10/ml in the collection pitcher.  ALL PARVO. No Apocyclops.  I fed the 5000 Parvo to the pipefish, who liked them very much, thank you.  I noticed soon after that I could not find any damsel larvae in the kreisel, so I think it failed, and now several days later, I am sure of it.
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KathyL
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Dascyllus aruanus, Three Stripe Damselfish - Monday, May 12, 2014 10:44 PM
Meanwhile, of course, the Damsels spawned again, this time on an algae covered wall, instead of the nice clean clay pots.  I almost missed the spawn, as I was not looking for it there. It was well camouflaged.  As I scraped eggs to check for maturity, it seems the damsels attached them directly to the filmy algae on that wall.  No clownfish-like nest cleaning preparation for these damsels.  Just pick a spot, and get busy!
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