Banner image

Aquaculture Joculator angelfish breeding and rearing? (1 Viewer)

At day 18 now. One larvae going strong. Do I dare take photos and risk her??? I really want to see if she's started flexion yet, but also want to see how long I can keep her going.

Ugh, aquaculture problems...
 
Don't do it
 
Looks like I forgot to upload a photo from Monday night. Here's the larvae at Day 15! :)
20160111_183242_zpskpw4qkyk.jpg
 
Chad Vossen said:
I really want to see if she's started flexion yet, but also want to see how long I can keep her going.

Ugh, aquaculture problems...
Click to expand...
Would it change anything in how you raise the next batch? If it would, I'd check. Information is great, but for your lone little larvae it might be more useful to see how close to meta you can get.
 
I couldn't stop myself, but rest assured she survived the photos and is doing well. Photo is from day 18.

20160114_184714_zpsjw5itpxe.jpg


As of this morning, it is day 19 and she's doing good.
 
This thread makes me feel like I am fishing on a dock with alot of other people and someone else has a huge fish on their line. Everyone on the dock will gather around and cheer and help in anyway possible hoping the angler will land the fish. I check this thread twice a day and silently cheer you on in raising these fry. You do excellent work and I love the photos. Thank you for sharing!
 
Any update on these? It's been a joy watching them develop and reading through the thread. So thank you for sharing!
 
Lost the larvae on day 19.
We are working on starting the next batch, however we've had some difficulties.

More fish in the tank now, so we've had to collect using a different method. We can collect 100% of the eggs, however we are getting low fertility. I'm just not giving the eggs enough time to fertilize. I have ideas to improve on this.

Another issue I've been having is the first few days after hatching. I can get the eggs to hatch, however the larvae are dying on day two post hatch. I suspect bacterial issues in their beaker despite me doing 100% water changes every morning. Bacterial blooms would consume the oxygen and suffocate the larvae. I also suspect that it's the salt that's giving me the bacterial blooms due to the added "amino acids", so I'm going to switch back to the cheap salt I used in the first trials. I may also use one of my sieves to incubate the larvae so they have direct contact with the larger larval system without getting lost. Solution to pollution is dilution concept.

I have some ideas to try out this next round, but I need to get the larvae to day 5 before I can do anything.
 
I've heard of commercial hatcheries sterilizing eggs with H2O2. I think they mostly use it for eggs with long incubation periods, but it might be worth a shot. You could try sterilizing the eggs with H2O2 shortly after collection and then only using heat-sterilized water for your daily water changes. If you don't introduce any bacteria with the eggs, it seems like it should be relatively easy to keep them clean until it's time to start feeding.
 
Last edited:
Finally developed a collection method that yields high fertility! Now I should have enough larvae to power my way through to settlement. Last nights collection seems to have gotten 80-90% fertility. VERY happy with the results.


20160203_233755_zpsa15fdw6q.jpg
 
Good to hear, what did you do to encourage fertility?
 
patent said:
Good to hear, what did you do to encourage fertility?
Click to expand...

Well, we tried collecting the eggs in the filter sock - resulted in few eggs, not great fertility either.
Tried scooping the eggs with a mesh filter sock - 0% fertility but hundreds of eggs.
Tried scooping the eggs with a mesh filter sock and letting them sit in the tank for 20 minutes - hundreds of eggs -5-10% fertility.
Retrofitted a large fish bag to a filter sock ring and scooped the eggs and sperm - hundreds of eggs and 90% fertility.

What we've learned is that the sperm is only viable in saltwater for about 5 minutes (learned this from one of the breeders doing the blue tangs in FL). The display tank is 300 gallons, so things get diluted very quickly. Capturing the eggs and sperm in a 2 gallon bag allows for greatly increased contact time, and much higher fertility.
 
It's great that you're finding methods to produce more positive results.

Here's a thought... if you haven't thought of and implemented this already.
Based on that the pair spawn at a certain time each night, would it be beneficial to have the pumps programmed to turn off/down for an hour window to create a less turbulent water column when collecting the eggs?
If you didn't want to program it to happen every night, it could be set up as a "feeding" option with the controller; just hit the button on the nights that you're collecting eggs. But maybe having the program happen every night would make for a more consistent schedule with the fish.
But I'm not sure that if all of this would disrupt the spawning behavior or not.
Just a thought...
 
So a large plastic fish bag? Never would have thought of that.

I had a pair of flame angels in my 180 I'd hoped to breed back then, but getting fertile eggs always seemed like it would have been hard. (plus I had no way to raise them, I was still trying to figure clowns out at the time). Method #3 was what I'd thought would work. Not that its important, but any idea why that doesn't work? Not large enough to get it all in there? Sperm get stuck in mesh or wash out?

In any case, nice work figuring it out.
 
Just a thought... if the bag isn't the easiest to fill up with water there might be a way to put it in a cylinder that has a plunger on the bottom to offer more control. Sort of like a reverse push pop.

R. Snodgrass
 
jlanger said:
It's great that you're finding methods to produce more positive results.

Here's a thought... if you haven't thought of and implemented this already.
Based on that the pair spawn at a certain time each night, would it be beneficial to have the pumps programmed to turn off/down for an hour window to create a less turbulent water column when collecting the eggs?
If you didn't want to program it to happen every night, it could be set up as a "feeding" option with the controller; just hit the button on the nights that you're collecting eggs. But maybe having the program happen every night would make for a more consistent schedule with the fish.
But I'm not sure that if all of this would disrupt the spawning behavior or not.
Just a thought...
Click to expand...

We tried turning the pumps off. It delayed the spawn. They started their spawning rise and just before she released eggs, the lights turned off. I drove home with no eggs that night. lol
The new method works so well that I don't need to mess with the flow or anything. Just scoop the eggs into the bag and go home. They'll fertilize in the car from my driving alone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top