Daniel
06-22-2010, 03:33 PM
Background:
75 gal mixed reef tank - adopted 5/09, 30 gal refugium sump with miracle mud & some chaeto
1.023 spg, 76F temp, pH to come, RO water w/Coralife salt
Unspecified pump with 2 alternating returns over the top, 3 Koralia for flow
2x150 MH bulbs, suspended 12" above water surface (new 6/15/10)
hanging overflow, no skimmer
We feed 1 cube of Formula 1, every day. Sometimes we use Formula 2, flake food, flake shrimp, foodgrade dried seaweed, or frozen shrimp.
Lots of live rock, 2-3" course coral sand
1 candellabra gorgonian bigger than your hand, w/2 little frags
1 4"-round of green star polyp, w/3 small frags
2 mushroom corals (thanks Becky)
1 2x4" unknown small polyp, stoney, colonial (looks like a round rock)
1 skinny purple gargonian of unknown type
1 3" round patch of 3/4" brown zoanthids
Lots of small sponges, some various featherdusters
Lots of bristleworms in both the sump and the tank. Big-mamma ones were transfered to sump when we adopted the tank 5/09.
Lots of aptasia in the sump. very few in the tank.
Some welk (working on eliminating them because they trashed a $60 clam my daughter bought).
Lots of microscopic (or magnifyeropically) small little buggers that come out at night.
Red and Blue legged crabs
Various snails (need more)
3 Starfish "mated" (We started with 2 and now have 3) Thes are similar to serpent stars but smaller, without the spikyness on the legs and different markings.
1 Peppermint shrimp. Was mated. Witnessed release of babies, once. Mate dissappeared 1 month ago.
3 Emerald crabs added 6/10/10. Planning to remove 1 or 2 since I caught one munching on the candelabra.
1 Blue-Green Chromis "Casper"
1 Hippo tang "Dory"
1 Pincushion urchin "Spike"
2 Bangai Cardinalfish - mated "Fred & Georgia"
My Story:
So, our cardinalfish are currently brooding. We saw something cool the other day, so I decided to take a few stories and squish them together in the hopes that you'll find this interesting too.
A week ago, I overfed the tank. They got 3 various cubes of frozen instead of one.
Sunday, I noticed that Fred&George were playing it low... kind of hiding in the back corner.
We've seen them brood (carry eggs) before so I snuck up on them and watched from behind the salt bucket.
In Bangai, it's the boys who carry the eggs. So I checked to see if Fred had a mouthful of eggs, but it was empty. Soon, Georgia was siding up next to Fred and then she would shake; like a quarter was just dropped in the magic fingers machine. Her whole body quivered and as it tapered off, they held the tips of their caudal fins together, almost like touching fingertips. Afterwords, it seemed, she would check under his body, in front of the lower fork of his tailfin.
Dory must have been thinking caviar as she was constantly hovering, or sneaking up from around the corner. This whole come-together, shimy-shimy and tail touching sequence was repeated over and over, for hours. I think we may even have got some video on my wifes camera. (will post later, if able)
Monday afternoon, we came home from work. I soon noticed that they were still going at it. Wow.
I noticed that Dory was really putting pressure on. I tried to re-arrange some rocks so her sneak attack would be blocked, but this drove the cardinals to the opposite corner which offered even less cover. So, I put the rocks back where they belonged.
Maybe an hour later, I looked to see if they had resettled in their corner and they had. But there was Fred. His mouth was stretched to its limit with redish-pink eggs and there were even a couple extra stuck to the outside of his mouth.
In the past, I have found Georgia with her mouth full of the eggs, before transferring them to Fred. Now this is total conjecture on my part but I wondered if the shimy was supposed to trigger Fred into releasing sperm for Georgia to use in fertalizing the eggs in her mouth before giving them to Fred. At any rate, Fred now has the eggs.
Based on what we have seen in the past, Fred will carry the eggs for many weeks. Today they look like pink caviar. Over time, the redness will dissipate and they will appear more grey, and then you will be able to distinguish some black.
People say that Bangai's do not eat while they are carrying eggs. I believe this is not true. Fred has a behaviour where it looks like he is taking a huge gulp of water. What happens when he does this is that the entire egg sack rises up a little bit in his open mouth then then it spins a little bit and he recloses his mouth around them. When he does this, he is taking in a large amount of water, including any bio material in the water column. I believe he is getting some nutrients when he does this. I also know that in order to breeth, he is also bringing in water which must also contain food.
