Zebra barred goby breeding

[Orsini26]

Hello all!

I recently got 3 zebra barred gobies. They all seem to be doing well but two of them enjoy swimming together and rub up against one another all the time. I believe they may be paired. Anyone have any experience with the breeding of these fish or how the process works? Just curious to see if I should look out for anything?

Thanks!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Hello all!

I recently got 3 zebra barred gobies. They all seem to be doing well but two of them enjoy swimming together and rub up against one another all the time. I believe they may be paired. Anyone have any experience with the breeding of these fish or how the process works? Just curious to see if I should look out for anything?

Thanks!

It seems they used to be common to breed (i.e. to get them to lay eggs - they are demersal egg layers, meaning they attach their eggs to the substrate in the tank; this can make it easier to transfer the eggs to a rearing tank depending on where the eggs are layed), but I've only heard of one successful rearing (i.e. actually raising the pelagic larvae to settlement) with these guys using the copepod Gladioferens impairipes. It seems they don't accept rotifers, and they need a tiny food. Given that you're almost certainly not going to find Gladioferens impairipes here in the States, your best bet is probably going to be finely sieved copepod nauplii (I'd recommend Parvocalanus crassirostris nauplii, but they are more difficult and depending on the strain of the other copepods you get, their nauplii may be small enough to work too).

Here's some general rearing advice from another thread (also dealing with gobies, though a different species) that may help:

"Based on this, I'd assume you'll probably need more than rotifers - I'd guess you'd need Parvocalanus crassirostris pods (or other, super tiny pods - but Parvocalanus are by far the easiest to find on the market at the moment), and you'll probably build up slowly from Parvo nauplii to Artemia nauplii over the course of the rearing.

Some general advice that might help:
- Have a tank ready to move the larvae into (basically a tank with an air stone, a dim light, and a heater - a kreisel tank is ideal, but not necessary; you don't want a filter, a skimmer, uncovered pumps/powerheads, etc. - it needs to be as pelagic larvae safe as possible).
- Be prepared to catch the young when they hatch (ideally, you'd be able to move the eggs immediately before hatching into the new tank, but I'm assuming you don't know exactly when they'll hatch) - catch them and move them into the larval rearing tank as soon as possible.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
Assuming you have fertile eggs, the advice I would give is this:
- if possible, get some Parvocalanus crassirostris pods too (rotifers are great, and I would expect the larvae to go for them, but some fish larvae are picky and prefer pods over rotifers - having both seems like a good way to ensure you have good, small foods for them... Artemia and other larger pod species would likely be good to have on hand too for the larvae as they grow.

- Get various sizes of very fine sieves so you can control the size of the feeders being offered to the larvae as/if needed.

- Add phyto directly to the larval rearing tank. It’s a good method of ensuring that the feeders are gut-loaded and healthy, and it makes them easier for the fish to see (better feeding/survival rates are typically observed with this method).
- Observe and note information about the larvae (things like how big the eggs are, how big the larvae are, when the larvae settle, when coloration comes in, etc.) and the larval behaviors (stuff like if they are attracted to light, how they react to light, if they are attracted to certain colors, what feeders they eat and what what sizes of feeders they eat at what days post hatch, what kind of substrate they prefer to settle on, are they cannibalistic, etc.).

- Watch for developmental bottlenecks and issues with your rearing methods.

- A lot of people run into feeder issues their first few times breeding, so I’d have a backup plan in place to be able to get some feeders quickly if you find yourself needing some.

With regards to the sieves and feeder sizes:
- You may need to screen the feed initially to only offer Parvocalanus nauplii.
- Observing the larvae eating when/if possible is important for telling if they are accepting/able to eat the food you are offering them.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
Generally the main thing to watch for at this stage is a bottleneck where the young start dying off - these usually happen after a few days (day three post hatch seems to be one of the most common bottleneck days for fish that hatch with a yolk they can feed off of - if the rots and phyto don’t provide the proper nutrition for these guys, you might see a die off sometime around here). Some fish run into multiple bottlenecks, including some that happen around/after 2-3 weeks post hatch, so you really need to keep an eye on how things are going. Bottlenecks typically occur because the food the fry is eating isn’t nutritious enough for them, or they’re not interested in eating the food offered, or the food isn’t the proper size for them to eat.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
if you do run into a bottleneck and lose this batch, don’t get too disappointed by it - this happens frequently in trying to breed a new species (even to the professionals), and every attempt gets one step closer to success.

With regards to the substrate settlement:
- Some species need sand, rock, dark areas, specific colors, or other oddly specific things to settle on/in (from what I've seen, inverts are usually a lot more picky with this), so it may help to have a ledge or cave (PVC should be fine for this, if it's even needed, which I honestly kind of doubt) and a little sand in the larval rearing tank.


That’s all I can think of at the moment - hope it helps!"

