Breeding Journal, Species: Cryptocentrus cinctus

General
Species:  Cryptocentrus cinctus, a.k.a. Yellow Watchman Goby 
Social Structure:  pair
Size of Individuals:  1.5-2 inches
Age of Individuals:  unknown
Date added to Tank:  Hatch report from a friends' eggs, my broodstock added 7/12/2015, details in a separate journal 

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  17 x 19 x 27 inches
Substrate Details:  full reef, sand, corals
Filtration Details:  basement sump with live rock, skimmer, refugium, etc.
Water Changes:  unknown
Water Temperature:  80F
Lighting:  LED reef lighting
Lighting Cycle:  roughly 7am to 9pm? not my tank...
Other Tank Inhabitants:  corals, pair clownfish

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  unknown
Feeding Schedule:  unknown

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  4/29/15
Spawn Time of Day:  unknown, eggs discovered in morning
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:    May 19, June 10, June 28, all are guesses since spawning is not witnessed. 
Courtship Details: unknown                  
Egg Size:  1mm
Egg Color:  yellow
Egg Count:  between 10,000 and 100,000

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  5/3/15
Hatch Time of Day:  after lights out
# Days after Spawn:  4 days
Larvae Description:                 black eyes, yolk sack slightly larger than eye, transparent body, pectoral fins, caudal fin, dark spot mid body, functional mouth, gut looks well developed.
Consecutive Hatch Dates:   may 23, june 16, July 3, 2015     


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:   76F
Size of Larval Tank:  17 gallon BRT filled to 10 gallons
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:  none
Filtration Details:  none, but the tank is fed lightly with live phytoplankton, and some kind of macro algae grows on the walls.      
Lighting:  CFL in clamp on reflector mounted to side of tank , and blue led strip on same side
Lighting Cycle:  CFL is on for 14 hours during the day, then off 10 hours , and blue led strip on same side is on 24/7
Water Changes: none .  tub is pretty clean, though teeming with rots, copepods and brine shrimp, some of which are propagating in the tub.                      

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  euterpina acutifrons, Parvocalanus crassirostris, Apocyclops panamensis, rotifers, live Tetraselmis, Isochrisis and Rhodamonis phytoplankton as well as RGcomplete to feed the rotifers. Highest population is a super small rotifer up to day 14, then plicatillis rotifers will be added, and NHBS at day 20.     
Feeding Schedule:  tank assessed twice daily and additions as needed.

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  July 21, 2015
Days after Hatch:  18 days
Date of Settlement End:   Completely settled at July 21, day 18, but not yet metamorphosed at day 23.
Description of Fry:  Pelagic larvae are transparent with 3 glowing dots under the flashlight, and are constantly darting in the water column.  The settled fry cling to the wall, as if resting, occasionally darting out for a swim or to find more food. It's body is opaque and the eyes do not glow as brightly when hit with a beam of light. There is a vague yellow color just behind the head and a row of dots from the back of the head to the tail which could be spinal column.
 
Metamorphosis happened some time after that.  The tub was so difficult to see into, that I am completely unable to tell when they became little fishes.  When I transferred them to the breeder basket in a real aquarium, they had fully transformed, 8/23/15.

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature: 80F                            
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  15 gallon glass.  Fish are in breeder basket
Substrate Details:none 
Other Tank Decor:  small 3/4 inch pipe fitting
Filtration Details:  sponge filter in tank
Lighting:  CFL clamp on light
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours daylight, 10 hours night
Water Changes:  none yet
Size at Transfer:  3/8 inch approx.
Age at Transfer:  about 7 weeks.

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  Small pellet food from Argent and Otohime, "New Wave Arctic Copepods" from Brine Shrimp Direct, NHBS
Feeding Schedule:  twice daily

Additional Information
From FishBase:
Dorsal spines (total): 7; Dorsal soft rays (total): 10; Anal spines: 1; Anal soft rays: 9. Predorsal scales absent. Occurs in two color phases, one yellow and the other with whitish ground color; both forms with 4-5 dusky bars (although faint in yellow fish) and fine pale blue or white spotting on head and anterodorsal part of body and fins. A dark brown streak above maxilla (Ref. 27362); further characterized by: brown snout; presence of thin brown line along edge of upper jaw; united pelvic fins, presence of frenum; longitudinal scale series 92-95; head without scales; greatest depth of body 4.4-4.6 in SL; rounded caudal fin, about equal to head length (Ref. 90102).
 
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 



You will be required to provide photographic or video evidence in this thread of each event submitted for the MBI Program.
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.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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An aquaintance emailed me about his watchman gobies who spawned on Wednesday.  Would I like the eggs? Yes, indeed!  I'm very excited.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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I am preparing the tub. A BRT of course.  About 10 gallons of filtered(100 micron, as there is stuff in my mixing bucket) saltwater, airstone, 50 watt heater, as it is warm in my basement, but not warm enough. Bleach. Dechlor, test,  then additions of copepods and rotifers after the goby eggs hatch, and an assortment of live phyto, which I happen to have a lot of, these days.

