Breeding Journal, Species: Centropyge argi

General
Species:  Centropyge argi
Social Structure:  Harem (trio for me)
Size of Individuals:  ~2 inch male, ~1.5 inch female, ~1 inch female
Age of Individuals:  Unknown, wild caught
Date added to Tank:  4-26-2014 (but were kept together in quarantine before that)

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  20 gallon high
Substrate Details:  None
Filtration Details:  Bioballs, protein skimmer, macro algae, live rock
Water Changes:  As needed
Water Temperature:  ~80 F
Lighting:  Fluorescent strip light (ambient) and CFL 
Lighting Cycle:  6AM to 9PM
Other Tank Inhabitants:  None

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Mysis, enriched artemia, live artemia (usually bbs), frozen mash, pellet, live blackworms
Feeding Schedule:  At least 2 times a day

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  5-4-2014 (First that I noticed/checked for)
Spawn Time of Day:  Evening, around lights out
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  5-5-2014, 5-7-2014
Courtship Details:  Not witnessed
Egg Size:  ~500uM
Egg Color:  Clear
Egg Count:  Less than 50 

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  5-5-2014
Hatch Time of Day:  Mid day to early evening (uncertain since I was not home to check frequently)
# Days after Spawn:  Less than 24 hours
Larvae Description:  Prolarvae, clear, large yolk sac, oil globule
Consecutive Hatch Dates:      

Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  80F
Size of Larval Tank:  Currently in a specimen cup
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  None
Filtration Details:  None
Lighting:  Fluorescent strip light
Lighting Cycle:  6AM to 9PM
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: 



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Broodstock pics:



 
Last night I thought the larger female looked a little plump, so after lights out I went and checked with a flashlight.  I had also put mesh over the standpipe to help keep any eggs in the tank.  I found less than 50 and collected them into a 1/2 gallon specimen container
 That is taken at 40x, IIRC.

 
I hung the specimen container in a tank at 80F with no aeration.  The tank's lid should also help keep evaporation down.
 
This morning I pulled a few eggs off the mesh in the tank as well.  I took one mesh egg, and one egg from the specimen container and checked them under the scope

Both seem to be developing  

If you have a broad spectrum antibiotic it will help hatch rates by preventing fungal attack on the eggs.

I don't have one handy....but may pick some up this weekend.

Hatch some time today...not sure of the exact time and I only spotted a few. I will probably remove the bad eggs tonight since there are quite a few laying on the bottom.
40x:

100x:

great pictures.  do you have a parvo culture ready for first food?

I have one on the way...again.  I keep killing the culture.  I will get it this time though
 
I also don't expect to get decent hatch numbers for awhile.  I don't have many eggs to start with yet (the spawns are still pretty small) and only a few hatch out.  So while I get the culturing down, I will continue to work on feeding the adults, collection, hatching, and incubating until they can feed.  

Last night was a very small spawn, hardly any eggs at all.  

Very cool! Awesome photos. I wish I could get some of my C. bispinosa to hatch. I'm not certain if they have been fertile thus far. I'll be following to see how the larval rearing progresses!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

Ken, from what I remember, centropyge eggs were nearly 100% fertile for me.  This was 25  years ago and I never looked at them under a microscope but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!  But seriously, I don't think infertile eggs are the problem.

Thanks

I checked both specimen cups this evening. The one with eggs collected from last night didn't seem to have anything in it, so I dumped and cleaned it. The cup from the first spawn still had at least one of the two prolarvae cruising around. I was too nervous to take it out for pics though.

No new spawn tonight, but I doubt they will spawn often/well mid week for me. I don't get to feed as often during the week as I do on Fri/Sat/Sun. So I am guessing the weekends are when I will be able to get sizeable spawns to work with. But I'll still probably check most nights...

I never worked with C. argi so I can't help with anything that may be particular to them.  But for the brilliant Hawaiian pioneers who have worked with all the Centropyge species, parvo seemed to work for every Centropyge.  The problem hasn't been first food, it is second food.  After 6-8 days the parvo copepodites jump faster than the Centropyge larvae can strike and it is slow starvation from then until they are all gone by day 10 or 12, depending on temperature.
 
The only success (that has been shared) from that point has come from wild caught plankton.  To my knowledge there is no cultured organism that has worked as a second food for pygmy angels.

