430gal., L-shaped display

[EnglishRebel]

Andy
I just watched your video of the Blue Spotted Jawfish. He's an industrious little bugger isn't he. Funny thing is, for all the sand and rocks he pulls out of his bolt hole, they just slide back in.
Hilarious. :lol:
Would love to get one but at $140 a pop it's a little out of my range. I'm going to get a couple of Pearly Jawfish tomorrow. They should be interesting to wat

 

["Umm fish?"]

Oh, yeah. All day long. He/she spends a lot of time spitting sand at the pearlies, too.

That was the fish that my lovely bride couldn't live without. And, if I could ever have a chance to raise some babies ... well that would be something.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Check this out! I caught the cleaner wrasses spawning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMmk9XKLtgk

 

[jnarowe]

I guess mine do IT all the time! :lol: Good thing your lamps don't get wet!

 

[melev]

It seems like everything in your tank ends up "doing it". :lol:

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, hopefully the lamps don't get wet. They are pretty far off the water.

You ever try to collect the eggs, Jonathan?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Sure, Marc! Get mates together and overfeed. I'm good at overfeeding.

That was the goal of the tank, though: Getting multiples or pairs of everything I could so I could see all of the social interaction. That's the part that I get excited about.

 

[Hopeful Reefer]

Some people call that voyeurism... :lol2:

Looks cool...you see people raising baby snails, clowns or bangaii cardinals...but not much else...really cool!!

 

[dtech]

Amazing as always Andy, your gonna have to put a Red light over that tank though

 

[driftin]

It's amazing how fast the actual spawn is. If you sneezed while filming you could have missed the whole event and been left wondering if they "finished"!

 

[jnarowe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14994887#post14994887 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by "Umm, fish?"
Well, hopefully the lamps don't get wet. They are pretty far off the water.

You ever try to collect the eggs, Jonathan?

:lol: Not in my system. There's just no way to deal with stuff like that in a really large tank.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Some people call that voyeurism...

Including my lovely bride but she enjoys it, too.

Thanks, dtech, though I wonder which fish would pay which and what they'd use for money. Hmmm. That's the problem with fish porn....

Jim--Actually, I saw them spawn the night before, too, a couple of minutes after I put the camera down. So, at least I knew what I was looking for. But, most of the pelagic fish are pretty quick about the time they spend up above the reef, even if they spend hours on courtship. They are pretty much sitting ducks up there for any sort of predation so they have some good motivation to get things done. But if they don't make a spawning ascent to get up over the corals then a good percentage of their spawn will get eaten before it gets to far. So it's a trade-off.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Not in my system. There's just no way to deal with stuff like that in a really large tank.

That's why I ask. I'm thinking about the possibility of a hang-on container--sort of like a pre-overflow--with mesh at the back so water can get to the real overflow. Hmm.

 

[EnglishRebel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14996643#post14996643 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by "Umm, fish?"
That's why I ask. I'm thinking about the possibility of a hang-on container--sort of like a pre-overflow--with mesh at the back so water can get to the real overflow. Hmm.

Andy
Your mind is always working overtime to see what you can come up with next. It's the engineering side of your brain.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Anything to get out of paying attention to work....

Ugh. I'm in for a horrible couple of weeks of work. I think I'm up to 5 rush projects and all of them are in some stage of imploding. Plus, every single one's deadline has changed today.

 

["Umm fish?"]

YouTube was down tonight, so the filefish spawning video is on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23399115@N07/3527513422/?processed=1&cb=1242184329748&likes_hd=1

Looks like I got a couple of photos of the wrasse courtship, too.

This last one was just a few seconds before they took off:

Busy night!

 

[KDDG]

I am really enjoying this thread! I was considering pairs and groups, but you have made me decide for sure to try this in the tank we are building. My husband does not quite agree with this angle. But I, like you, find it fascinating and exciting. I love to see the social interactions of the fish. Do you feel that they are benefitting healthwise?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Hi Kelly! Thanks!

Do you feel that they are benefitting healthwise?

Short answer is that I have no idea. The long answer is maybe. It certainly gives the fish a lot to do. I guess the zoo guys call that "environmental enrichment." On the other hand, it does open the fish up to social aggression. You have to keep an eye on that and be ready to separate them, _especially_ if you want some of the more exotic dottybacks or something.

I do have one anecdotal experience that might be relevant. When my mandarin female was the only one of her species in the tank, she spent a lot of her evening hours high in the water column cruising around. That did not seem like a natural behavior to me: A small fish high up over the reef is a sitting duck for predation, plus she was spending a lot of energy on fighting the currents up there. Why would she do this? As it turns out, she hasn't done it once since she and the new male found each other. My theory is that she was advertising the fact that she was a lone mandarin, looking for more of her species. If that's true, I would think that having a mate _is_ helping her feel more comfortable. But, that's only a theory.

But, heck, you are in the hobby to enjoy the aspect of reefkeeping that you enjoy the most. If that happens to be social interactions, go there.

 

["Umm fish?"]

BTW, my very favorite time of the tank is late in the evening once the lights have started going out (that happens over about a 45 min. span). The fish are pretty much done eating for the day and are out doing their little social routines and finding shelters for the night. There are all kinds of cool interactions going on.

 

[jnarowe]

Interesting thoughts. I have had problems with some "pairs" and early on adopted a single or 3 and over rule, but perhaps that is just the way fish personalities go. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.