I think this behaviour is important for the eggs because he does it quite often. It may be like any animal turning their eggs. It may keep them clean or provide more oxygen or something. It seems clear to me that it for the benefit of the eggs.
The second behaviour I see is that when he is carrying the eggs, he often does not have his mouth completely closed. If we feed the tank, and if we dissolve a Formula 1 (red) cube, he will swim into the area that is cloudy with food and open his mouth part-way. I think this is like drinking a milkshake through a straw, when you have your jaws wired shut. It really seems like he is seeking-out the food.
There has been at least one brood where the eggs simply disappeared over night. I don't know if he ate them or if Dory bash them out of him. But, it was too early to be a release and they were gone.
So, over the next 4-6 weeks, the eggs turn dark. You can see the babies' eyes through the egg. Suddenly one day, Fred will start doing the gulping thing again but this time it looks different. As he opens his mouth, he throws his head sideways and closes his mouth. What it looks like he is doing is trying to drive the babies out of his mouth as they hatch. I saw a couple of them swim back in but if he jerks his head sideways, it seems to do the trick.
We have a LOT of water flow so the babies get circulated around the tank. The one time I saw them released, they seemed not to swim towards cover, but to swim towards the top of the tank.
When I saw them released, the other fish had a free lunch. They would eat them as soon as they saw them. I took a small fishnet and scooped up every baby I could rescue from Dory. I put about 12 of them into the sump and this worked at first.
I forgot the return pump.
By the time I had a half-dozen left, I got the bright idea of put netting around the pump which eliminated the "blender effect". We ended up having 2 survive for a number of months. In the last few months we've only had 1 remaining fish which we hope to sell off. He is a number of months old and is about an inch long. He eats the Formula 1, or the frozen shrimp. He doesn't pay much attention to the flake food at all, but not for lack of trying.
I've learned a lot and have some plans to try things differently with this brood. We'll see how it goes.
Daniel
PS. Please don't give me the "post worthless without pics". I'll try to get something up but no promises.
PPS. Please don't flame me for my opinions. Where I am making guesses, I clearly say things like, "it seems...", "I'm guessing...", "it looks like...". The rest of this story are things I've actually observed. Except for the release and the "shimy", I have seen all these behaviours on multiple occasions. Thanks, Daniel
75 gal mixed reef tank - adopted 5/09, 30 gal refugium sump with miracle mud & some chaeto
1.023 spg, 76F temp, pH to come, RO water w/Coralife salt
Unspecified pump with 2 alternating returns over the top, 3 Koralia for flow
2x150 MH bulbs, suspended 12" above water surface (new 6/15/10)
hanging overflow, no skimmer
We feed 1 cube of Formula 1, every day. Sometimes we use Formula 2, flake food, flake shrimp, foodgrade dried seaweed, or frozen shrimp.
Lots of live rock, 2-3" course coral sand
1 candellabra gorgonian bigger than your hand, w/2 little frags
1 4"-round of green star polyp, w/3 small frags
2 mushroom corals (thanks Becky)
1 2x4" unknown small polyp, stoney, colonial (looks like a round rock)
1 skinny purple gargonian of unknown type
1 3" round patch of 3/4" brown zoanthids
Lots of small sponges, some various featherdusters
Lots of bristleworms in both the sump and the tank. Big-mamma ones were transfered to sump when we adopted the tank 5/09.
Lots of aptasia in the sump. very few in the tank.
Some welk (working on eliminating them because they trashed a $60 clam my daughter bought).
Lots of microscopic (or magnifyeropically) small little buggers that come out at night.
Red and Blue legged crabs
Various snails (need more)
3 Starfish "mated" (We started with 2 and now have 3) Thes are similar to serpent stars but smaller, without the spikyness on the legs and different markings.
1 Peppermint shrimp. Was mated. Witnessed release of babies, once. Mate dissappeared 1 month ago.
3 Emerald crabs added 6/10/10. Planning to remove 1 or 2 since I caught one munching on the candelabra.
1 Blue-Green Chromis "Casper"
1 Hippo tang "Dory"
1 Pincushion urchin "Spike"
2 Bangai Cardinalfish - mated "Fred & Georgia"
My Story:
So, our cardinalfish are currently brooding. We saw something cool the other day, so I decided to take a few stories and squish them together in the hopes that you'll find this interesting too.
A week ago, I overfed the tank. They got 3 various cubes of frozen instead of one.
Sunday, I noticed that Fred&George were playing it low... kind of hiding in the back corner.