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We easily detached the bunches of eggs from the rock work, and bagged them up and took them home. They started hatching in the bag.  I put the remaining eggs in a glass jar submerged at the bottom of the tub, with an airline to keep the water moving, if not the eggs.  10 minutes after lights out, they started hatching like mad.  The hatched ones easily swam out of the jar. I've added a mix of live phyto to the tub, but I'm waiting to add the copepods and rotifers until the eggs mostly hatch.  Very exciting!
 

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

Great job Kathy! Those pictures are awesome.

Xs two on the pictures Cathy ! 

Jake
We are all in this together

These guys hatched for hours, and there were thousands, but many died overnight. It's good, because I don't have enough food organisms for 100,000 larvae.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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"Xs two", does that mean you can't see the pix, or that you like them? 
Thanks, I think,
Kathy
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Here are some pix from last night:

eggs in a baggie.  No I am not counting them.
 
Parental guarding:

 
 
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Jake
We are all in this together

Wow, what a huge egg mass!! What is the size of the larvae?

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

About a mm. but with dark eyes and a functioning mouth. So much better than damsels...
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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does this work?
https://youtu.be/dvt-ApsCAoY
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Video link works. Those are tiny! Looks like one of my pod cultures! Are you feeding the combo listed above, or starting with one type of food?

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

Let's see: small and large rotifers, 3 kinds live phyto, supplemented with RGgreen, Apocyclops panamensis, Parvocalanus crassirostris, and Euterpina acutifrons. Plus probably some ciliates. The kitchen sink.

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

Yes, sometimes it is hard to determine, with a flashlight, if the bright spots I am seeing are larvae or copulating copepods. 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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for such a tiny fish that's a huge egg mass, instant water swelling !  Great to hear how well they are doing, one of my favorite families.

Jake
We are all in this together

this batch didn't make it, but we await another spawn.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Did it appear they were eating anything from the micro fauna salad you offered?

Good question.  I don't know. I kinda doubt it. The first couple of days I did not have the small rotifers.  I did take pictures, and the mouth of the larvae was way too small for the larger rotifers, and there were not enough copepod nauplii to make a good enough food base. They all died when their yolk sacs were depleted.
I was not well prepared for this batch, as I only had a few hours to get prepared.  Typically, I like to get the larval tank set up a day ahead at least, and that may have contributed, but mostly I think it was the relative lack of foods small enough.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Parents spawned again a couple days ago.  I'll pick up eggs on Sunday evening.  I have a fresh batch of Parvocalanus, and a goodly culture of ssmall rotifers, so I am good to go.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Oops, they hatched a day before we expected them to…. Now we wait.   The last spawn was noticed exactly 21 days from the previously noticed spawn.  We might have missed one in between.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Best of luck.
Not my favorite gobie but I do like them!.
 
Chuck

They ate the next nest, so this time, I pulled them at day1. Thousands of yellow eggs all connected together.  I took them home in a fresh protect bag, and then prepared a plastic cup and float/anchor assembly to keep it at the right temperature in an otherwise occupied tank, water bath.  The cup was prepared by filling with tank water, bleaching it with about 250 microliters of bleach for about 30 mins. , dechlorinated it and tested it for chlorine.  Then I added ¼ drop of methylene blue (one drop of (one drop of methylene blue plus 3 drops of water)).  In went the egg mass and a rigid airline.  The airline had a little burr on the end, which ended up being useful.  It snagged the mass of eggs so I could adjust it so that the eggs either got moved by the rising air bubbles or were bathed in the moving water as the air bubbles rose. I capped the cup and floated it in my shrimp tank.  The peppermint was very curious, but could not enter the cup with the eggs.
 
These eggs were spawned on Sunday evening? and I picked them up Monday evening.  Now Thursday morning I noticed silvery eyes forming on the eggs in the mass, and some prematurely hatched larvae and eggs lying in the bottom of the cup.  Here's pix:
With and without flash:

 

 
eggs and larvae from the bottom of the cup. Hearts still beat on the hatched ones, and some movement, but no real swimming:

 
microscope pix, these guys are still alive:

 

 
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Kathy, this will be a great effort because you have lots of eggs and are set up to do things right. Have you been able to measure their mouth gape? It might be that ss Rotifers are even too big for them to eat. Also, I love your kitchen sink approach!

For the next batch, may I suggest that you stock just parvo adults several days in advance so that they hatch lots of baby parvo. Other than ciliates, this may be the only prey small enough for their mouth size, yet still weak enough in escape response for the larvae to catch.

If their mouth gape is large enough for ss Rotifers then just ignore my advice about parvo.

Finally, (joke alert) you don't have to call them "copulating Copepods" if you are angry at them. Frigging or f-ing are probably still acceptable words on a public venue!

I really like your approach and hope it works.

