Chalk bass pair and spawning

sculpin

10 & Over Club
Has anyone out there had a spawn from a pair of chalk bass, Serranus tortugarum? Then again, does anyone other than myself maintain a pair of chalk bass? Supposedly, they are like clown fish in that they change sexes to form a pair no matter what the starting sexes were. They should be theoretically easy to have pair and spawn in a reef tank. Raising the fry is, of course, another endeavor entirely.

Anyway, I have noticed recently that one of my pair has hollowed out a little basin in the sand next to an overhanging rock. The fish sleeps in this spot at night and I'm begining to wonder if it isn't the initial stages of a nest. Has anyone had a similar experience, either with this or another Serranus species?

Thanks,

Mike
 
This thread is really old and has had no responses, however I too am very interested in this subject...

I have searched all over this forum and found no others with this subject, so I am trying to give it a chance at life here..

Has anyone had any experience breeding these guys or even maintianing them in pairs/harems?

Thanx
 
Chalk bass are synchronous hermaphrodites. Keeping them from killing each other in aquaria, however, is a different story.
 
Cool thanx Nicole C,

And yup the guys spawned about a month ago...

At that time I had them in a ten gallon tank and the female got so aggressive that she started attaking the heater and filter relentlessly, this was stressing both memebers of the pair out so I figured it was time for a change..

Talked the parents into a 29 gallon, but this meant getting rid of a tank which had my two little black Ocellaris...well now the pair of Ocellaris is living in the 29 with the baby blacks and they are living as a cute family under their little tile house...the larger of the little guys helps the pair clean the tile lol...so cute to watch and there is no agression amongst the family and the female has relaxed quite a bit...I am hoping the next spawn will be in a week or two as she has already missed one of her egg cycles, I think she reabsorbed the eggs unless they ate em while I was at work...

I also have a pair of signal gobies in the tank..lately though the female has been burying the male in the cave for like a whole day then in the evening she unburies him and they feed for a while and he goes back and gets reburied?!?!!?! Wht the heck is going on with them? I have not been able to find anything about breeding them and it seems really weird..any ideas?

Thanx
 
Chalk bass are synchronous hermaphrodites. Keeping them from killing each other in aquaria, however, is a different story.

Huh ???? I had no problem keeping two selected at random and they were always side by side. I've never read or heard of intraspecific aggression at all. What makes you say this?

All those little basslets are "any two will do" :D What I looked at was the spawning rise, the chalks are probably the best bet for aquarium breeding. I had two in my "Caribbean" 125 until the heater went nuts and poached all the fish. A real shame, I had a nice 5" queen angel in there :(
 
Huh ???? I had no problem keeping two selected at random and they were always side by side. I've never read or heard of intraspecific aggression at all. What makes you say this?

Dead fishies -- mine and other tanks I know. Actually, they seemed to do better in small tanks, although 2 in a 10g would be pushing it.
 
Interesting, I was planning to try again so I'll post when I do.

Nicole, "your" oc nest will hatch tonight :D ( if not already, I'll go check now)
 
Crap crap crap... no hatch. They should have gone off LAST night. It's a large nest but maybe no good?
 
OH.. this is the 8th but with summer temps I'm used to 7. Ok we give them one more day... :rolleyes: Actually I had nests on 8/08, 8/10 and 8/12 so it really wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit if a couple of them wanted to double up on the hatch :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7942009#post7942009 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by colby

I also have a pair of signal gobies in the tank..lately though the female has been burying the male in the cave for like a whole day then in the evening she unburies him and they feed for a while and he goes back and gets reburied?!?!!?! Wht the heck is going on with them? I have not been able to find anything about breeding them and it seems really weird..any ideas?

Thanx

They're probably breeding. While I don't necessarily believe it, there IS info out there on their mating habits and from what I recall what you're describing sounds just like it. The wierd part...apparently what will happen is eventually the brood den will be opened up and ONE (1!) larger larvae will appear. I just don't buy it, but that's what the article said!

Matt
 
Hmm...yeah only one sounds a little bit fishy :)...lol

Well I hope they are breeding and I dont just have a case of an over agressive mate here, as the male has stopped eating now and is getting really really thin...I am a bit worried about it, but then again I know other species of fish stop eating when they are brooding babies too...
 
Wierd, all I can do on that one is wish you luck - google it (maybe "breeding signal gobies") and maybe you'll find the article I read - I'd go looking myself but I have to get to bed and I still need to try to get the A. leptacanthus larvae (rather than the male releasing them at 4:00 AM while no one is around)

Matt
 
Very interesting fish ! Makes me think what goes inside that burrow...

The link: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~delbeek/gobies.html

The original article, can´t get it in pdf as it´s quite old.
Hudson, R.C.L. 1977. Preliminary observations on the behaviour of the
gobiid fish, Signigobius biocellatus Hoese and Allen, with
particular reference to burrowing behaviour. Z. Tierpsychol., 43:214-
220.

On the chalk bass just read what Nicole said as they are synchronous hermaphrodites and hatch occurs in 24 hours.

Anderson.
 
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