<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6839866#post6839866 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CirolanidHunter
Wow,
When I get my breeding setup going, remind me to get some of your water, it is a breeding frenzy in your tank!
Brian
Good 'ole Chicago Tap, currently mixed with Reef Crystals.
I'm adding Reef Plus, Reef Complete, Reef Calcium, Reef Builder, Reef Buffer, Reef Iodide (notice a running seachem theme?) - all supplements are somewhat on an "as-needed" basis. I've "cut back" a bit but am still adding Kent's Iron as well, mostly in the cardinalfish tank which is heavily covered in macroalgaes.
Planktonic feeds include Rotifers, Live Nannochloris, Live Nannochloropsus, Live Tetraselmis, as well as Liquid Life's Bioplankton, and occasional uses of DT's / Phytoplex / Phytofeast Live.
Macro Feeds - the mainstays in the cardinalfish tank are Cyclopeze, Hikark Enriched Brine & Mysis, SF Bay Enriched Brine and Spirulina Brine. To a lesser extent, the cardinal tank also gets OSI Spirulina Flakes, Tetra Marine Staple Flakes and Granules. These three dry foods are the mainstain in the Clownfish/Blenny tank, with the aforementioned being thrown in periodically as well. I sometimes soak frozen foods with Selcon, but maybe only 25% of the time.
Live Feeds - infrequently live adult brine, usually enriched with selcon, is fed. To a lesser extent still, brine nauplii. Very occasionally I'll have some "Tiggerpods" to add to the tanks (the cardinalfish ABSOLUTELY LOVE THESE) and even rarer still, occasionally I have some amphipods thrown in.
Water quality wise, everything is kept relatively perfect. Nitrates are "high" according to the cheap liquid tests, but on most days the Seachem test comes back with levels under 5 ppm. All the corals (including SPS) grow well, so I trust the Seachem results.
So there ya have it. Good salt, TONS of variety in the feeds, and good water quality.
Of course, the thing that hits me as being most "unusual" or "different" about our two tanks is that there is only ONE fish that is a "solo"; our Purple Firefish. Every other species we keep, there are at least two, and for the most part, they were purchased with the intent of getting pairs. Some, like the Blennies and Greenbanded Gobies, were just basically purchases of "2" fish...luck. Still others were purchased as likely or compatible pairs. In the case of our true percs, at the time I was working in a shop and placed our pair side-by-side for several days before finally intrucing the larger female into the smaller male's quarters. The standard Firefish - I watched a large group in a tank until I selected likely mates based on interactions between fish in the group. The mandarins, well, we got lucky enough to find a female and placed a male with her. There ya go.
In the cardinalfish, we started with groups. The bangaii's were 5 tank raised juvies that we watched until we had a solid pair, then removed the other 3. The Threadfins - based on size and finnage I tried to select 2 males and 2 females - one suspected male kicked the bucket, and of course in the end it turns out with the three remaining fish that the females were the males and vice versa. Of course, the largest shortcut to successful breeding was the 2m/1f trio of Apogon margaritophorus - I picked them up with one of the males holding a clutch, so that was a no brainer.
In the end, no fish is going to breed successfully if you only have one of 'em in the tank. We've had spawns in all the cardinalfish now (3 species), the GBGs (4 spawns now), and now the blennies. So that's 5 species. The percs...well, they've been cleaning for weeks now, so it's only a matter of time before we get to 6. The firefish I suspect have been breeding all along since about 1 month after their introduction, but I haven't had any means of confirming this. The Mandarins have courted several times and possibly have spawned without our knowledge (once in a while the female goes from very plump to "thin" overnight...not much else is going to cause that much weight loss other than a spawning).
So again, in the end, I think there's SO MUCH spawning activity NOT because of the feeds, the conditions etc. I think it's simply because we have given the fish the opportunity to do what comes naturally by making sure there are the proper partners available!
FWIW,
MP
. Now that I know I have a male and a female, their behavior (his especially) makes me think that they may be spawning as well.
