Breeding Journal, Species: Gobiodon okinawae

General
Species:  Gobiodon okinawae
Social Structure:  pair
Size of Individuals:  about 3/4 inch in total length
Age of Individuals:  unknown
Date added to Tank:  6/16/15 

Broodstock Tank Details 
Size of Tank:  20 gallon long, 30 x 12 x 12 inches all      
Substrate Details:  none except for a few PVC pipe fittings 
Filtration Details:  Sponge filter 
Water Changes:  bi- monthly, about 10 % 
Water Temperature:  82 F      
Lighting:  LED strip light, cool white
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours day, 10 hours night 
Other Tank Inhabitants:  This is QT. I also have  1 E. evelynae, AND 2 orchid dottybacks.
 
Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn: 8/19/15                   
Spawn Time of Day:  unknown, probably afternoon, found in evening
Dates of Consecutive Spawns: 8/25 found in morning , 8/30 morning before 11am! ,…MACNA..., 9/10 daytime,                       
Courtship Details:  Made passes at the spawning site the day before, as if practicing.  Normally the fish are not together in the tank.
Egg Size:  tiny, 0.7mm?
Egg Color:  white
Egg Count: hundreds, too many to count 

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  8/29/15
Hatch Time of Day:half hour after lights out 
# Days after Spawn:  4
Larvae Description: 2 mm long with black eyes, digestive system, small yolk with oil drop, pelvic fins, melanocytes in a row down the ventral body  
Consecutive Hatch Dates:   …MACNA…9/10 after dark               

Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  78F
Size of Larval Tank:  18 liters in a 17 gallon BRT at first.  Volume increase as time goes on.
Substrate Details: airstone and heater                          
Other Tank Decor: 
Filtration Details:  none
Lighting: Home Depot, [font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 2"]GE 60W Equivalent Daylight General Purpose LED Bright Stik light bulb
in clamp fixture
Model # LED10S3/5K/96
Brightness: 760 lumens, Light appearance: 5000K (daylight), Energy used: 10-Watt (equivalent to a 60-Watt standard incandescent light bulb), Lumens per watt: 76

Lighting Cycle:  24 hour /day
Water Changes:  none

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  P. crassirostris nauplii, Isochrysis and Rodomonas phytoplankton to tint
Feeding Schedule:  continuous, levels checked daily.

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: 
Spawns:
 8/19/15 found in evening
8/25 found in morning
8/30 definitely laid in morning between 9 and 11 am.
Macna
9/10 laid in daytime while I was at work, before previous eggs hatched that evening.

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:
http://kathysclowns.com
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(Wholesale to the trade.)

Originally, I had these two in separate QT to let them settle in.  Last night I put them together, and they chased around, but stayed together, despite numerous hiding places.  I have hope.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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These two seem to either keep to opposite sides of the long tank they are in, or they swim together briefly in peace. Particularly at feeding time.  I need to get a piece of dead acropora skeleton in their tank.

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

My little guys are really small, less than 1 ", but they eat well, and one seems to have a gravid look. Not sure, though.  I put an acropora skeleton in with them, and the less gravid one perches on it, whereas the more gravid one surveys their world.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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Good luck. Following along. 

Yesterday, the gobies were making pseudo egg laying passes at the submerged heater cord. No eggs.  This morning, no eggs, and no passes.
 
Came home to this:

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Assumed female at the front of the tank:

 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Presumed Male, guarding eggs:

 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Awesome Kathy!

Thanks Matt,
It would be awesome,except that the eggs are gone now.  After they were laid, the dottybacks in this tank were hovering in the area, very unlike their usual haunts. The poor male goby was on constant guard.  I sectioned the tank to keep the dottys out of the area where the eggs are, keeping the goby in with the eggs, and when i got home from work the eggs were all gone.  I guess I disturbed the male, or the eggs were no good, or something.

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

I found another nest on the heater cord this morning.  Dottybacks hovering like vultures, goby on guard.

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

60 hours after finding the eggs in the morning:

reflective eyes:

 
Presumed dad on guard:

 

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

I look forward to working with something that has eyes at hatch and might live.

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

ha!  Those photos look great Kathy!

They will probably hatch tonight.  I'll snag a few and do a starvation run, since I'm at Macna in a week.

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

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

Scraped these guys^^^ off the power cord, and I have them in a Solo cup in the closet.  We'll see if any hatch tonight.

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

Nope, no hatch last night.  Yolks still do look a little big.  perhaps tonight.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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Yay! We have hatch!  Here's a video of live ones:
http://youtu.be/muWjOItg24U
and some pix:
There's a parvocalanus nauplii to the left, so you can judge the size of the larvae:

 

 

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

Eggs a few hours before hatch

 
 

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

Your pictures are awesome!

Thanks Daniel!
I'll be darned if they didn't spawn this morning! I looked first thing this morning to see that all the eggs hatched, and they had, and now at 10:55am, another nest is laid, dad on guard!
 
This species will be fun to raise!