I'm no expert, but I'd guess that the eggs have been gestating in the female for a while and depend less on her food consumption over the weekend and probably depend more on her caloric intake and fat buildup over weeks or months.  I could be completely wrong on this, perhaps eggs are formed every 24 hours, but that's not my guess.

The two pro larvae that hatched for me from the first spawn are still alive as if this evening. I pulled one for a pic (will post it tomorrow) and I suspect/worry that I killed it in the process. I'm not quite sure if the mouth is fully formed since I couldn't get a good angle while it was under the scope. To the eye, at this point, they are slightly easier to see since some black pigmentation has developed. I may try adding some Parvo naups tomorrow morning along with a dinoflagellate.

There was a spawn tonight and I collected about 75 good eggs. I collected everything I could with a turkey baster in a specimen cup. Then I used a small pipet to count the eggs as I put them in a smaller container. This allowed me to end up with just the eggs that floated well and not collect so much random stuff from the broodstock tank. I took a ~1.5 gallon wineglass (I'll try to get a pic) and filled that with broodstock water (put through at 120 micron sieve) and then put that into a water bath (dishpan) that is heated to 80F. I put a lid on the wineglass to limit evaporation.

Hopefully I will get a better hatch than I did with my first attempts.

Still had one prolarva (or perhaps larva, at this point!) in the specimen cup this morning at lights on.  I added some Isochrysis and some Parvocalanus naups, however, those nauplii are already several days old and may already be too large.  Tonight I will sieve the adult culture and try to get some younger ones (if the larva is still alive...)
Here is the pic from last night.  Not the best, but I didn't want to keep it out of the water long.

 
The eggs from the spawn last night are still floating and don't look opaque, so I am hoping they are still good. They are all around the meniscus of the wineglass. The temp dropped a little more than I wanted it to (I just set everything up last night and wasn't sure how exact the heater setup I made was going to be) so I turned the heater up a little bit this morning.  I will be home today around 1-2, so perhaps I will get a chance to see if they hatch before I head back to work.

 
I was just reading over this paper again "Development of aquaculture technology for the flame angelfish, Centropyge loriculus" by  Charles W. Laidley, Chatham K. Callan, Andrew Burnell, Kenneth K.M. Liu, Christina J. Bradley, Marta Bou Mira, and Robin J. Shields.
 
Although they were able to rear on just Parvocalanus, followed by artermia, they suffered high mortality rates.  They suggest that the nauplii possibly weren't able to meet the nutritional requirements.  They also state that finding a transitional food needs work because they weren't able to get them onto rotifers, but then comment that "it is challenging to maintain sufficient numbers of larger copepodites."  So for that species, it sound like to me that it isn't so much that the larvae couldn't handle the larger copepodites but rather that the researchers weren't able to provide enough of them.  It's all very interesting and one has to wonder then if a copepod species with a larger nauplii would work.  I would probably try Euterpina since I have that handy.  But that is all WAY WAY WAY down the road since right now I am still dealing with egg collection, hatching, and prolarvae incubation improvements and potential first feedings

I was home around 12 today and I didn't find many eggs.  There were a few on the bottom of the container which I siphoned out.  I also siphoned out egg casings and upon closer inspection I realized they had already hatched.  Several prolarvae were cruising around.  I added some Parvo of all ages and Iso.
 
Here is a pic of the wineglass/water bath


 
The spawn from 5-4 still has the one larva alive.  I also added Parvo of all ages to that specimen container, along with some Iso, but not very much of the Parvo so this little guy isn't likely to make it too long.  
 
Still no aeration for either container.

I just found the last larva from the 5-4 spawn dead on the bottom of the specimen container. So that is about 72-80 hours post hatch.

There was a spawn tonight, but I didn't collect any eggs. I want to wait and see how last night's spawn develops before I collect more eggs and I'm also tired so I didn't feel like monkeying around with it tonight. Tomorrow I may collect since I'll have a specimen cup available again. Maybe.

Frank at RCT used parvo as a first food, but he also fed the angelfish Oithona (sp?). I haven't looked into their survival rates, but that is what I have gathered. While they have worked with many Centropyge, there are still many more to be worked with like C. venusta (Karen is on settlement), C. narcosis, C. bispinosa, C. nox, C. Deborae, etc.

I think parvo and oithona are similarly sized and would guess that either could be used.  Although adult copepods can be identified, it is nearly impossible to identify naups.  Yet there are critical factors about the naups that affect larval survivability like shape, swimming motion, the number and types of tail barbs.  I don't think you'd go wrong using both of these small copepods.  
 
