430gal., L-shaped display

["Umm fish?"]

Yeah, I think I'll spot him a few snails.

Especially as the ceriths have put up two more of those this morning.

 

["Umm fish?"]

I managed a small collection of what I think are probably orchid dottyback larvae this morning. This one didn't make it:

 

["Umm fish?"]

I finally figured out what was going on with the sixlines. They are now spawning around three hours later than they used to, so I just wasn't leaving the collector in long enough. I only managed a few tonight as I watched sans collector. I caught these by just shoving a jar under the overflow output. I will try again in earnest starting tomorrow.

 

[vanvelzen]

Hi Andy,

Congratulations on the quality of your tank and thread... The quality of the pictures are truly amazing!

Your recent photo (last one on page 22) is one of my favorites.
Would you mind informing me a little on what kind of setting and lens you have been using on the Yellow gorgonian shots?
Must have been with a very short shutter time I presume, looking at the black background?

Thanks in advance.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, thanks Hans! I'm not so sure about the quality of the tank at the moment, but the coralline and halimeda are now growing well so I think it might be time to focus some on setting up the corals. I managed to find a number of great new coral fragments at my local club meeting yesterday, so I hope that'll be looking up.

As for the photos, well, I'm always looking to improve. Thank you, though. It's nice to hear that maybe all that practice is paying off a bit.

For the gorgonians, the setting is pretty much where the gorgonian is in the tank. It is epoxied to the rock it is on, so I don't have much choice. You are correct that the darker background came from a shorter shutter speed (1/160th of a second). I was pretty stuck with using a short exposure because I didn't actually turn off the flow in the tank for the photo and you know how much flow gorgonians need.

The truth is, I really like using the flash to overpower the tank lights so I can have more control over the shutter speed and f-stop unless I'm shooting a coral where the flash washes out the coral's color. That happens a lot with acros. But, despite all the money that we spend on lighting, shooting tanks is low-light photography compared to shooting outdoors and I don't particularly care for the constraints that imposes on me. So, I often try to take over the lighting situation.

 

[Taqpol]

Hey Andy, I had a question about mandarins and considering you have a pair that tries to spawn you seem to be the guy to ask about behavior.

I wanted a pair of spotted mandarins for a long time now and one of my LFS's tried to order a male/female pair for me. The first pair that arrived was too small to sex and didn't seem to get along so well, so she ordered another pair. These ones are both very large and fat. One is a bit smaller and has more orange on the fins and body with an elongated dorsal fin (male?) and the other is larger with paler fins and no elongate dorsal (female?). Does this sound like a male female pair to you?

Also, while they are not fighting with each other they do not seem to associate very much with each other. The first night they slept next to each other in one corner of the tank, but since then they are normally on opposite sides. Should I be worried by this kind of behavior? Do you think they will "warm up" to each other in the future?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Hmm. I would worry about it. While they may be male/female, the females seem to be pretty picky. They don't want anything to do with smaller males. You need some size disparity going the other way for it to work out. I guess size does matter. If they are going to work out together, they spend most of their time in close association with each other.

Good luck! Try to get them onto frozen if you can.

 

[Taqpol]

Hmmm, maybe I'll try and sell the female back and pick up a smaller female in the future. Any thoughts on how to go about this to try and make sure I have a pair? I heard mandarins paired up fairly easily.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, you know all my secrets. Get a large male and a small female and it usually goes really easily. They usually take to each other really quickly if they are going to.

 

[meredith1985]

OMG its 2:30am and I just now finnished this thread! I couldn't stop reading it with all the super cool updates and videos and pics! WOW

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks so much. Sorry to kill your evening!

Thought I'd update. I'm now starting after the sixlines more seriously. Now the eggs are being hatched and placed into a rearing tank.

Collections so far:

8/31: 111 eggs
9/1: 69
9/2: No collection
9/3: 153

 

["Umm fish?"]

