Breeding Journal, Species: Centropyge bispinosa (Coral Beauty)

General
Species:  Centropyge bispinosa
Social Structure: 1 male 1 female
Size of Individuals: Male 3.5-4 inches, female 2.5
Age of Individuals:  Unknown
Date added to Tank:  Male added to tank 01/13/2015. Female Added 05/21/2015

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  240 gallons
Substrate Details:   bare bottom full reef tank
Filtration Details:  protein skimmer and algae scrubber
Water Changes:  100 gallons once a month
Water Temperature:  80-82F
Lighting:  3x 400watt metal halides
Lighting Cycle:  1pm - 10pm
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Full reef with other fish


Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Grazes most of the day.  Tank fed pellets/flakes twice daily , sometimes some nori strips.
Feeding Schedule:  2x daily


Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  07/23/2015
Spawn Time of Day:  Sometimes 1 minute before lights out. Sometimes they wait 5 minutes after lights out. (10pm)
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  Since 07/23/2015 they have been spawning every 3-5 days.
--Updated 11-1-2015 the pair spawns nightly now.
Courtship Details:  About an hour before lights out the male will swim around the female almost frantically or dart back and forth from one of the tank to the other.  Tries his best to get her attention by stopping directly in front of her line of sight, if she ignores him he will begin darting around her and dashing around tank all over again.  She will typically keep grazing for food until about 9:50 then will follow him around and allow him to begin pecking on her body and they will circle each other.  The actual spawning is very quick, they connect bodies and then after the spawn they will dart off to hide in the rock work.
Egg Size:   tiny about .50mm - .75mm
Egg Color:  Translucent
Egg Count: Have only ever collected about 50 eggs since they are hard to snag, an estimate would be between 150-250.
--Updated as of 11-1-2015 the egg count is up around 400+

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  07/24/2015
Hatch Time of Day:  16 hours after spawn in 80*F water
# Days after Spawn:  16 hours later
Larvae Description:  Clear Pro Larvae , no eyes or mouth
Consecutive Hatch Dates:  Since 07/24/2015 after every spawn it appears 75% of the eggs are fertile.
Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  80f
Size of Larval Tank:  small container maybe 1/4 gallon
Substrate Details:  bare bottom
Other Tank Decor:  none
Filtration Details:  none, water changes, airstone, saltwater additions as time goes on 
Lighting:  small led lamp
Lighting Cycle:  1pm-10pm
Water Changes:  daily

  Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  As of 08-06-2015 have only tried ciliates, small rotifers, & RG complete to keep the rotifers happy.
Feeding Schedule:   constant

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: 



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.

Video of Mating Dance. In this particular video they spawned about 5 minutes after lights out.
https://youtu.be/l4b11hGUOfA

 
Video of Hatched Pro Larvae 20 hours after spawn.
https://youtu.be/WNgp2KHNqcI
They died within the day of shooting the video.
I'm not sure if the activity of moving around their small container for the video killed them or not.
 
 
 

Great to see someone else working with these.  My pair have slowed their spawning activities - probably because I have been doing some much needed reef maintenance & re-landscaping.  I haven't collected eggs in about 3 weeks now.  I'll be following your progress closely!  Nice videos, btw.

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

Thank you!
Good luck with yours! I was reading over your journal earlier. Pretty fish.

Took a few quick pics of Male and Female tonight.
Sorry they are not very good. 
Male


 
Female

That is a NICE Looking pair!

Thank you
Haven't been able to collect any eggs lately. Every night they still go through the dance but it seems like they are not actually spawning right now.

Please don't take offense at this remark, but are you sure they aren't spawning?  Sometimes the eggs disappear in 2 minutes, they are so small.  And it seems that every tank occupant takes advantage of the free caviar.  When I had a male and 3 females, it seemed like they never missed a night.  From what I recall, they spawn more regularly in warmer water.  I'm sure your lighting is consistent, but if it isn't, that could throw them off a bit.  Also, they LOVE blackworms.  
 
You probably already knew all this and this information is superfluous.  The people in Hawaii found much greater egg production once a month during the moon cycles.  

Hi Dave,
No I am not sure they arnt spawning but when I see eggs its very obvious they did as the eggs are everywhere. When I can't find anything I just assume they didn't but you are probably right. The tank lights and temp(80*f) are on a controller so everything stays consistent.

I'll see if I can get ahold of some blackworms thanks for the tip!

Not only do they love blackworms, but in my experience the blackworms do something to make them spawn.  It may be as simple as caloric abundance, it may have something to do with other blackworm qualities.  But I think it definitely boosts spawning.

As far as I know none of the LFS around me sell black worms. Is that where you normally buy them?

Don't know but I'm guessing this is a fishing lure /terrestrial reptilian pet food kind of thing. Petco or Petsmart, or Walmart might actually have them, refrigerated.  I'm a little concerned about the effect of how dirty blackworms are.  I have no experience with them, but IIRC they eat poo.

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

Tonight I noticed the angels were very active in their spawning dance. So I skimmed the top of the water and ended up collecting a few eggs.  Am i correct in assuming they do not have eggs all connected in a floating strand?  It seems like they are just randomly spewed out across the tank. 
Here is one of the eggs i collected.

