black ray gobies.

[gogo7]

stonogobiops nematodes.
i got a clutch of babies in my four gallon vase. it's a plankton friendly reef vase with a living deep sand bed. this is first time i've seen the female in a few days. the parents aren't bothered to eat the fry. they eat the rotifers though, and the artemia. the fry are very small and the rotifers are too big to be eaten.
i'm not expecting success.. these fry are extremely small and i'm lucky to have a good supply of planktons.

my phone doesn't take the best pics. i'll be keeping them in the dt as it's friendly ish for them...
i expect there will be more in the future.
i'm gonna green up the water a bit though. just in case.

 

[kizanne]

subscribing. Hope your babies live.

 

[gogo7]

well, it's been 24 hours since and i've found three. and only three.
i've isolated them in small one ounce containers floating in place. i had to spot hunt the smallest copepods and rotifers i could find.
there's a porcelien crab and some pompoms in the dt. i think they might be a problem. although i witnessed the fry escape the procelein a few times, i can't say the same for the pompoms.

i'm keeping notes on the cycles . the female is a fat fish. the male looks very fat as well. the over abundance of plankton has caused everything to fatten up.
i've done a little reading here and i figure i've gotta get some ss strain rotifers.
this is a good excuse to refine my plankton culture methods.

 

[kizanne]

Has anyone raised black ray gobies yet? I know several gobies have been aquacultured but I'm not aware of that one. The spawn is the first hurdle then you can experiment with baby grow outs.

 

[gogo7]

Has anyone raised black ray gobies yet? I know several gobies have been aquacultured but I'm not aware of that one. The spawn is the first hurdle then you can experiment with baby grow outs.

the female is already nesting again, she's never out. she seems skittish and is fattening up fast. the male is quite fat.
i'm trying my hardest to get ss rotifers for a growout, but without success.
the fry are so tiny. i'll keep this thread alive with each new batch...

 

[gogo7]

batch number two arrived this evening. there are about two hundred floating around the vase.
i felt like there were going to be a fresh batch by the activity of the pistol shrimp. it sat at the entrance of the side tunnel fanning. it thought that it might be aiding the fry to the entrance.
so it's gonna be a batch every seven days.
i still don't have a setup for fry yet, and i don't have any size specific plankton.
just regular rotifers. looking at the new fry i can tell they're gonna have a hard time finding the right size foods.

 

[kizanne]

how exciting. With regular spawns you can take multiple swipes at it. I think I might try just like 20 or so to keep the ammonia and food requirements down. leave some in the tank to see if you have enough copepods for any to survive in there.

Keep the updates coming.

 

[gogo7]

i've isolated quite a few to a small basket. it's loaded with rotifers and copepods.
hopefully we can make it another day like this.
the dt has very few fry left in it.
i let a few rotifer cultures go to crash, lots of little red males, that perhaps are small enough to fit into the mouths of the fry.
my porcelien crab made no qualms about a fish fry dinner.

 

[gogo7]

 

[Betta132]

Maybe you should put the porcelain somewhere else... It does seem to be a problem.

 

[gogo7]

batch number three arrived tonight.
i've spent the week culturing at least two different species of ciliates that i've isolated from my rotifer cultures.
i'm gonna try using the ciliates combined with phyto drip. i'm using dunaliella and nannochloropsis as phytos. i don't think the ciliates are eating the phyto, i'm hoping to get a few days out of this. i'm not expecting success with this, just less and less failures.
at the moment i'm hitting them with everything i've got.
i've already started to isolate the ciliates, gonna start looking for the right ones.
anyone culturing sw ciliates?

 

[kizanne]

Update? Have you read some of the breeding mandarins stuff. Tisbe copepod naupulii are supposed to be good also.

 

[gogo7]

hello everyone.....clutch number four arrived this evening, right on schedule.

i'm gonna try using my cell phone to take pics of this. using my microscope at 100x.
they've been eating copepod nauplii, and the ciliates that i've been cultivating all week.
i think the fry sit their yolk sac period out in the tunnels. i watch the pistols fan the entrances of the tunnels forty eight hours in advance so it's like clockwork. the last two nights i've been dosing about fifty mils of ciliate laden green water into the entrances, to see what happens. i'm going to try to get some photos..
as a side note, i've got myself some oysters. ..........
someone, maybe on this site once said " i loved breeding fish, till i noticed i was breeding things to feed to other things i was breeding to feed these other things to........."

