Green Mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) Breeding Log!
- Thread starter mwp
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mano
New member
Nice looking brood stock! Great job capturing the egg development! Are you going to try to photograph any of the larval development? That would be really awesome to see and you would get a better idea of what flexion is. In case you, or anyone else, is unclear about flexion it's basically a larvae at the stage of development when the posterior end of the vertebral column starts to bend upwards, in preparation of the caudal fin. The fin rays will also start to appear around this time. Here is a link that will show it http://access.afsc.noaa.gov/ichthyo/premersearch.cfm
Really a great thread!
I wish you lots of luck Matt!
Christine
Really a great thread!
I wish you lots of luck Matt!
Christine
mwp
In Memoriam
Thanks Kathy! I didn't go out looking for another female, but it had been sitting in the back of my mind. Her coloration is so intense (on the red/orange end of the spectrum) and the fact that she was in fact a "she" - I just had to add her!
No microscope...still using the psuedo setup of a LED flashlight, microscope slides (actually had those on hand for spreading dried butterflies) and a 10X jeweler's loop. Just shooting those eggs with the macromode on my Nikon Coolpix 5700.
- an update on the larval tank -
I removed about 1/2 gallon of bottom detritus in a water change; added in 2 gallons of fresh saltwater, so we're now at 7.5 gallons in the tank. I figured the dilution factor would help out in these early stages...I may have to add the phyto and SS rotifers tomorrow AM before heading into the office...it might be "early" for them but I don't think it will be a problem.
Matt
mwp
In Memoriam
Christine, thanks for the definition of "Flexion" - that's great to know...my googling didn't produce any satisfactory definitions!
I have pictures of larval development out to 5 days, so after that I may have to start taking more pictures again! Of course, we have ANOTHER weekend away so we'll miss a couple days in there I think.
Matt
mwp
In Memoriam
6-19-06, 1:05 AM - I know recording every little mundane detail might seem a bit much, but you never know if something like this proves to be the winning ticket (or bites you in the a s s). I was harvesting phyto cultures and ran out of room...needed to pour off around 200 ML of Tetraselmis and didn't want to waste it. Thought about it's "disease preventative" powers and figured "what the heck", so somewhere between 100 and 200 ML of a ripe Tetraselmis culture was added to the mandarin's larval tank. They shouldn't be eating until morning, but it likely can't really hurt things that much.
FWIW,
Matt
FWIW,
Matt
mwp
In Memoriam
Anderson! "Free Swimming" at 12-16 hours is unheard of in the fish we're used to breeding, but hey, that's what Mandarins do! They should be feeding by noon tomorrow...or at least they have a MOUTH and eyes by that point!
Here's as much info as I can provide on Mai's latest article. Excuse my lack of bibliographic correctness!
The Article is:
Mai, Wolfgang, "Mission Accomplished: Spawning the Spotted Mandarinfish (Synchiropus picturatus)". Coral, Volume 2, Number 6, December 2005/January 2006, pages 60-65.
You can find more information on the issue at http://www.coralmagazine.com/backIssues/dec05-jan06.htm
"Back issues for U.S. and Canadian residents are available while supples last, for $10 per issue. Please contact your coral representative, at (714) 543-4100."
I'll warn you again though, it appears that some of the translations of numerical data such as times and lengths are screwed up, while other observations just "differ" and some facts are glossed over a bit...if you can get ahold of Sadovy's article it has MUCH more info on larval development and to me has, in some respects, been a more valuable reference. Mai's article is really worthwhile for the pictures and general descriptions.
BTW, some observations I should have posted earlier - all the eggs were on the bottom of the tank by late Sunday evening...it appears that those that don't hatch sink, or maybe they sink first and then hatch...still haven't pinned that down, but it doesn't appear that any more larvae "showed up" late in the evening...I'm still going to guess a hatch of about 20-25 or so. The water change seemed to have no ill-effect on the larvae either which is a good thing to know!
FWIW,
Matt
Here's as much info as I can provide on Mai's latest article. Excuse my lack of bibliographic correctness!
The Article is:
Mai, Wolfgang, "Mission Accomplished: Spawning the Spotted Mandarinfish (Synchiropus picturatus)". Coral, Volume 2, Number 6, December 2005/January 2006, pages 60-65.
You can find more information on the issue at http://www.coralmagazine.com/backIssues/dec05-jan06.htm
"Back issues for U.S. and Canadian residents are available while supples last, for $10 per issue. Please contact your coral representative, at (714) 543-4100."
I'll warn you again though, it appears that some of the translations of numerical data such as times and lengths are screwed up, while other observations just "differ" and some facts are glossed over a bit...if you can get ahold of Sadovy's article it has MUCH more info on larval development and to me has, in some respects, been a more valuable reference. Mai's article is really worthwhile for the pictures and general descriptions.
BTW, some observations I should have posted earlier - all the eggs were on the bottom of the tank by late Sunday evening...it appears that those that don't hatch sink, or maybe they sink first and then hatch...still haven't pinned that down, but it doesn't appear that any more larvae "showed up" late in the evening...I'm still going to guess a hatch of about 20-25 or so. The water change seemed to have no ill-effect on the larvae either which is a good thing to know!
