Apogon leptacanthus - Breeding Log

5-22-06 - I arrived home around 7 PM today and found that we have ANOTHER mouthful of Apogon leptacanthus in the works...it could have happened pretty much anytime in the last 24 hours as I left for the office before the lights came on today. I may just strip these and tumble them - SS rotifers are going to be on their way soon too, so food may no longer be an issue!

MP
 
5-30-06 - slowly, almost imperceptably over the course of the evening I noticed the males brood getting smaller and smaller...darnit if I just didn't have too much other work to deal with to handle this release (if in fact it was a release and he wasn't eating them). Thankfully it looks like I'll have many chances in the future to get it right ;)

Anyone have a good idea on how to collect non-phototrophic larvae from a community tank without having to go in and catch the fish (afterall, I'm always knocking down my SPS frags when I'm netting fish!)..

MP
 
6-25-06 - well, sometime between the afternoon of the 23rd and the afternoon of the 25th the Apogon leptcanthus have spawned again. Since I wasn't around for the last couple days, I can't pinpoint it any closer, but that gives me an idea of when they should be ready (sometime while we're out of town of course). I'm still wanting to get these to go...I may try stripping and incubating in sterilized water with some formaline or methelyne blue..the problem is that I probably won't be around for the hatch - local fish buddy to the rescue again perhaps? At least I have the SS Strain rotifers on hand...could prove beneficial for getting some larvae raised up, but I still have that one baby mandarin that's now 5-6 days post spawning and doing well; not sure how he'd compete with a bunch of baby leptacanthus!

Too many fish breeding, not enough larval tanks!

MP
 
Just a quick note on this spawn...the male released the larvae sometime Sunday without my noticing...another batch simply vanished.

MP
 
7-10-06 - while out of town from Friday evening through Sunday Evening, I came home to find the male A. leptacanthus holding yet another mouthful of eggs. I'm going to keep an eye on them, and if I can figure out the right time to strip, I may make the effort to do so. After all the failures with the Mandarins, these guys, with their increased size, are looking like better prospects to tackle first ;) We'll see how I feel about it towards the week's end when they're due to hatch.

MP
 
"Dag Nabit" - Sometime between Saturday night and Sunday Morning the male leptacanthus either consumed or released his latest batch...never saw anything but around noon noticed him feeding with the rest of the fish! NUTS! Guess these guys are going to have to wait a while longer...

Matt
 
7-24-06, around 9:00 AM this morning I noticed the male holding another mouthful. We'll see....!
 
8-7-06 - just a quick update I noticed yesterday (8-7) the male leptacanthus is holding again...I missed the release on the last one. Maybe I'll have better luck this time around?

Matt
 
Ok, so I am getting VERY frustrated with these cardinals and could use some ideas. I just spent probably 30-45 minutes trying to coral the male out into the open to catch him and take his mouthful away...basically because I noticed tonight it was getting SMALLER yet I havent' noticed ANY larvae, so he's either eating them or something else is going on.

That something else is something I've suspected but can't prove - basically I think the male slowly releases larvae over several hours. My OTHER hypothesis is that he's slowly eating them when we get up into the 8-9 day range.

In any event, the ONLY way I've really come across leptacanthus larvae is 1 lucky event where I noticed a few, and the other time where I captured him and stimulated the eggs to hatch (best results). If this was a dedicated breeding tank, it wouldn't be an issue (just a bunch of PVC) but this is a full blown reef.

So, I need fancy ideas for larval collection for larvae that are NOT attracted to light! Either that OR I think I may just part with the trio in the hopes that the Bangaii's, in the absence of any other cardinalfish species, will actually hold to term for a change.

ASDWER@#$!!#$!#@$!$EQFDGW$%@!#!!!

Matt
 
Matt my best guess would be to catch the male and collect the eggs but in a reef it can be hard if not impossible sometimes...

If another tank (breeding dedicate) is out of possibility maybe it´s time for the bangai to take their turn.

Anderson.
 
Anderson, around 3:00 PM on the 16th the bangaii's spawned, so I'm going to see if they hold to term with just the leptacanthus sharing their tank (folks may or may not have caught on another thread that the female margaritophorus passed on due to egg binding and the two males were removed).

I've been brainstorming larval collectors that could be created to catch "some" larvae...it seems A. leptacanthus could have several hundred, even collecting 50 would be enough to start work with. The male already holds to term, and catching him in the reef proved to be a nightmare last night - I had him in the net at one point and lost him at the surface...after that he wised up.