yeah, i'm stupid enough to have a go with the oysters....i got them a few days ago, so it's gonna take a few weeks of heavy feeding before i can even think about attempting to get them to spawn for the gobies. oyster babies. possibly small enough to feed to hungry goby fry. i'm feeding everything nanno, duna and iso anyways, but i didn't think that i'd be keeping oysters as a food source for my gobies. and to be quite honest, i'm surprised these grocery store oysters are still alive.
crassostreus virginicus, got them in a half gallon with a phyto drip of five ounces of 100,000 ish cell count over eight hours. also random slurry of rice, wheat and algae flours, low concentrate fed two mils. constant 76 degrees .
hundred percent water change every day.
i've transferred some of the fry to my two and a half gallon vase. it has an inch and a half sand bed. rubble and a pair of pistols. this vase gets a daily wc from the dt. it's teaming with pods and ciliates. it's at 79 degree. just an air line bubbling away. low boil.
my dt is cloudy. with life. it's been jammed with phytos, polluted with stinky cabbage water, i've dumped so many copepods and ciliates into this vase it's hard to tell the goby fry from the copepods. i did find eight fry swimming in the dt on sunday. a few the week before, but nothing since. so i'm thinking this bloom of tiny zooplankton will increase their odds. i'm just going to maintain the fry in the smaller vase the best i can until i fatten up the oysters. this batch probably won't make it either. i'm dosing about four ounces of stinking cabbage tank water with a ciliate count of about a trillion per mil. ish. in a two and a half gallon cylinder vase. i'm not counting on it at the moment. but i'm trying. i've got rotifers in there and the copepods are at a high level.
i'm just gonna maintain the high zooplankton levels in both vases and persevere.
i figure the oyster project will start in a few weeks. maybe mid december....if the fish are still breeding.... i'll definitely keep this thread up to date. expect pics when i get a day off.

 

[kizanne]

any updates?

 

[Betta132]

Perhaps you could set up a small tank with a lot of macroalgae and carefully transfer fry when you see them?

 

[gogo7]

hello everybody.....sorry i haven't updated, but i haven't seen a batch up til tonight at lights out. this is batch five. i've been busy with work and have neglected the dt maintenance this week. just a couple of water changes on the fly, with no daily algae scraping, scrubbing, just straight up wcs, maybe a gallon over the past week. even skipped feeding the animals this week. it looks very swampy. all it needs is some duckweed floating on top.......

so some observations on breeding behaviour in this pair of stonogobiops nematodes in a four gallon reef vase.
during the break from producing offspring, i noticed the female was not skittish and was quite tame, as she was before the breeding took place. almost hand feeding again.
the passed few days she's been absent. i was worried that she might have jumped.
tonights batch confirmed that she's breeding. i expect to see her tomorrow and have got a batch of frozen amphipods to fatten her for sunday, if she hasn't already started laying again. this week, the diet of the adults consists almost exclusively on copepods and whatever amphipods they catch in the dt. the male gobie is very fat. the dt is teeming with copepods.
the sexual dimorphism between the two is that the female ( i think) has a extended lower jaw, that looks pointed and she has a longer flank. the male is shorter and has a longer dorsal ray, although during courtship, the ray gets ripped up. this is the dimorphism, it could be reversed, i'm not 100% though. there is a bloodspot that appears on their 'cheeks' during courtship. it appears to be bruising.
a day or so before larvae arrive in the dt, the pistols fan the entrances of the tunnels. i assume the larvae are clinging to the walls of the tunnels at this time.
i didn't prep for this batch, but i'll be ready for next sunday.
a note about the oysters. i cooked the half dozen i had in a one gallon. and not in the 'dinner' kind of way. i've been fattening up three large oyster in the smaller vase, two and a half gallon. there's been a few water changes but i give them yeast and about 250 mls of phyto daily. i'm feeding them dunaliella and nannochloropsis at the moment. maintaining them at 79'. the plan is to go buy some small males this week and induce spawning for sunday night. hopefully i can get some success feeding this fish larvae with oyster plankton.
i'm going to transfer the new batch of gobie larvae from tonight into the two and a half gallon that houses the oysters and hopefully one or two make it to sunday. i doubt it though. although it's teeming with copepods and ciliates. the daily phyto feed helps to maintain the high zooplankton populations. there's only a pair of pistols in there, so predation should be at a minimum.

i'm looking for a digital microscope to start taking pics of everything. my cellphone/microscope pictures are useless.

 

[kizanne]

Great info. Love the updates.

