And the adventure begins !

[Iwishihadgills]

Bought my first pygme angel that i plan on breeding.

Its a 3.5 " african flame back that i soon will be buying two females to pair with.I was gonna do the whole breeding drum thing but buying a 45 gallon tall will be much easier.Ill have some pics up in the next day or two.

These will be the pods im culturing, tigger/tisbe/tonsa .And i will be culturing rotifers and bbs.


This is my first breeding project so any help would be appreciated .


thanks

 

[jhawkor]

Hello, I too will be attempting to breed Centropyge this summer. Just keep in mind that you will need a very large culture of copepods. I plan to order a million (literally) eggs of A. tonsa and culture them in a 100+ gallon container. With all those copepods you will also need to culture a ton of phyto. I plan to use the 55 gallon drum setup idea. Good luck.

 

[Iwishihadgills]

Hello, I too will be attempting to breed Centropyge this summer. Just keep in mind that you will need a very large culture of copepods. I plan to order a million (literally) eggs of A. tonsa and culture them in a 100+ gallon container. With all those copepods you will also need to culture a ton of phyto. I plan to use the 55 gallon drum setup idea. Good luck.

Dang thats alot of pods! How many species of centropygme are you trying to breed?

 

[flying_dutchman]

personally I would not start with such an hard fish. It will cause a lot of fustration, and I would hate to hear you quitting. Practice on some gobies and/or clowns first.

 

[Iwishihadgills]

Ive been researching this for two months every night i have a problem lol. I cant help it ! I know what you mean flying dutchman but im up for the challenge. I currently own the book"breeders guid to marine fish by matthew wittenrich" which has alot of good info and i have read EVERY post on mofib in the centropygme section And i could probably recite the rct website by memory lol

o and heres my BIG guy

 

[flying_dutchman]

"breeders guid to marine fish by matthew wittenrich"

:thumbsup:One of my favorites too

If you are successful put me on the list for one

 

[Iwishihadgills]

First baby is yours!

 

[mdemuth]

Beautiful fish. Good luck

 

[Iwishihadgills]

just ordered him his first girlfriend

 

[jhawkor]

Dang thats alot of pods! How many species of centropygme are you trying to breed?

Small Centropyge larvae need about 15-20 food organisms every half an hour 15 hours a day...It takes a TON of copepods. I'll actually probably set up 4-5 25 gallon containers for culturing copepods so I can have different cultures in different life stages, adults, copepodites, and nauplii. I really do wish you the best of luck. The more people we get trying to raise centropyge the quicker breakthroughs will be made. Just remember it won't be easy and don't give up!:thumbsup:

 

[GreshamH]

Bought my first pygme angel that i plan on breeding.

Its a 3.5 " african flame back that i soon will be buying two females to pair with.I was gonna do the whole breeding drum thing but buying a 45 gallon tall will be much easier.Ill have some pics up in the next day or two.

These will be the pods im culturing, tigger/tisbe/tonsa .And i will be culturing rotifers and bbs.


This is my first breeding project so any help would be appreciated .


thanks

Sounds good accept the Tigger-Pod part. They are very spiny at the size you need and can very well get clogged in the throat of your larvae. I would skip them for any larval rearing and use them to supplement the adult broodstock. Proper nutrition in the broodstock is crucial IMO.

 

[Iwishihadgills]

gresham- Yeah i heard they were a little spiny. Thanks for the heads up.

Landon- I wonder if a auto top off could be used to dose those nauplii :idea:

 

[landlord]

Good luck to you in your efforts? I have a question, I am curious as to how you are going to culture the copepods, I have found sparse information, at least not all in one place, on various methods. What will be your method as far as feeding, harvesting, and such.

Thanks

Kurt

 

[jhawkor]

Good luck to you in your efforts? I have a question, I am curious as to how you are going to culture the copepods, I have found sparse information, at least not all in one place, on various methods. What will be your method as far as feeding, harvesting, and such.

Thanks

Kurt

Kurt, have you been to the zooplankton forums on MOFIB? They have some good info on culturing calanoid copepods like A. tonsa.

 

[landlord]

Been there, just trying to digest it all can get confusing. I am just looking for something like; Get 50 gallon vessel, add copepods, feed x(amount) of y(food) z(times per day). Harvest so much every so many days. I suppose I could really dig into the guts of it all but was hoping that someone might have already done that part

Kurt

 

[Iwishihadgills]

+1 to mofib. I wish we had a sticky for culturing pods.
As for the care of the pods, I am culturing them in five gallon buckets with a 20% water change every couple of days. As for my phytoplankton im just using 2 liter bottles. Then i am purchasing a couple 30um sieves to harvest the pods. I am gonna do a couple of experiments with doing the greenwater method for these angels and see if it increases my yeild. Also pods are high i believe its called hufa which is very good for the fish and they also move around more then rotifers causing their hunting instinct to kick in.

site for the sieves- industrialnetting.com
site for different species of pods- livecopepods.com

Ill post some pictures of my setup when its finished.

 

[Iwishihadgills]

I just found a REALLY cool book on pods. Its really in depth. Its called

"Copepods in aquaculture" by cheng seng lee/ patricia j. o'bryen/ nancy h. marcus

Landon you should check it out.


Also in the book they said that Harpacticoid pods were better then Calanoid because they dont require microalgae high in hufa to maintain dha to epa ratio which i dont really understand that much about yet.

 

[jhawkor]

+1 to mofib. I wish we had a sticky for culturing pods.
As for the care of the pods, I am culturing them in five gallon buckets with a 20% water change every couple of days. As for my phytoplankton im just using 2 liter bottles. Then i am purchasing a couple 30um sieves to harvest the pods. I am gonna do a couple of experiments with doing the greenwater method for these angels and see if it increases my yeild. Also pods are high i believe its called hufa which is very good for the fish and they also move around more then rotifers causing their hunting instinct to kick in.

site for the sieves- industrialnetting.com
site for different species of pods- livecopepods.com

Ill post some pictures of my setup when its finished.

The copepod nauplii do move more resulting in a feeding response but they are also much harder to catch then say rotifers, so nauplii density in the larval tank is very important. I'm going to shoot for about 5-7 food organisms/mL. I may try ciliates along with nauplii to boost the food density. Also remember like Gresham said broodstock nutrition is VERY important. They will need 2-4 feedings a day of foods high or enriched in HUFA. Just some things to think about.

 

[Iwishihadgills]

Well right now the thing im contemplating is how to collect the eggs. My idea is to use the failsafe overflow system where it doesnt take the surface water in the overflow where the eggs should be floating in. Any ideas?

 

[Iwishihadgills]

The pics suck but owell lol