LOL, I 'm not cursing them, Dave! When they mate, they present as a larger speck than a single copepod. 
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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This time I was all prepared.  I have 3 BRTs, one with copepods and ciliates, one with copepods, ciliates, and ss rotifers, and one with ss rotifers alone.  Eggs looked great, and all was well. 
 
I jumped the gun, split the eggs among the three tubs, and tried to hatch them last night and got very few premature larvae. I waited and waited, and not much happened. So back in the solo cup all the eggs went, and I goofed with the methylene blue.  I thought it would be OK and I was worried about fungus, and I gave the cup too much. I bubbled them all day, and did not take the ones that continued to hatch all day, so they died, either of turbulance or MB overdose.  Evening came and I got them out of the MB, and into clean water, only to find that the MB permeated the eggs, particularly staining the eyes, and killed most of them. A precious few hatched out, and I tried to distribute them evenly.
 
Interestingly, some fell out yesterday, into the freshest tub, and remained all day, looking healthy.  Many more hatched from that small thread of eggs than the larger masses I fooled with. I really goofed this batch, probably from trying too hard.
 
Still, I have a few to play with, and we'll see how they do.

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

Kathy this is a great thread, I really appreciate it. I love the gobies and your photo are awesome.

Jake
We are all in this together

Thanks Jake.
Because I don't have the numbers of larvae that I would need to do a good trial, I think I'll cut my losses and move any larvae I can find to the tank with the most larvae, that's the one with rotifers only, and then add some ciliates and parvocalanus--basically consolidate the three tubs in to one. Let's just see if I can raise ANY.
 
One of the tubs has the ruby red dragonet larvae, which I can no longer find, but might still be alive, so I'll keep that one going for a while longer, just in case. There are a couple of gobies in there still swimming as of this morning.

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

I can no longer find gobies, dragonets or anything but copeous copepods in that tub.  I'll keep it going in case something grows large enough to be seen with a flashlight.
 
The other two tubs are identical in food items, one has been running for over a month as a larval tank, and one was set up most recently for this run of watchman gobies. The fresh one had more larvae than the older one, and continues to be so. I still have larvae that aggressively dart, as though they are striking at prey items, in both tubs. I decided not to consolidate the larvae, in case any live in their home tank, but would die if transferred...
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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The fresh tub has at least a couple survivors darting around. Day 4. I counted this morning and I have rots at 10 per ml and Parvocalanus at 1 per ml. couldn't find any nauplii. Lots of ciliates.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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I found a larval fish in another tub, so we are still on.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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YAY Kathy!  You know we're all rootin' for ya!

Thanks Matt,
Day 10, still found a larva darting, larger than the damsels could possibly be, and looking like gobie larvae. This is in tub 3, loaded with all live foods.  Can't find any in tub 2, similarly stocked, but older, and can't find anything but parvocalanus in tub 1 and its lookin a little thin.  Needs a water change, or just to be taken down, saving the copepods that remain.
 
Still, day 10 larva, not bad! I am hopeful, and I only need one.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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In anticipation of magnificent success, I found a pair of broodstock that I can't live without, and they are acclimating now to their QT.  So if I am successful raising the day 10 larva, the spawn report for the species will come significantly later.

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

Kathy I really wish that you had some Centropyge larvae to work with, I think that your 'kitchen sink' buffet would work with some of them.
 
One way to find out. If I had some eggs I'd send them to you.

Jake
We are all in this together

Jake, I really wish I had some Centropyge eggs as well! Do you have some?
 
 But NicholeC once said,"Don't count your gobies until they've metamorphosed." and she was right. I haven't raised 'em yet.
 
HOWEVER, during my twice daily scrutiny of the larval tubs this evening, I was pleased to find with the flashlight, not one, but two tiny darters (not copepods or brine shrimp, but larvae) that were too small to be watchmans. I added a few damsel eggs to the tub a few days ago just so I could have something to look at while in scrutiny mode, and two or more appear to have survived, grown eyes and mouth, and are striking at food items.  The goby is also alive this evening, and it was fun to capture the sight of it in a single flashlight beam with one of the damsel larvae, too.  Quite a size difference. There is hope. I added more parvocalanus and I continue to add live phyto every day or so. I also add RGgreen twice a day, 10 drops, to feed the rotifers.

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

On Wednesday July 15, day 14, I added rotifers from my plicatilis tub. Although all my rotifers seeem the same size to me, these guys are supposed to be bigger, and Amy Dremel recommends adding them at this time according to her article in ReefKeeping. I siphoned out a gallon of old rotifers, and dripped in fresh saltwater, just to dent the old rot population a tiny bit, and then added the new "larger" rotifers. 
That evening, the watchman appeared bigger than ever, but perhaps that is just wishful thinking.  It can now dart forward several inches if it wants to, rather than always darting mm's. 

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

Last night, my friend with the Ruby Red dragonet eggs gave me a bunch, AND the damsel eggs were ready to hatch again, so I put some of each in the "successful" tub with the watchman larva and the older damsel larvae.
(I also put some in a freshly prepared tub with a modest number of rotifers, copepods, and fresh live phytoplankton.)

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