Breeding Journal, Species: Gobiodon okinawae

But today they are all gone, and the parental gobies ate all their eggs, so we wait for another spawn and hatch.

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I guessed right this time and hatched out some few eggs.  I had to scrape them off the overflow and collect them in a fine net, since the okinawaes moved their nesting site from the heater's power cord.  A quick check under the scope showed them alive and packed tightly in the egg, with a yolk spot smaller than thier eye.  They hatched after dark 30 minutes in a plastic drinking cup floating in a water bath.  I added them to the prepared pretzel jar(separate from the synchiropus run).  The jar already had lots of phytoplankton in it, maybe even too much, but I added 40k nauplii of parvocalanus as well. With a flashlight, I can see the transparent thread, 3mm long with a dark eye at the end, striking energetically at the nauplii. Lights on 24/7. Cheap LED on clamp light fixture.
 
Not all the eggs hatched, but I added them with the larvae to the jar, in case it happens later. I would say at most, 24 hatchlings.  I hope to be able to see what they are doing,  with the aid ofthe pretzel jar.

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Day 2, not many are alive, but the ones that are, are striking at food, and a couple seem to have a dark spot where their bellys should be, so there is hope.  At least they didn't just die immediatly after hatching, which has been my luck as of late.  They are getting parvo nauplii twice a day, sharing the harvest with the damsels.

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Only one or two left.  Water cleared to day, with an abundance of rotifers. Still lots of nauplii, and i added more. larva appeared to have food in guts, but I wouldn't even try to catch one for a microscope look see. These guys are tiny, transparent and dart constantly when they are alive.
 
On October 22, day after hatch, the adult pair spawned again on the overflow, where I can't see them easily. I need more eggs than I've been able to obtain by scraping, so I may dismantle the overflow on hatch night, and replace the fitting with a new one.

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Day 4, still have 2 darters.  Checked the pod population and found NO nauplii, just tons of rotifers. Added parvo nauplii.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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I have at least one darter, seems bigger, with a definate belly.
Here's the latest eggs with papa:

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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This evening, I unscrewed that overflow fitting and hatched the whole nest minus about 10 eggs that didn't go.  I have them in a 2 gallon fish bowl since i am all out of pretzel jars. Parvo nauplii and live Iso. They look good so far, but it's only hour one.

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Day 8    One or two left.  Camouflaged by tons of rotifers, they are hard to find.  Still darting constantly, they are, of course bigger than the ones that just hatched.  Starting to look a little opaque.
 
Day 2. Still reasonably numerous, striking at parvo nauplii.  No rotifers yet.  I have them in a fishbowl kreisel since I ran out of pretzel jars.  It's getting colder in the basement, and the heater/waterbath setup is not as nice as in summer when no supplemental heating is required.  75F at the moment, not sure if I should turn the heat up or not.  They seem to be doing well.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Day 10, still one or two that look good, darting, in a sea of rotifers that clears the phyto twice a day.
Day 4, looking pitiful, drifting, I added 8000 rotifers in a last ditch effort.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Day 11 looking good, day 5 looking better, darting at least.

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Day 14 still alive, day 8 died a few days ago.  Only 26 more days to go for the day 14 larva.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Not sure what is happening with this jar. I removed some rotifers, and suddenly, the remaining ones seemed to have crashed, but the goby was still kicking, and so were some rotifers and some harpacticoid copepod, I think either Tisbe or euterpina, that has survived as a contaminant in my rotifer cultures. Yesterday I saw the goby, but not today.  Given my recent disappointment with the Rubys, I would not be surprised if this failed as well. The parental gobies did not spawn in this cycle, so now I have to await new eggs to try again.

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

Can't find the lone survivor. Parents spawned a small nest . not sure when.

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

I moved the overflow fitting to a pretzel jar containing the filtered water from the last non hatch of elacatinus. I suspended it in the jar with fishline, and tried to get the airstick bubbler to bump the fitting and keep the water moving over the eggs without knocking them around too much. A few hatched overnight.  I tried to get the rest, the majority to hatch this morning by shaking the fitting underwater, but nothing.  Finally, I scraped the eggs off the fitting and rinsed them into a plastic cup and put it in a dark cupboard for 30 minutes.  When I went to get it, they had mostly hatched. I attribute the late hatching to the fact that the pretzel jars are around 75F, whereas the goby tank is 78 or so.
 
I spent the afternoon trying to scrape together enough nauplii of Parvocalanus to feed the jar, and finding a batch of rotifers that were sufficiently gravid to produce a bunch of baby rotifers.  I succeeded, but the darters appeared to be disappearing as the afternoon wore on. Then I fiddled with the light. They seemed to be strongly attracted to it.  I moved the jar and waterbath assembly to within 6 inches of the 10 watt LED clamp light, and watched as many many larvae appeared from the bottom of the jar, darting towards the light.  They did not congregate against the wall of the jar, but came up from the bottom to dart around in the water column.  This light fix may help me get a few more days out of the larvaculture this time.

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

Looking back over notes I've accumulated, I see that Edgar Diaz said that strong light is important with this species and dottybacks as well.
 
Now I am thinking about swim bladder inflation as a possible source of trouble with early die off of my fish larvae.  I'm reading in the literature that the oil slick on the surface may prevent swim bladder inflation in the early days, and if not inflated during a specific period, depending on species, the larvae will all die. Now to design a surface scum remover...
(I wonder if this is what is killing off my Ruby Red larvae as well.)

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

The trouble with closer light and live phyto is the bloom that occurs.  I fear it is blocking light for the larvae, so I added more enriched rotifers, in the hope they will mow the lawn. And produce small baby rotifers.

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