The behavior sounds similar to a lot of gobies including masked gobies which I've been intermittently attempting. You'll find out what the egg incubation time is (maybe a week or so?), and the babies will probably hatch out at night, probably within a couple hours of lights out. I would turn off the wavemakers but leave your main circulation pump at night and then look with a flashlight for little, clear, line shaped fish. If you see a couple, tonight is the night, and you can try to catch them when they come out in higher numbers.

A larval catcher may work, but I'm a fan of sieves (I use 2 cup measures with a window cutout and filled with mesh) for collection - if they are phototactic, gathering them up should be easy, but at least the masked gobies aren't (though most larvae are).

From there you transfer to your vessel to raise them. It varies between species, but it seems like lower circulation with an airstone is a good place to start, and I would feed them immediately (some species don't have functional digestive systems for a time, though).

The larvae may be very small, so rotifers are probably a good starting place for the fry, though I'd agree that more nutritious and eventually larger live foods are probably important to getting them to settlement. Adding some phyto to tint the vessel is probably also good, both to feed the live foods, and to increase visibility of the foods.

Parvocalanus nauplii is the sort of go-to recommendation for very small foods, but I've found the cultures difficult to maintain in the long term, and they're not the only ones with tiny nauplii. I've so far not successfully fed masked goby fry on copepods alone, even feeding nauplii that are caught by a 45um screen but get through a 200um screen, but I've recently checked with a 25um screen and there are definitely nauplii getting through (and I've got apocyclops, tisbe, tigriopus, and euterpina), so there should be some other options for very fine copepod foods. If the larvae end up being reasonable starting size, the very fine sieves may not be required, though you'd likely still want to screen out the adults before feeding the early stage fry.


It will be challenging, but I've found attempting to raise various larvae rewarding, and I'm still gradually making progress. Good luck!

 

[Orsini26]

It seems they used to be common to breed (i.e. to get them to lay eggs - they are demersal egg layers, meaning they attach their eggs to the substrate in the tank; this can make it easier to transfer the eggs to a rearing tank depending on where the eggs are layed), but I've only heard of one successful rearing (i.e. actually raising the pelagic larvae to settlement) with these guys using the copepod Gladioferens impairipes. It seems they don't accept rotifers, and they need a tiny food. Given that you're almost certainly not going to find Gladioferens impairipes here in the States, your best bet is probably going to be finely sieved copepod nauplii (I'd recommend Parvocalanus crassirostris nauplii, but they are more difficult and depending on the strain of the other copepods you get, their nauplii may be small enough to work too).

Here's some general rearing advice from another thread (also dealing with gobies, though a different species) that may help:

"Based on this, I'd assume you'll probably need more than rotifers - I'd guess you'd need Parvocalanus crassirostris pods (or other, super tiny pods - but Parvocalanus are by far the easiest to find on the market at the moment), and you'll probably build up slowly from Parvo nauplii to Artemia nauplii over the course of the rearing.

Some general advice that might help:
- Have a tank ready to move the larvae into (basically a tank with an air stone, a dim light, and a heater - a kreisel tank is ideal, but not necessary; you don't want a filter, a skimmer, uncovered pumps/powerheads, etc. - it needs to be as pelagic larvae safe as possible).
- Be prepared to catch the young when they hatch (ideally, you'd be able to move the eggs immediately before hatching into the new tank, but I'm assuming you don't know exactly when they'll hatch) - catch them and move them into the larval rearing tank as soon as possible.

With regards to the sieves and feeder sizes:
- You may need to screen the feed initially to only offer Parvocalanus nauplii.
- Observing the larvae eating when/if possible is important for telling if they are accepting/able to eat the food you are offering them.


With regards to the substrate settlement:
- Some species need sand, rock, dark areas, specific colors, or other oddly specific things to settle on/in (from what I've seen, inverts are usually a lot more picky with this), so it may help to have a ledge or cave (PVC should be fine for this, if it's even needed, which I honestly kind of doubt) and a little sand in the larval rearing tank.


That’s all I can think of at the moment - hope it helps!"

Wow, awesome information! Thank you! They still seem to rub up against one another so I'll try and pay close attention to them as they go against any of the substrate and maybe I can locate some of the eggs. Sounds like a fun process to try and hatch them though lol

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Wow, awesome information! Thank you! They still seem to rub up against one another so I'll try and pay close attention to them as they go against any of the substrate and maybe I can locate some of the eggs. Sounds like a fun process to try and hatch them though lol

Haha, yeah rearing these guys would probably be pretty labor intensive. It would be cool though.

 

[Orsini26]

Haha, yeah rearing these guys would probably be pretty labor intensive. It would be cool though.

I shall keep you informed if I have success, or make limited progress lol.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

They lay their eggs hanging from the roof of a small cave between rock and substrate. Look for a Yellowish blob blowing around in their favorite hiding spot.

 

[wheels4896]

I shall keep you informed if I have success, or make limited progress lol.

Hi! My bar gobies just laid eggs this morning. Did you have any success? What was the incubation period on the eggs if they had any?