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

I had a spawn while I was at MACNA, and came home to eggs on the cord.  I checked a sampling of them and thought they should hatch last night.  I scraped some off the cord into a cup and moved the rest with their heater attached to the BRT.  The heater cord ones are above the airstone, and the cup ones just floated in the cup on top of the water.  It doesn't appear that either hatched last night or today.
 
When I stole the eggs from the okinawae last night, I replaced the heater in the tank with another one.  This evening, a new batch of eggs have been laid.  They don't waste any time.

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

The eggs finally hatched.  I'm guessing they are the cord ones, since the cup ones looked pretty bad.  These guys are super tiny, but they have a bright eye that catches the flash light, so I can tell they are in the BRT.  I have the tub stocked with P. crassirostris, and lots of live Isochrysis.  I counted about 3 nauplii per ml, rough estimate, but I expect there will be more tomorrow, or I can supplement from the culture.  The larvae dart short distances very fast, changing direction, unlike other goby larvae I've had. Some seem quite mad. Nice that they have eyes and mouths and guts, so they can start feeding right away.  Light is on 24 hours/day for now.
 
These guys are so tiny, I can't imagine trying to raise them on rotifers.

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

Mine started hatching tonight and all I have to feed them is rotifers.

Still have a couple little darters.  Very hard to see in the BRT. Probably less than 10, but they are vigorous, making me think they might live.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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The new eggs that were laid disappeared the next day. I gave credit to the new heater freaking them out, but I assumed it was at least working… during their water change today, I discovered that the water was cold, room temp. Now that the heater is turned on, perhaps they will lay eggs and keep them again.

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

Can't find any darters. Next time.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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Indeed,Kathy,I could swear they can not.
But Edgar Diaz says he could.
Raising these tiny larvae was discussed in http://www.marinebreeder.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=182&t=496 with Ed posting as well.

Luis it seems I can no longer log in. all attempts take me to a screen where I am to enter anti spam code. when I do,I get the same screen again. forevermore. can you help?

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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I have eggs again. Yay! I was worried.

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

These guys are on a 6 day cycle : hatch on day 5, spawn again on day 6.
A small nest I hatched this evening.  I just put the heater with the eggs on cord into the larval rearing tank, airstone underneath, and about 1/2 hour after lights out, they all hatched.  Not many eggs to start with, they are nearly impossible to see in the BRT. 
My timing is lousy.  I have had nice nauplii collections from my parvo cultures, and then last night I forgot to put the airline back on them, and today I have very few nauplii.  I do have lots of ciliates, so I added them to the larval tank as well as lots of rotifers, and about a liter of some medium dark Isochrysis. I'm leaving the lights on tonight, and I'll see if I have any larvae in the morning, if possible.

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

Any luck this shot?  Get into the link Luis posted?

I've read and retained Luis's link many times over. I can't understand how Edgar raised them on rotifers.  They are much too small.
 
The last batch disappeared in the BRT never to emerge again.
 
The Okinawae are on a 6 day cycle.  They lay eggs, incubate for 5 days, and then they hatch after dark. By the next day at noon, there are new eggs on the cord. Thanks to the powers that be. Gotta love a prolific spawner.
 
I hatched eggs last night.  I dipped the cord into a prepared pretzel jar, and an hour after dark, returned the heater to the broodstock tank, eggs (not a lot of them) hatched successfully.
 
I prepared the jar with P. crassirostris nauplii and some live phyto, a mix of rhodomonas and isochrysis.  Unfortunately, I poured from a jar that also contained a contaminating midi/macro algae, a green one, that has been plagueing my cultures.  Doesn't interfere with the micro algae, but puts some larger clumps of green in there.( my last batch seems clear of it, so I may have fixed the issue). So my pretzel jar has some crap flowing around as well as larvae that appear to be striking at the nauplii.  I hope I can keep up supplying nauplii. I've just gotten my phyto cultures to accelerate their growth just by applying more light. So now I have lots of phyto, but the copepods are not numerous enough, and another week would have been a good thing to get them going stronger.  But we work with what we have.  I'm hoping the pretzel jar will teach me what the BRT could not.

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

I love the pretzel jar. A few minutes after I pour the daily nauplii into it, the little goby larvae strike like crazy and I imagine I can see tiny expanding bellies. What fun!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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This morning I could barely find any larvae until I added nauplii. The numbers are greatly reduced.Day 3
 
I think these guys just need a ton of nauplii, and I don't have enough. I predict this run will fail, but next time, if I order some more parvo, i may be able to do it.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
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So I added rotifers, and again, the larvae resumed darting.  They can't be large enough to eat rotifers, but I guess we'll find out.

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

Is the pretzel jar not blacked out? Just trying to picture the difference functionally between it and a brt.

No, it is not blacked out.  Ramon did not black his jar out either. 
 
No darters this evening. Now I have a rotifer jar.  Copepods ordered.

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

This morning the rotifers cleared out the phytoplankton, and I decided to have one more look before I cleaned out the jar.  Sure enough there were a couple of darters still left, still darting, so I just added more phyto and we keep on keeping on.

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