Update: The rest of em....
Update: The rest of em....
Well, got home yesterday from work, found another 3 babies swimming amidst the urchin spines. The male was obviously still holding more so we removed those three, got them acclimating for the 2.5g baby tank. And throughout the evening, up until about 9pm he released a few at a time. 20 in all! Not a single loss that we could verify at the time, we think we got all he had. Unfortunatly when we woke up this morning, we could only count 12 in the 2.5g so I really don't know yet if they died sometime through the night or were hiding from sight. It's not a large tank and not heavily decorated so not alot of hiding spots. We may have lost those 8 already.
So, to catch up: Male and Female breeding pair were in a 20g long. Spawned Feb 2nd. Hatched a few days ago, probably sooner, but we didn't notice until a few days ago. The male actually held a clutch full term in a tank smaller than 40g's. I was under the impression this probably wouldn't happen but Yeah!, it did. Nitrates and phosphates both runnin' high (10+ppm) but other than that, parameters have been fine. Temp does fluctuate a little high in the day and very low at night. Parents fed on frozen cubes, mainly mysis, but occasionall reef plankton and krill. And the female is starting to eat the New Life Spectrum: Thera A+ pellets as well. About time too, I'm tired of feeding the bristlworms that well. Be like giving caviar to the dog, heck no!, he gets the cheap stuff!
We took the three 4-5month olds we had remaining and moved them into the 20g long. After seeing the new babies, we realized that even the smallest of the older guys could eat one in a single bite. So all new babies were put in the 2.5g and the parents were removed back into the 55g display tank. I wish I had a camera for everyones benefit, it was quite a sight seeing all those little critters rushing for the urchin. Glad we bought that guy. Immediatly after releasing his last baby, the male went in search of food. He seemed to ignore the little ones though, I'm glad for that. And he was given a nice big fat frozen cube of mysis for all his troubles

. Gone in two bites might I add. He was hungry!
We did attempt to feed the babies some cyclopeeze, but it was kinda hard to tell if they were eating any or not. They're really jitterly at that size and always look like there eating something. And I accidentally dropped way to much cyclopeeze in the tank, so there was so much I couldn't tell if it was "disappearing" or not. I had hoped the 4 month old juvi was going to be small enough to house with the new guys, just to teach em to eat the cyclopeeze, but we'll do it the old fashion way I guess.
We're still unsure as to the sex of 2 of the 3 juvi's but hopefully soon we can figure this one out. They are still smaller than I would want, in order to sell em but actually probably the right size for wholesalers. Given a couple weeks in transit, a couple weeks at a retailer and a month QT by the purchaser and I bet they would be perfect size juvi's.
I'll keep ya guys posted. Feel free to ask questions till your blue in the face, I tend to forget alot of information when I'm typing away. So if you want to know....ask me!
