Getting ready Saltbabies breeding journal....

[SaltBabies]

In the past I have bred seahorses, peppermint shrimp, banggai cardinals, amphipods, copepods. I've got ruby reds and mandarins to 14 days, bella gobies to 5 days. Had some issues over the last 3 years and lost much of my stock. I am in the process of restocking and getting some algae cultures going. Then I'll order some copepods and hopefully by then some of the fish will be cooperating. I'm hoping for seahorses, yellow watchman gobies, sharknose gobies, pajama cardinals, flame angels, clownfish, barnacle blennies and perhaps some blue stripe pipefish.

I have most of the stock, waiting to see if they pair up and lay me eggs. My biggest hope right now is barnacle blennies. I love these little guys and they have a short life span so I'd love to have 20 in my tank (120 gallons). I currently have 6 panemic barnacle blennies. They are currently sorting out who's who. They eat well and have some housing picked. Nobody is currently paired up yet but one fish looks gravid.

Flame angels are already a pair that spawns regularly. The clowns are a pair but never spawned. The seahorses are young and may all be boys. The others are from ORA so they are small and not sexually active yet is my guess.

Haven't found a blue strip pipefish pair yet. My LFS has one in their display tank that spawns regular. They are going to let me buy them when they redo their tank so 3-6 months.

If anyone has S type rotifer, parvocalanus, acyclopops copepods to share a small batch I'd love that. Ordering will cost me $120 or more.

 

[KrisReef]

Barnacle blennys!

 

[SaltBabies]

Here's a picture of one of my cuties

 

[SaltBabies]

@ISpeakForTheSeas you seem to have access to journals I may not. Do you have any information on breeding barnacle blennies. I do believe it has been done before.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

@ISpeakForTheSeas you seem to have access to journals I may not. Do you have any information on breeding barnacle blennies. I do believe it has been done before.

Not much, unfortunately- I can't seem to find anything on Acanthemblemaria spp. reproduction except that the males will demonstrate mating colors, they lay eggs on the walls of their den (some species of barnacle blennies have laid eggs on the inside of glass vials, which made counting and observing the eggs easy), the eggs are fertilized externally and then guarded/cared for by the male.

I know people have had them spawn for them before, but I'm not aware of anyone who has successfully raised the young (though there may be accounts of people doing so that I just haven't found). That said, I would assume you would need a very small pod species (like Parvocalanus crassirostris or Oithona colcarva) sieved down to allow only stage 1 nauplii to feed the young successfully.

Edit: Also, just to clarify, I actually don't have any special access to journals - I use google and find articles I can access for free (I've just gotten fairly adept at it, haha).

 

[SaltBabies]

Not much, unfortunately- I can't seem to find anything on Acanthemblemaria spp. reproduction except that the males will demonstrate mating colors, they lay eggs on the walls of their den (some species of barnacle blennies have laid eggs on the inside of glass vials, which made counting and observing the eggs easy), the eggs are fertilized externally and then guarded/cared for by the male.

I know people have had them spawn for them before, but I'm not aware of anyone who has successfully raised the young (though there may be accounts of people doing so that I just haven't found). That said, I would assume you would need a very small pod species (like Parvocalanus crassirostris or Oithona colcarva) sieved down to allow only stage 1 nauplii to feed the young successfully.

Edit: Also, just to clarify, I actually don't have any special access to journals - I use google and find articles I can access for free (I've just gotten fairly adept at it, haha).

Well I appreciate it. I guess I'm not a adept as you. I have some things for some species but have trouble finding lots of things. Thanks for the input. I figured the parvo did not count the oithona. Being ambush hunters I wonder if the growth is faster than the pickers like mandarins.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Being ambush hunters I wonder if the growth is faster than the pickers like mandarins.

I'm not sure, but it's an interesting question - hopefully we'll be able to find out soon!