I would love to know what digital scope people recommend. I've been thinking about buy a celestron amoeba it goes to 200x, with my current microscope I find 100x is all I need to look at shrimp babies, rotifers and copepods. plus with digital pictures you can then zoom in for a little added magnification.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/celestron-amoeba-digital-microscope-gray/5395399.p?id=1218639329613

The only reason I haven't already bought one is I'd like to know what others have used or what they think about the amoeba.

 

[gogo7]

i think i'm heading out that way some time soon. i really need a good microscope....

this is a rotifer through my scope, using my cell.. i'm actually kinda impressed that i could get a pic..
thanks for the input kizanne

 

[gogo7]

after a long week of union nonsense i'm at least experiencing the rewards of the hobby i so dearly love. it's lovely to retire to this hobby when your job can be a freaking living nightmare.
sunday night i came home to a vase full of goby larvae. i've finally seen the female(?) after almost a week. my wife had me convinced that the crab ate her. until tonight. (i've had issues with perolisthes making little fishes disappear)
i came home to find her half way in the water column with the male(?) picking copepods.
i immediately rewarded her with some pellets. a week under ground....
i dont feed much more than topping up the pods and rotis, if the pod population on the glass is low, i harvest and top up. maintaining plankton levels keeps the adults in peak condition. this is much easier to do in a small vase, with a dense worm population and deep sand bed, breeding these fish is not the issue. it's finding the right food. i'm cultivating all sorts of stuff to try and find the right foods. i burned out another oyster yesterday. i've got to set up a timer system for the oyster spawn to coincide with the goby spawns. i'm feeding the oysters nanno duna and bakers yeast. the two and a half gallon vase they're in is teeming with copepods and rotis. and to boot the carribean pistols i've got in there are producing babies. if i can i'll get pics....
i've got another species of ciliate i haven't seen yet, in a dense population in a 600 mls pop bottle, with some of my rotis. it's orange colour even under blue light in the microscope at 100x. it looks like and even moves like a paramecium, moves fast on the slide, but hangs in the water column in the culture bottle. the sg is 25..26 ish and the temps range from 69' 80' in my plankton cultures . i'm loading the rearing vase with these things. gotta go getta digital microscope.
i'm fishing babies out into the rearing vase tonight. no major breakthroughs expected though....i'm still trying to perfect the teks. who am i kidding, i've got no clue what i'm doing and i'm just driving myself nuts trying to raise a few little fishes.

 

[gogo7]

hello folks... it's saturday night and no little fish yet. i didn't get a day out of the last batch. a note that the fry seem to be getting larger with every batch.
i'm down to two female oysters left. the same feeding regimen. i think the oysters are eating the rotifers as well as the yeast phyto combo. the roti count depletes daily. i'm laying off with the oyster project and gonna just try to maintain them until i feel a little more confident at inducing spawning. it's a pia. and i don't wanna nuke that little vase.
there's a small favites(?) frag in the vase with the pair of pistols and oysters. the copepod count is average 2 per mil. i'm adding ciliates daily as well.
i've isolated(?) three possibly four species of ciliates(?) that i'm feeding both vases.
everything is fed the yeast phyto combo. tigriops has contaminated everything with water in it. as long as i keep up with the twice daily feedings, i don't get any culture crashes.... yet. i have a feeling the copepods are eating the smaller ciliates. ciliate A is the smallest, being a stemmed rotater. it is the one culture that i think the copepods are eating. i have to harvest the copepods daily from the two A cultures that i have.
ciliate B culture is visible to the naked eye, the size of copepod nauplii. i real contender on my list. i think the copepods are feeding on these as well. ciliate C is long and also visible to the naked eye. it's a fast mover, but hangs in the water column. i think it might be a bit too long for the goby larvae. and the copepod population in ciliate C is low. i'm not even sure if all these animals are actually ciliates. i'm currently stuck at a meager 100x microscope, and it's not a good one. don't worry folks, i'll get you some pics from a new scope as soon as i can.
when i get a digital microscope, this will all make sense.

this is the plankton setup. the two and a half gallon vase is the largest vessel. the rotifer and ciliate cultures are on the top shelf under a 20w bulb. and a par 30. the other vases are artemia cultures in various stages. i feed the adults to the gobies. everything runs on air.

ciliates visible to the naked eye.

this is the female pistol that's pregnant. i'm not sure if this species is hermaphroditic.
i hope so. maybe i can get them to cycle with the goby fry.

i'll update over the next few days. perhaps get some pics of the fry.
patience and perserverance.