Breeding Garden Eels

[ladydave]

Hello

My Garden Eels have been spawning kind of semi-regularly for a few years now. I have caught and hatched the eggs a few times but never been able to get the larvae past 11-14dph. I'm assuming it's down to what I'm feeding them.
I have one batch parvo calanus pods but they didn't survive past 11dph. I've given another batch rotifers and tiger pod naups and a few got to 13-14dph. I tried another batch on a paste made from egg yolk, crushed lobster eggs and masstick, only got a few days out of that batch.
What I think I'd like to try this time (I have around 100 larvae now at 1dph) is enriching the rotifer and pod naups with something. Mainly because I cannot get hold of parvo calanus for love nor money in the U.K. anymore. Any ideas on what to enrich them with (needs to be available in the U.K.) ?

Unless anyone has any better ideas? I've researched this to death but can literally find zero literature on raising the larvae. Except one webpage that made it sound bizarrely incredibly simple.

Can anyone offer any ideas at all?

 

[dennis romano]

In the early days of the hobby, aquarists would feed tiny fry hardboiled egg yolk squeezed through a fine mesh cloth.

 

[ladydave]

Ok I will do that then. You've been a wealth of information again! Thank you so much!

The larvae are now at 3dph so have a couple of days until I need to start trying a feed. I'm off work today so going to try out something together!

 

[ladydave]

In the early days of the hobby, aquarists would feed tiny fry hardboiled egg yolk squeezed through a fine mesh cloth.

This is what Ive just done. Fingers crossed they eat!

 

[LegalReefer]

Good luck with this! If you manage to breed Garden Eels in captivity, that would be absolutely incredible!

 

[ladydave]

Good luck with this! If you manage to breed Garden Eels in captivity, that would be absolutely incredible!

Thank you for the luck... I need it!! No problems getting them to breed. Unfortunately, raising them isn't looking great, about 95% of them have died already at 4dph.

 

[ladydave]

Watch the tiny black dot.

It's in the water with the egg yolk, had been in for about an hour and has now been moved to fresh water.
This is the only one looking this lively. A couple of others are wriggling on the bottom but not swimming around like this one, and this is the only one I've EVER seen swim like this. Even the ones I got to 11dph last time weren't this long and were like little sticks. I hope this little one is eating.

 

[dansyr]

I know nothing about these larvae but I'm killing time waiting for some stuff to run at work and enjoying this thread. I have access to those two papers behind the paywall, would they be useful for you still? Can send pdfs. The Yamada et al 2019 one seems to have decently specific methods in terms of food recipe.

 

[MoshJosh]

keep in mind I know next to nothing about breeding fish but. . . could something like this be ground up and substituted for the shark egg paste? I know they are different in many ways (but so are chicken eggs)

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/frozen-fish-eggs

 

[ladydave]

I know nothing about these larvae but I'm killing time waiting for some stuff to run at work and enjoying this thread. I have access to those two papers behind the paywall, would they be useful for you still? Can send pdfs. The Yamada et al 2019 one seems to have decently specific methods in terms of food recipe.

Oh wow yes please that would be amazing!!! Especially the feeding one and if there's any info on what they eat from first hatching until 5-7days that would be amazing too!

I'm not holding out much hope for this batch anymore after so many have died, but if I can arm myself with as much information as possible ready for when they next spawn it'll give the next lot a better chance!

 

[ladydave]

keep in mind I know next to nothing about breeding fish but. . . could something like this be ground up and substituted for the shark egg paste? I know they are different in many ways (but so are chicken eggs)

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/frozen-fish-eggs

I did try lobster eggs previously and think I mashed some fish eggs in there too. I know I definitely tried fish roe at some point.
I did wonder about getting some caviar type eggs but I guess the difference is that in shark eggs and chicken eggs, there's a yolk, whereas there's not in fish eggs?

 

[dansyr]

Oh wow yes please that would be amazing!!! Especially the feeding one and if there's any info on what they eat from first hatching until 5-7days that would be amazing too!

I'm not holding out much hope for this batch anymore after so many have died, but if I can arm myself with as much information as possible ready for when they next spawn it'll give the next lot a better chance!

OK! here ya go, let me know if they don't show up correctly.

From Yamada et al 2019: "The standard larval diet for eel leptocephali presently in use is a slurry-type diet (viscosity: 8318.0±111.4 mPa·s, n=3), mainly made of dogfsh egg yolk (Tanaka et al. 2003). Composition per 100 g of this diet was 63.5 g dogfsh egg yolk, 27.8 g skinned-krill extract, 6.3 g albumen peptide (Kewpie Corporation, Tokyo, Japan), 2.0 g chitin oligosaccharide, 0.5 g vitamin mixture containing vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, D3, E, K, and C, as well as pantothenic acid, niacin, folic acid and inositol (Fish Aid-C, Japan Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan). After mixing all ingredients, the mixture was pasteurized in a 62 °C water bath for 30 min."

 

[ladydave]

OK! here ya go, let me know if they don't show up correctly.

From Yamada et al 2019: "The standard larval diet for eel leptocephali presently in use is a slurry-type diet (viscosity: 8318.0±111.4 mPa·s, n=3), mainly made of dogfsh egg yolk (Tanaka et al. 2003). Composition per 100 g of this diet was 63.5 g dogfsh egg yolk, 27.8 g skinned-krill extract, 6.3 g albumen peptide (Kewpie Corporation, Tokyo, Japan), 2.0 g chitin oligosaccharide, 0.5 g vitamin mixture containing vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, D3, E, K, and C, as well as pantothenic acid, niacin, folic acid and inositol (Fish Aid-C, Japan Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan). After mixing all ingredients, the mixture was pasteurized in a 62 °C water bath for 30 min."

Amazing thank you so much!!!

 

[NotReefsafe]

Very cool! Would love some pics of the tank

 

[ladydave]

I'm 99.9% sure he's eating the yolk!

Sorry for the shaky camera work - trying to use a macro lens on a moving thing is not easy!

 

[ladydave]

Very cool! Would love some pics of the tank

Not a great pic of the inmates but here's the tank.

 

[dennis romano]

Not a great pic of the inmates but here's the tank.

Are those shrimpfish!?

 

[1epauletteshark]

Are those shrimpfish

Sure looks like them to me

 

[ladydave]

Are those shrimpfish!?

They are yes! Absolutely love them! Trying to get a few more but having real trouble finding anywhere over here that can get them.

 

[ladydave]

Not a great pic of the inmates but here's the tank.

Not visible in the pic is 4 Kuda seahorses, a tank bred mandarin, blue striped pipefish and aiptasia eating filefish. Oh and the 5 garden eels.

 

[dennis romano]

Not visible in the pic is 4 Kuda seahorses, a tank bred mandarin, blue striped pipefish and aiptasia eating filefish. Oh and the 5 garden eels.

I have a 27 year old reef with soft corals, gorgonians and sponges. My fish in there are a pair of blue stripe pipes, a vicious banded pipe, yellow assessor and a banggai cardinal. I would love to add shrimp fish (and garden eels) into the tank. Everything that I have read says that they are impossible. I spoke to a big importer and he said the same thing. What is your secret? Do they need special food? Feeding several times a day is not a problem. I am so jealous! lol