classroom captive breeding program

[Boundless]

I wish I was in that class! btw what is the name of the class?

 

[timb0x]

What school is this? I wish I had gone there. I went to HCHS.

 

[hobogato]

thanks for the comments, this is Environmental Systems class at James Madison HS

 

[Shootcat]

thats really cool, good luck with all your pairs. thats a cool set up!

 

[hobogato]

thanks shootcat

well, thought i would post pics of the phyto setup as we finally split out into the last of the seven cultures we want to keep.

here are the four we had running before the split, the one second from the right has been a little slow starting, so we did not mess with it today

we took half of each of the other three cultures and started three new cultures.
here it is without the light across the front

here it is as it normally sits

also got some baby cuttles in today. they are tiiny but look healthy.
here they are drip aclimating

 

[hobogato]

sad morning. two of the three new baby cuttles that came in last week died between Sunday and this morning. also, the hatchling that was doing great and was about the size of a dime died over the same time period. everything else in the entire system looks good.

 

[hobogato]

it has been quite a while since i have updated this. we have given up on raising cuttlefish, but are slowly moving forward with other things

we just getting things going again for this school year. we have already established our nano phyto cultures and rotifers. we have iso phyto cultures that arent starting up as easily as we hoped. also we now have about 20 one day old clowns that donated by a local reefkeeper.

they are already zooming around eating up rotifers

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zjqHzTyt5Jo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[hobogato]

day 5, so i gave the baby clowns their first meal of newly hatched baby brine - they seemed very interested and seemed to eat some. there are about 10 that made it.

 

[Clownfishfan]

Be careful I have read that a baby clown will eat to much or swallow a shell and die. Anything with the cardinals ? Awesome setup!

 

[billsreef]

Thanks for the update, and congrats on the progress :thumbsup:

Clownfishfan,

I've heard that bit about larval clownfish overeating repeated often, however, I've yet to actually witness it happen with clownfish or any other species that I've reared.

BTW the shell problem is something that is best avoided by using decapsulated cysts.

 

[Clownfishfan]

I know that doni marie on onother forum had this problem and switched to otohime.de-capped brine also eliminates the chances of hydroids. I use those for my dwarf seahorses

 

[hobogato]

thanks for pointing that out guys.

yes, i should have mentioned that i have entire batch of 6 month old clowns from the same parents at home that i raised, and we have several locals raising them. some are using the decap brine, but i am using cone hatcheries that allow me to separate the capsules from the brine very easily.

 

[hobogato]

it has been a while since the last update, so here is what is going on now

nano, roti, and iso cultures are trucking along well. two of the last batch of clowns made it through morphing, not sure why the survival rate was so low. they are both platinums and look healthy and normal.

also started a new adventure this Sunday - H. reidi babies

they are now four days old, here is a cruddy pic with my phone. i also took a video, but have to wait until this evening to upload it. thanks again Karin!

 

[billsreef]

Very nice :thumbsup:

 

[hobogato]

thanks bill

here is the video i shot yesterday with my phone

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JPdI41l_iuA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[hobogato]

baby ponies are a week old - still have about 100 that are doing well

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/a-Fria_eWys" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[hobogato]

the kreisel has been plagued with hydra, so i moved the remaining ponies to a tank in the main classroom system. i counted 61 as i moved them. i have switched to decapsulated brine to try to keep from introducing hydra again.

took some pics, but they did not turn out. this video is cruddy, but you can see they have grown quite a bit.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/d6hw80NmuhU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[billsreef]

Looking good.

Those hydra certainly are pesky. Sometimes I think they are good argument for spontaneous generation :eek1: I used to get them showing up in the lab, despite only using decapped brine. Though in my case, the original introduction was with wild collected eggs (fish) with some hydro making it through the egg disinfection we usually did.

 

[hobogato]

i am amazed that they became an issue bc the cyst i was using are almost two years old.

another addition to the classroom project today - 22 banggai cardinals. we put them into the tanks in groups of three to try to establish pairs.

 

[hobogato]

ok, it has been a while since i posted here, but it is a bit of a rebuilding year for us. i spent a few hours cleaning out some of the breeder tanks for an exciting donation that i received today

here are the tanks i prepped:

first, some fish donated for the display tank - a vlamingi tang, sailfin tang, scopas tang, butterfly and puffer