We've seen them brood (carry eggs) before so I snuck up on them and watched from behind the salt bucket.
In Bangai, it's the boys who carry the eggs. So I checked to see if Fred had a mouthful of eggs, but it was empty. Soon, Georgia was siding up next to Fred and then she would shake; like a quarter was just dropped in the magic fingers machine. Her whole body quivered and as it tapered off, they held the tips of their caudal fins together, almost like touching fingertips. Afterwords, it seemed, she would check under his body, in front of the lower fork of his tailfin.
Dory must have been thinking caviar as she was constantly hovering, or sneaking up from around the corner. This whole come-together, shimy-shimy and tail touching sequence was repeated over and over, for hours. I think we may even have got some video on my wifes camera. (will post later, if able)
Monday afternoon, we came home from work. I soon noticed that they were still going at it. Wow.
I noticed that Dory was really putting pressure on. I tried to re-arrange some rocks so her sneak attack would be blocked, but this drove the cardinals to the opposite corner which offered even less cover. So, I put the rocks back where they belonged.
Maybe an hour later, I looked to see if they had resettled in their corner and they had. But there was Fred. His mouth was stretched to its limit with redish-pink eggs and there were even a couple extra stuck to the outside of his mouth.
In the past, I have found Georgia with her mouth full of the eggs, before transferring them to Fred. Now this is total conjecture on my part but I wondered if the shimy was supposed to trigger Fred into releasing sperm for Georgia to use in fertalizing the eggs in her mouth before giving them to Fred. At any rate, Fred now has the eggs.
Based on what we have seen in the past, Fred will carry the eggs for many weeks. Today they look like pink caviar. Over time, the redness will dissipate and they will appear more grey, and then you will be able to distinguish some black.
People say that Bangai's do not eat while they are carrying eggs. I believe this is not true. Fred has a behaviour where it looks like he is taking a huge gulp of water. What happens when he does this is that the entire egg sack rises up a little bit in his open mouth then then it spins a little bit and he recloses his mouth around them. When he does this, he is taking in a large amount of water, including any bio material in the water column. I believe he is getting some nutrients when he does this. I also know that in order to breeth, he is also bringing in water which must also contain food.
I think this behaviour is important for the eggs because he does it quite often. It may be like any animal turning their eggs. It may keep them clean or provide more oxygen or something. It seems clear to me that it for the benefit of the eggs.
The second behaviour I see is that when he is carrying the eggs, he often does not have his mouth completely closed. If we feed the tank, and if we dissolve a Formula 1 (red) cube, he will swim into the area that is cloudy with food and open his mouth part-way. I think this is like drinking a milkshake through a straw, when you have your jaws wired shut. It really seems like he is seeking-out the food.
There has been at least one brood where the eggs simply disappeared over night. I don't know if he ate them or if Dory bash them out of him. But, it was too early to be a release and they were gone.
So, over the next 4-6 weeks, the eggs turn dark. You can see the babies' eyes through the egg. Suddenly one day, Fred will start doing the gulping thing again but this time it looks different. As he opens his mouth, he throws his head sideways and closes his mouth. What it looks like he is doing is trying to drive the babies out of his mouth as they hatch. I saw a couple of them swim back in but if he jerks his head sideways, it seems to do the trick.
We have a LOT of water flow so the babies get circulated around the tank. The one time I saw them released, they seemed not to swim towards cover, but to swim towards the top of the tank.
When I saw them released, the other fish had a free lunch. They would eat them as soon as they saw them. I took a small fishnet and scooped up every baby I could rescue from Dory. I put about 12 of them into the sump and this worked at first.
I forgot the return pump.
By the time I had a half-dozen left, I got the bright idea of put netting around the pump which eliminated the "blender effect". We ended up having 2 survive for a number of months. In the last few months we've only had 1 remaining fish which we hope to sell off. He is a number of months old and is about an inch long. He eats the Formula 1, or the frozen shrimp. He doesn't pay much attention to the flake food at all, but not for lack of trying.
I've learned a lot and have some plans to try things differently with this brood. We'll see how it goes.
Daniel
PS. Please don't give me the "post worthless without pics". I'll try to get something up but no promises.
PPS. Please don't flame me for my opinions. Where I am making guesses, I clearly say things like, "it seems...", "I'm guessing...", "it looks like...". The rest of this story are things I've actually observed. Except for the release and the "shimy", I have seen all these behaviours on multiple occasions. Thanks, Daniel