Royal Gramma Aquaculture Project

[chad vossen]

One of our many projects are with the gramma family, such as the royal gramma and black cap basslets. These fish are pretty cheap in the USA which makes commercial production not very profitable. I'm convinced there's a way to commercialize them and make them profitable, and hopefully we can prove that once we get more space to expand. Right now we have a group of 4 consisting of 1 large and 3 sm/md. The large gramma is the male. Pairing or grouping gramma species is as easy as adding several small individuals with one larger individual, at the same time.
Here's an older photo showing 3 of our initial 4.

Their spawning site consist of PVC fittings to create a cave-like structure with artificial nesting material inside.

Their spawning season is during the winter, however one of the females seems to be spawning right now. We found some eggs to confirm this activity.

The eggs are covered in bumps, which I think have tiny hooks. These eggs behave a lot like velcro, as they stick to strands of algae or other fibrous material. We have not started any larval runs yet, but they are about as easy to raise as dottybacks. The drawback is that they only lay small numbers of eggs at a time, making any larval run very small. Hopefully during the winter, all 3 females will begin spawning together, improving our larval runs.

 

[leahfiish]

I love these threads, thanks for sharing.

 

[revhtree]

VERY awesome Chad!

 

[domination2580]

How do you pair royal grammas?

 

[chowwil]

That's amazing, thank for sharing. Is there a way to sex them

 

[Larry L]

I think anything we can do to promote captive breeding is awesome, especially for fish common in the hobby. How big of a setup are you using for this? How do you collect the eggs - do they end up in the PVC fittings? Do you think it would work with a pair, or do you really need a grouping?

 

[chad vossen]

Pairing up royal gramma is incredibly easy. You can start with two small fish, or a small and a large. Very much like pairing clownfish, except the male is the larger fish. You can keep the male with one female, or many females and they'll get along great. You'll even observe courtship dancing from the male, and nest building behavior. It's important to add all the fish at the same time to avoid territorial disputes.

We provided our group a PVC shelter for spawning, but they'll spawn in any cave structure. We have this group in a 180 for now, but will move them into a 60 gallon soon.

Due to the very small spawn sizes, we are not raising this species yet. I may attempt to raise a few later this summer, but the real fun starts this winter when the spawning season for this species starts up.