Not giving up yet, because I really think at this point I could raise this species given a couple more tries. A dedicated breeding tank WOULD be ideal, but with the limited space I have AND the "request" that all our tanks look nice, they're ALL set up as reefs except the larval tank.

Matt
 
Sometime between 6 and 9:00 PM on 8-22 the Apogon leptacanthus have spawned - that's 15 days since the spawn before. Basically, these guys seem to be on a pretty set biweekly schedule more or less!

Matt
 
Another spawn today, 9-8-6 - this time around 17 days since the spawn prior.

Maybe this time around I'll get som ebabies...??? Not likely until I get my act together and build a larval collector, which may not work anyways with the phototrophically "neutral" larvae.

MP
 
I'm going to follow along here and see when mine spawn next. I started that other thread that you made posted in about the spawn and the babies. I know how hard it is to catch these guys. I got mine out of a 135 gal tank. I did it during the day though to put him in the fuge but he spit out the eggs into the net. There is no sign of any of the babies in the fuge, but I can't see much in there with all the algea. I may actually put a setup together for food for these guys. I just don't have any place in the house right now. Should have the space after december, so until then any that I catch are just going into the fuge.

With the timeframe you give I should have another spawn next week sometime.
 
OK, here's my *thought*. It's been 6 days since I noticed the spawn, and the male is looking pretty "bulgy" in the mouth and I see eyes on the larvae. I am going to TRY to catch him tonight. Worst case, I don't get him. Best case, he spits the eggs and they're already ready. More likely he's either going to spit an egg mass that isn't quite ready for hatching and will require some incubation, OR he'll hold the eggs and could be placed in the larval tank to release them on his own....not sure how that will "fly". In any case, the larval tank is emtpy (currently filled with 119.3 F tap water for a cleaning), and these are the only fish that I know are "ready".

Wish me luck!

Matt
 
9-14-06, just after 1:00 AM - we have HUNDREDS if not THOUSDANDS of BABY Apogon leptacanthus!

It went down like this...the male "looked" ready..no other way to describe it...but it's only be 6+ days. I chased him around inside the rockwork for a while. Eventually I had him cornered...his back was turned and he was chewing emphatically...I thought maybe he was EATING the eggs. He turned around and spit a CLOUD of larvae at me...imagine what a goby does and magnify it from a couple dozen larvae to at least SEVERAL HUNDRED!

It took me 2-3 seconds to realize I needed to shut down ALL the pumps..MOST of the larvae bolted straight for the surface. I took my 1/2 gallon specimen cup and skimmed a 3 gallon bucket's worth of water off the surface. The larvae and their water were then siphoned rapidly into the 10 gallon tank.

I went back for 2nds as there were still PLENTY of larvae around and I can say with confidence that they are only weakly positively phototrophic at best. SO, I set about siphoning out another 3 gallons of water from the main tank, getting as many larvae as I could along the way. They are going into the larval tank via a SLOW siphon as I'm hurrying to mix up new water while a lot of Xenia and SPS are sitting out to dry!!!

More later!

Matt
 
OK, I'm going to guess I maybe got 2/3 of the spawn at best...the Bangaii's are munching away on the larvae I missed. MOST of the larvae are sitting on the bottom of the larval tank at this point but otherwise look FINE. The 2nd 3 gallon bucket of larvae is still slowly siphoning in; In the meantime I sat down with the QX5 (THANKS AGAIN TO MY ANONYMOUS DONOR!) and got some good shots (and a vid) of NEWLY released APOGON LEPTACANTHUS LARVAE!

10X
AL_0_1.jpg


60X
AL_0_2_60X.jpg


AL_0_3_60X.jpg


AL_0_4_60X.jpg


AL_0_5_60X.jpg


200X
AL_0_6_200X.jpg


AL_0_7_200X.jpg


And finally, the video at 200X - about 45 seconds long, .avi format, 15 MB.

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/AL_0_8.avi

-----

My battle plan is this - SS Rots + newly harvested Tetraselmis, T-Iso and Nanno. I might try bringing the temp up to 82F...the broodstock tank was probably at 77F.

FWIW,

Matt
 
OK, 6 gallons of tank water, several hundred leptacanthus larvae, 1 L worth of SS Rots (strained of course), 0.5 liters each of T-Iso, Tetra and Nano - we're set! I harvested another 1L of SS Rots for overnight enrichment with Selcon - those will go in tomorrow AM at some point.

FWIW,

Matt
 
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