classroom captive breeding program

[hobogato]

next, the clowns

pair of breeding tomato clowns with two day old clutch of eggs - hopefully they will hatch in spite of the move

pair of gsm clowns - have never spawned

single gsm - will look for a wsm to pair with it asap

occilaris femal/black ice male - have a two day old clutch of eggs, hopefully they will hatch in spite of being moved

black ice misbar male x black ice female - not spawning

darwin female x snowflake male - newly paired (they are hiding behind the pot)

this is an occilaris pair that i picked up a while back - too young to spawn

 

[billsreef]

Nice!

You've got some lucky students :thumbsup:

 

[JLynn]

Seriously lucky kids! Wish my highschool had a class like that. How did the Reidi fry do?

 

[hobogato]

thanks bill and jlynn.

the reidi only made it to about 4 weeks unfortunately. we had a resurgence of hydra and lost them all. also, the fellow reefer who had the breeding pair lost her male, so we wont be doing seahorses again for a while.

 

[hobogato]

i was able to get a cruddy pic of our bashful pair today

darwin female x snowflake male - newly paired

the tomato clutch seemed to hatch early because of the move, only a few eggs remained on the tile today.

the occilaris x black ice clutch seems ok. i think they will hatch in two or three days because i am starting to see shiny eyes.

i tried to find a small starter culture locally a couple of days ago, but couldnt find anyone with rotifers to spare. minh is generously bringing some to me tomorrow when he comes by for a visit. hopefully i can get that culture to mature fast enough to save some of these since it looks like a small clutch. i think if i could have started a culture a couple of days ago it would have been more likely.

 

[hobogato]

so minh came by for a visit today and brought some great gifts for my classroom project.

some rotifers

i split them into two cultures, doubled the volume and gave them some food. hopefully the cultures will mature quickly.

he also brought me 10 of the clownfish that he raised - they are about 5 months old

here they are settling into their tank in the classroom - they started exploring the fake anemone as soon as i put it in with them

i decided to go ahead and bring the oscillaris x black ice eggs home because they are starting to show lots of silver eyes. since it is summer, it will be much easier for me to raise them at home and take them back to the classroom when school starts back up again in the fall. like i said earlier, hopefully those rotifers will populate quickly!

 

[hobogato]

forgot to mention, the parents were quite ticked off at me for taking their tile. i replaced it with an old flat coral skeleton and the male immediately went to work cleaning it up as the female began to inspect it.

 

[hobogato]

a few babies hatched early today, but they seem to be moving around pretty well. the rest will probably hatch tonight or tomorrow night. if i had to guess, i would say there are at least 10 that have already hatched and at least 50 more that have not.

 

[hobogato]

looks like the rotifers are reproducing well, i pulled a pint from each culture and ran it thru the screen. the results were better than expected this soon

 

[billsreef]

Good to hear those rots are reproducing well.

 

[hobogato]

yesterday evening i counted two surviving early hatchers, buy these little buggers are really good at hiding - counting seven early hatchers still alive

i expect most of the rest of the eggs to hatch tonight as they have all gone silver.

now the bad part: i got out the microscope to check on my rotifers, and it looks bad. unless they really multiply overnight, i dont think i will have enough to raise this batch.

 

[hobogato]

well, no more of this batch hatched, and the early hatchers didnt make it. i think they were just moved around too much.

we broke down a 29 gallon tank at our house yesterday and moved the pair of clowns up to the classroom to join the rest

 

[Teage29]

Wow I wish I would be going to that high school!! Your students are soooooo lucky!!! And I have a questions about breeding ocellaris clowns and what would that babies look like when they get older. I have a female orange ocellaris and a black male ocellaris.

 

[hobogato]

i am not sure, i haven't raised any from this cross yet. i think, like with other crosses, there will be some that look like the black one and some that look like the orange one, and then maybe some other variant.

 

[Teage29]

Ok thx do you there might be any onyx colored?

 

[hobogato]

i think it is possible, hopefully someone who has had success with that type of cross will chime in.