 
I am still very curious about the black worm idea, I maybe only collected 10-20 eggs so even though the female still seems very small i was expecting more eggs.
Maybe a more beefy diet would help in egg production?
 
 

Tubifex live in sewage.  Blackworms are cultured in California.  Different animal.  You can even culture them yourself at home if you want. And yes, they are kept cold...for a while I was using my RO/DI effluent from the cold tap...problem is that's not always running!

I don't think that Blackworms are the ticket long term...Coral Beauties have more herbivorous diets to the best of my recollection. 

 
I think they both come from high nutrient sediments and I agree that if you don't change the water with blackworms every day they soon smell like the local sewage treatment plant.  However if you keep up the water changes they will "clean out", no matter what their original source.  I think Matt P. is right, I think the only large scale source of blackworms is in California.  I'm setting up a system to grow them but I think they only increase something like 7% per month, which is a very slow growth rate.  Given how much fish love them you'd need a swimming pool to keep up with demand.  

well now i have some of these.

YAY!  Congrats.

Sweet! Are you set up with pod naups to give them a run?

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

Yes I do have naups to give them a try.
However I didn't have any small tanks set up for them. I put them in with the Ruby reds I'm trying but I have no idea how that will turn out. Getting a separate tank setup to give the cb's a real shot soon.

If you need tanks, Tom, call me.  Tons o tanks over here, and you can store my BRTs as well and use them! Trying to clear the basement!  My husband will be so happy!

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

Any updates? I'm anxious to see some progress, since I haven't collected any eggs from mine for some time now. Thinking about adding a second female....

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

I forget the size of your tank but I once had a male with a 3 female harem.  I don't think there should be any problem with a second female.

Hi Guys,
No updates, I havent made it past 4 days yet. The eggs are so difficult to collect I do not do it every day like the Ruby Reds, I do plan on it tonight though and we'll see what kind of luck we get. 

Okay,
Have about 20-30 CB eggs that hatched today.
Will put them in a BRT with p.crass naups tomorrow and we'll see what we get.

Watching, waiting, hoping, fingers crossed!

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

I collected eggs tonight.
Giving this a shot in some freshly made saltwater which is tinted brown with ISO and has p.crass naups.

The female has grown a lot since the first spawn and the amount of eggs now has doubled or even tripled. Several hundred + are released. Collecting them is a huge pain in the butt though.

Tonight I probably collected a 100ish. Well see if we get any to hatch.

Did they hatch?

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

They did hatch.  so 90% of the eggs went into a small tank. i kept about 10 eggs in a small container on the side so i could see what happened to them.  they did hatch but died the next night.  not sure if all did in the tank or not. haven't seen them.

Not sure what the next step to try here is . they hatch but only live 1-2 days.
So I'm goofing up somewhere early.

So for the longest time I havent been able to progress past this point.

Not having much luck i decided to give something else a try.
After reading several different threads on idea's I set up a small 20 gallon tank with a UV sterilizer.
I have the UV unit running constantly on it which puts some flow into the tank and hopefully kills off a lot of the bacteria.
To Keep the larva from being killed they are sectioned off into small pvc pipes which float and have 120 micron mesh floor.
 
Using this method I have gotten much better hatch rates and have progressed to this point.  Which isnt a "ton" farther but the body seems to have lost the oval egg shape and is now elongated.

 
Which is only a teeny tiny step forward however at least its a step forward for me.
This is only 1 day post hatch, and while i have randomly gotten this far before with maybe 5-10.
I am currently sitting on several hundred at this point.

Collected roughly 200 eggs tonight.
If i was to guess there is probably 400+ eggs in the tank however the collection process is super slow so i stopped about half way through.
Good enough to give me a good idea if the UV setup is going to continue giving me a better hatch.
 

awesome!
 

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

Great numbers. Interested to see how this works out. I have also read of others using peroxide to increase hatch rates (I presume by killing off bacteria).

How are you collecting your eggs?

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

Using a turkey baster and siphoning up the eggs. I tried to add the larva to some water with iso but it nuked them really quick. Next time I'm going to leave them in the uv tank till day 6-7 (if they live that long). I read somewhere they don't starve till day 9?

So I actually do have some alive. Only maybe 5 though.  However these I didnt even mean to have, I must have collected them on accident with some Ruby Red eggs.
These were collected 10-29/hatched 10-30 and I saw a few today swimming with ruby red larva.  Hard to tell in the pictures but they are much different looking than the ruby reds.  
Angel on left, ruby on right.

little closer of angel.

 
When these were collected they were put into a tank running UV.
Today on 11-3 they were switched over to a tank with ISO and p.crass naups.
Guess well see what happens.
 

Nice. This would be day 6?

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

I'm actually not sure how its correctly counted?
If they hatched on 30th I guess this is day 5?

 
Pelagic spawners spawn at dusk/night and hatch at midday the following day.
So if they spawned Sunday night,they hatch on Monday and you call Tuesday 1DPH.
I have also tried UV.See:http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?&m=52332&mpage=1

Hi Luis,
Thank you for the link! I'm going to try to recreate your final experiment with the best outcome and see where that gets me. Have you tried any further tests past what you have posted?

I saw one CB larva this morning but haven't seen it again so I think it bit the dust. Still 5 dph isn't too bad.

Had a decent collection last night, with an okay looking hatch today. I plan to leave these in uv water for several days and see what happens.