78 sixline eggs tonight. Since I haven't gotten any hatches lately, I pulled an egg for examination. The egg was already looking a little cloudy as if there is a bacterial/fungal thing going on. By the end of the pipetting there were already many eggs on the bottom of the hatching chamber, cloudy. So, I think I need to start working on disinfection.

Quote from Martin Moe:

Matt, just a suggestion..... Your C. argi should continue to spawn nightly for quite some time, a valuable characteristic for rearing experimentation. You might find, as did I, that if you take a container of brood stock water, somewhere between a half and full liter, and treat it with chlorine in the afternoon or the morning, doesn't really matter, on the day you plan to collect the eggs, then dechlorinate the water about a half hour before you collect the eggs, then collect the eggs with a soft mesh net by swirling the net about the surface of the tank (turn off the filtration before spawning and remember to turn it back on again after egg collection), and then place the eggs in the container of dechlorinated water with slight to moderate aeration over night, then in the morning you will find that 95 to 99% of the eggs are alive and crystal clear with a well developed and near to hatch (depending on temp) embryo within the chorion (egg shell). (How's that for a long sentence...) Evidently there is something in the sterilized and newly dechorinated water that inhibits or delays development of bacterial and fungal films that can degrade the developing embryo. However, the longer they are cramped up in a little container the greater the mortality. It is best to transfer them while still in the egg stage to the larva tank.

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=203&t=411&hilit=egg+disinfection&start=175

Quote from DrHsu (who quoted it from another article):

During project Year 2, larvae research at OI focused on examining the effects of different microbial conditions on flame angelfish rearing performance. A small scale rearing system was established, allowing rigorous testing of multiple experimental treatments. This system was used to develop a disinfection technique that reduced surface bacterial loading of angelfish embryos by more than 99%, involving immersion in a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide for five minutes.

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=203&t=411&p=4618&hilit=egg+disinfection#p4618

 

["Umm fish?"]

BTW, I added a new small starry blenny to the display a couple of days ago. Very little aggression at all from the older blenny and it seems to be settling in nicely.

 

[driftin]

Is that 3 starry blennies in the display?

What do you think about using fresh salt water instead of chlorinated?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Is that 3 starry blennies in the display?

No. We lost the little one a few months ago. One morning we woke up and the little blenny was trying to hide. Within an hour it was gone. That was all the warning we had.

What do you think about using fresh salt water instead of chlorinated?

Fresh salt water is really harsh on little, delicate things. Matt W. suggested using fresh saltwater after running it for a week with a biofilter. But, that wouldn't do much to get rid of the bacteria that's hitching a ride on the eggs.

Sorry, but I didn't get a chance to try it last night. We have a houseguest that came in yesterday.

 

["Umm fish?"]

It looks like the increased nutrition might be helping. I had a houseguest that came in early yesterday and left late today, so I didn't collect yesterday and didn't have time to prep for disinfection tonight. But, still 72 eggs in the collection tonight. AND, I get to fill in one of the photo gaps, sixline eggs at the 2 cell stage:

I think that the fact that they look like they are developing outside of the cell is an artifact of the narrow depth of field. I think that they are on the back wall of the egg.

 

["Umm fish?"]

138 (go nutrition!) sixline eggs, placed in a yogurt container of newly-dechlorinated broodstock tank water. Just for fun, I took a photo of a group with the camera instead of the microscope.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Okay, so this morning the embryos are in a couple of different stages. Most are still in the "big ball of cells" (blastosphere) stage:

You can no longer really make out the individual cells. The embryo likely has a working, primitive digestive system now, though. The yolk has started shrinking away from the egg membrane (chorion) just a little.

This other guy has made the next big leap. It's organized itself into a long, thin tube that runs around the inside of the cell membrane. It's still a pretty flat tube because there still aren't a whole lot of cells to go around.

The tube gets longer and fatter while the embryo starts working on internal structures.

 

[jnarowe]

SWEET SHOTS.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks, Jonathan!

And we have a chordate! The end of the tail is on the upper left, near the oil globule. The head is at the other end.