Springeri damsel eggs

[SpSDrew]

I noticed my springeri damsels being super aggressive and biting my hands out of the blue. Upon inspection, I found the bottom of 3 plugs to be full of eggs.

If I remove the plugs when the eyes go silver, would they be able to survive in a small tank and live off reef nutrition Rotifer and phyto?

 

[Rmckoy]

wow ….

Curious if they would be the same way as raising clownfish fry .
Essentially they are both damselfish

Following to see how you make out .
Typically clownfish are 7-8 days from eggs to hatch ?
I can’t honestly remember exactly

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

If I remove the plugs when the eyes go silver, would they be able to survive in a small tank and live off reef nutrition Rotifer and phyto?

Probably not, but potentially yes. The only Chrysiptera species that I know of that has been reared using rotifers was C. parasema (the Yellowtail Damsel), and the researchers had to supplement the diet by enriching the rotifers with Selcon (see the link in the quote below). Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any other rearing attempts where the rotifers were similarly enriched, so this is where the "potentially yes" comes in.

If Selcon enriched rotifers don't do it, then, you'd likely need copepod nauplii (Parvocalanus crassirostris would be my first suggestion, but I know that C. cyanea - the Sapphire Damsel - has been reared on Euterpina acutifrons and Pseudodiaptomus serricaudatus,* so those would be good potential options too [though the survival rate was abysmal]). Regardless of which (small) copepod species you go with, you'd likely need to sieve the pods so that you're only offering the tiny, first stage nauplii (which should be able to fit through a 45-50 micron sieve) initially, and then scale up the size of feeders offered as appropriate from there.

The paper linked below (the only one I can find with the specifics of rearing C. parasema) has some good info that may help if you want to rear the young - as mentioned, live foods (enriched rotifers followed by enriched Artemia) are likely necessary:

http://breteschethibault.free.fr/articles%20aqua/Coral%20reef%20fish%20breeding.%20the%20secrets%20of%20each%20species.pdf

the abstract is confusing. Here's the first food as quoted from the article:
"The first feeding involved rotifers (Brachionus plicatilis) at an average dimension of 239 μm. The cultures were maintained using Chlorella spp. as phytoplankton at a temperature of 25 °C. The effect of an enriched high polyunsaturated fatty acid PUFA diet was tested. To enrich the rotifers, use was made of commercial SELCON Concentrate (American Marine, USA), an omega3-fatty-acid-enriching product emulsified with vitamin B12, in accordance with the instructions provided by the company (1.5 ml of SELCON for every 1 l of rotifers culture (300 rotifers/ml) at 25 °C, 8– 10 h before use). The second zooplankton strain, Artemia nauplii, was introduced from day 19. Specifically, a small, decapsulated, HUFA-enriched commercial strain was used (INVE Technologies, Belgium) at a concentration of 5 nauplii/ml."

*Source:

Breeding and larviculture of the sapphire devil damselfish Chrysiptera cyanea - CMFRI Repository

eprints.cmfri.org.in

 

[SpSDrew]

Probably not, but potentially yes. The only Chrysiptera species that I know of that has been reared using rotifers was C. parasema (the Yellowtail Damsel), and the researchers had to supplement the diet by enriching the rotifers with Selcon (see the link in the quote below). Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any other rearing attempts where the rotifers were similarly enriched, so this is where the "potentially yes" comes in.

If Selcon enriched rotifers don't do it, then, you'd likely need copepod nauplii (Parvocalanus crassirostris would be my first suggestion, but I know that C. cyanea - the Sapphire Damsel - has been reared on Euterpina acutifrons and Pseudodiaptomus serricaudatus,* so those would be good potential options too [though the survival rate was abysmal]). Regardless of which (small) copepod species you go with, you'd likely need to sieve the pods so that you're only offering the tiny, first stage nauplii (which should be able to fit through a 45-50 micron sieve) initially, and then scale up the size of feeders offered as appropriate from there.


*Source:

Breeding and larviculture of the sapphire devil damselfish Chrysiptera cyanea - CMFRI Repository

eprints.cmfri.org.in

Thank you for sharing this! I’m hopeful I can maybe raise some in the near future. It looks like the first set of eggs hatched last night, with only a few left. The female looks big again so maybe I’ll get more eggs in the next week. I did order some clay pots so hopefully they stop laying on the frag plugs.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Thank you for sharing this! I’m hopeful I can maybe raise some in the near future. It looks like the first set of eggs hatched last night, with only a few left. The female looks big again so maybe I’ll get more eggs in the next week. I did order some clay pots so hopefully they stop laying on the frag plugs.

Good luck! Keep us updated on how it goes!