 

[SaltBabies]

So I'm as stocked as my large tank can hold. I don't breed in individual small tanks which undoubtedly are easier to catch fry. I want my fish to be happy and have space to roam so that makes other things challenging. But today to my stock tank I added a mandarin pair in poor condition. Very skinny. One is eating the other we will see they may just still be getting acclimated. A pair of florida pipefish just to play with until I can source either a yellow banded pair or blue stripe pair or dragonface pair. I've found getting pipefish pairs challenging. Well getting pairs period is challenging. I'd love to have the connections at the big fish importers to source fish.

Also added a sleeper head goby pair, also skinny, which will serve as a clean up crew for the seahorses. I used to have bella gobies and they did a great job.

All of this stock will need time to get healthy and hopefully spawn. In the meantime, I've started iso, nano, tetra and porphyridium cultures. The porphyridium came with some ciliates or some kind of contaminant and it is crashing. The others are doing well and I've expanded their volume. I will get copepods in the next few weeks to ramp up that production in anticipation of spawning.

The barnacle blennies are continuing to get fatter they are now about a month into conditioning. Still no obvious pairs.

 

[SaltBabies]

Well the male pipefish let go of some babies. I managed to catch one and put it in my sump as I don't have a large stock of copepods yet. The male pipefish then promptly disappeared. I think he may have swam into the anemone as I can't even find a body. Everyone else seems to be getting along fine enough. All the skinny fish are slowly filling out. Many of the 'pairs' don't seem to be pairs. I hope it just they aren't conditioned yet.

I'm ordering from Reef Nutrition soon. I have some T-iso, tetra and nanno going right now.

On the upside I think one of my seahorses is pregnant. I won't probably raise these but use them to get the timing correct.

One of the watchman gobies is turning from the gray they came to a bright yellow sheen. I hopes that means they are changing sex to pair up with the other. Different people talk about them being dimorphic another notation says they aren't just come in shades from white to gray to yellow.

No obvious pairs in the barnacle blennies but they are certainly grown and filled out their bodies now most of them are little fatties. There is a fin on the back of their head which on some is orange and some it isn't. Don't know if this is a standard color variation or may be dimorphic. Literature isn't specific.

The mandarin who were just emaciated when I got them are gaining weight but the large is agressive with the smaller. I suspect the smaller is a male with a nipped fin and not a female but only time will tell.

Pajama Cardinal gaining weight very well.

Sleeper heads gaining weight but again larger aggressive with smaller doesn't appear to be a pair.

I continue to add live amphipods most days for fun and conditioning and feeding frozen mysis at night. I'm giving the mandarins and pipefish eggs to eat as well.

 

[SaltBabies]

So managed to catch a batch of peppermint shrimp. I don't expect to make as much progress with that as I'd like. I've done peppermint shrimp before and I had more copepods than I have now. But I put them in a glass jar with some algae and some tisbe copepods but I don't have the tisbe in mass.

 

[SaltBabies]

Here are some photos at 14 hours. One is a microscope picture that I had to stitch together the head and torso. The other is a Iphone photo. In the jar they visually look white and are still attracted to light.

 

[SaltBabies]

I can't see him in the sump anymore but here was the cutie baby pipefish I caught back in January.

 

[SaltBabies]

So I have stabilized cultures of t-iso, tetra and nanno. I have ordered and just received some apop, parvocalanus and s strain rotifers from reed mariculture. Working to stabilize those cultures. Waiting for my barnacle blennies to have some babies.

Think I'm going to split my apop and do some outside and some inside as a backup. Maybe even the rots.

 

[SaltBabies]

Well just as I'm juggling all the new food my peppermint shrimp let go another batch. I managed to catch about 200. They are currently in a container that is way too small and are scheduled to be cuttlefish and pipefish food.

 

[SaltBabies]

The ammonia got away from me and they are gone now.

 

[SaltBabies]

The s-strain rotifers crashed as well. I'm just not good at maintaining all the small cultures. There are a few left a live so I"ve changed out the water and given them so live algae.

On the up side, one of my seahorses maybe pregnant. The Apop culture is going well and my T-iso and Tetra are still alive. Also grew some algae outside. I believe it's nanno.