However I have some healthy skepticism that the Hawaiians went from parvo straight to new hatched brine shrimp.  I think it is more likely that they went from parvo to size sorted wild collected copepods to artemia.  I don't know the date of the paper but perhaps less than full information was published while people were in the process of trying commercial culture of flame angels.   I could be wrong, it won't be the first time today.

Where is David Watson when you need him?  I've never heard that "wild plankton only" gets you past day 8 with Centropyge, and I can tell you that while Watson is up against his own issues, he's going well past 20 days....

That's news to me and a pleasant surprise.  I hope he can let us know what they ate after parvo.

how did you find out he's working with argis?
 

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

Well I still have at least one larva cruising around in the wineglass this evening. That would be 4 days post hatch, which I believe is my personal record. The wineglass is great, but it's actually quite difficult to see into it well with the curved surfaces and also due to it being in the water bath. I haven't collected eggs the last couple nights, but I may check again later this week for some and try them in the 1 gallon fish bowl instead since I can see better into those.

Saw one larva still alive this morning...there may be more, but like I said the container is hard to see in to.

Did you try feeding this current hatching, or was this just a starvation trial?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

There is a blooming Parvo culture in with it (them?) so hopefully they are eating.  The parvo isn't at ideal densities for feeding though (at least, probably not)

I didn't spot any more larvae this evening. I think we hit the starvation wall.

There were three larvae incubating in a specimen cup for a few days that I tossed into the wineglass but don't expect much to happen with them. I collected about 140 eggs tonight and have them incubating now.

I also made two additional Parvo cultures from the wineglass culture. Slowly scaling up!

I had my best hatch percentage yet from the eggs collected last night. I added some live Iso to the container today to dim the lighting and also to help maintain water quality.

The last eggs I collected/hatched lasted a few days and then disappeared.  I decided to wait to collect more until I have stronger/more Parvocalanus cultures.  I want to have enough cultures to keep a 17 gallon BRT stocked at 5-10 naups/mL.  I've been tentatively scaling those up/creating more cultures (I have four going now, but they are rather small) so hopefully by mid-June I will be able to do more.

I hear that parvo needs a lot of live phyto.  I'm sure you know this but they also need two sizes of phyto, the little 2-3 micron stuff like iso for the naups, but also something in the 25-30 micron size range for the adults.  Keep up the good work.

I have had good luck raising Parvocalanus on live Isochrysis alone.  It's good to have a lot of live phyto, but I've had the best success  by feeding very sparsely (not like rotifers, where heavy feeding works best) but perhaps more frequently, as the culture gets "gin" clear.  I haven't tried adding a diatom that is bigger to the mix, but I trust Chad Clayton's experience, that the mixed phyto culture works better. I wonder where one can get a robust culture of 
Thalassiosira pseudonana, but I really haven't looked into it yet.

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

Kathy--I think other diatom species would also work. Chaetoceros is available (seahorsesource is where I got mine, IIRC) and is quite easy to culture.

Yeah, I knew that, but I still wonder about the Thalassiosira.

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

There are several articles in the literature that found that a small diatom like Iso and a large one caused good survival rates for both naups and adults.  However if my memory is correct, nanno did not keep the parvo alive for more than one generation, so I think you will find your solution with Thalassiosira or Chaetoceros.
 
I think both are available from carolina biological supply, but I'm not sure.

I got thalassiosira from Carolina Biological, but I don't think they identify the species. The cheato from SHS is a larger starter culture and also generally easier to culture. The Thalassiosira comes as like 10 mL or so.

Hey Dave, I would be interested in reading those sources.  Do you have a reference for them?  Thanks in advance.

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

Hey Dave, I would be interested in reading those sources.  Do you have a reference for them?  Thanks in advance.

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

Sure Kathy, I'll try to get them to you in the next day or so.

Kathy, here is one paper:  Evaluation of microalgal diets for the intensive cultivation of the tropical calanoid copepod, Parvocalanus crassirostris, Fahad Alajmi and Chaoshu Zeng.
 
More to come.

Here's a second source:  "intensive cultivation of a subtropical paracalanid copepod, parvocalanus sp., as prey for small marine fish larvae"  by Robin Shields, Tomonari Kotani, et. al.
 
Hope that helps.