FWIW,
Matt
I´ve been looking for Sadovy´s article (actually I have written to her and to Prof. Rasotto but no answer yet form either both...).
This week I´ll be at a public library with free access to SpringerLink and will finally get it !
Seems like it was a funded project for the national Geographic Society !
Lets see if I can make it this time.
Anderson.
This week I´ll be at a public library with free access to SpringerLink and will finally get it !
Seems like it was a funded project for the national Geographic Society !
Lets see if I can make it this time.
Anderson.
seafarm
Premium Member
The Tetraselmis should definately be a +++. Greenwater technique is very common in fish hatcheries. It creates a "fog" that gives the larvel better visual accuity and helps them with their success rate in striking their live feeds. Larval fish have a very small amount of stored up energy and need to conserve as much as possible until their guts get well developed and full of food.
mwp
In Memoriam
Cool! I *wish* I could NOT feel guilty about freely distributing Sadovy's article as it WAS given to my by someone else who had access to it, but knowing how nasty I get when defending my own copywritten materials, I just *can't* justify it 
Public Library..there's a good way to get it without shelling out $30!
FWIW, I did a "headcount" and made it up to around 23 or so. It really neat that I can simply turn the flashlight on and usually find 1 or 2 larvae in the beam at any given moment.
I'm still trying to figure out - my last random sampling prior to hatch had 1/3 viable eggs. While I'm no pro at this (in fact it's been YEARS since I bothered doing this type of stuff) here's what I've come up with.
Population Size = I marked this down as a good sized spawn, 400-500 eggs, but as with most all the spawns I didn't count. I harvested about 1/2 gallon of water, so I may have only had more like 200-300 eggs, but again, I varied the harvest method on some of the "late floaters" via using a pipette instead of a jar to get them out. So let's say 400 eggs.
I sampled 15, so the margin of error is around 24%. In my sample, I had 33% viable eggs +- 24% then...so to extrapolate based on a population of 400, I had somewhere between 36 and 228 eggs that were viable. So in theory there should be at LEAST 30+ larvae in the tank right now IF I had 400 eggs. If I ditch the margin of error and just extrapolate from thesample, I *should* have around 132 larvae...I definitely don't have that many in my opinion.
Overall, I have a feeling that something is still getting in the way of the early egg development. I'm hoping that simple sterile water is really all it ends up taking...I clearly had a good hatch without ANY circulation other than a steady air feed in one corner of the tank...heck I found larvae in the miniscus earlier today so eggs getting "stuck" on the sides didn't really seem to be a problem. If this batch keeps going and I get future spawns, they're going to go straight into sterile water in whatever will hold them with a slow air feed because it really looks like that's all it takes afterall?! Yes, I'm basing this off one good hatch from a group of eggs that got totally "mistreated" in the flow-through kriesel; if I can replicate this a couple more times I think we'll be onto something.
Here's what I AM comfortable in concluding - INCUBATION method really doesn't seem to be all that important! Kriesel, Stirrer, or tank with air feed, all have produced at least one 'double digit' hatch. Going back to the one good hatch with the kriesel, I'm pretty sure that was in a tank with freshly mixed water that had gone in earlier that day or the day before..in other words a pretty clean environment. This latest hatch, same deal. I think ED is definitely onto something with regards to fugus/bacteria getting in the way of things going normally.
Well, while I eagerly await the first true feeding of SS-Strain Rotifers and T-Iso, I can only hope for more spawns in the coming months to try out with sterile water. If I can start getting hatches at least this size it will be workable (i.e. I don't think placing smaller larvae in with older siblings is going to pose any major problems).
Settlement is only 11 to 13 days away now...I can hardly wait. DARNIT I have two trips out of town this week...NOT GOOD but I think I can leave the babies in good hands (if they make it that far).
GROW UP ALREADY (a directive to the baby mandarins)!
MP
Public Library..there's a good way to get it without shelling out $30!FWIW, I did a "headcount" and made it up to around 23 or so. It really neat that I can simply turn the flashlight on and usually find 1 or 2 larvae in the beam at any given moment.
I'm still trying to figure out - my last random sampling prior to hatch had 1/3 viable eggs. While I'm no pro at this (in fact it's been YEARS since I bothered doing this type of stuff) here's what I've come up with.
Population Size = I marked this down as a good sized spawn, 400-500 eggs, but as with most all the spawns I didn't count. I harvested about 1/2 gallon of water, so I may have only had more like 200-300 eggs, but again, I varied the harvest method on some of the "late floaters" via using a pipette instead of a jar to get them out. So let's say 400 eggs.
I sampled 15, so the margin of error is around 24%. In my sample, I had 33% viable eggs +- 24% then...so to extrapolate based on a population of 400, I had somewhere between 36 and 228 eggs that were viable. So in theory there should be at LEAST 30+ larvae in the tank right now IF I had 400 eggs. If I ditch the margin of error and just extrapolate from thesample, I *should* have around 132 larvae...I definitely don't have that many in my opinion.
Overall, I have a feeling that something is still getting in the way of the early egg development. I'm hoping that simple sterile water is really all it ends up taking...I clearly had a good hatch without ANY circulation other than a steady air feed in one corner of the tank...heck I found larvae in the miniscus earlier today so eggs getting "stuck" on the sides didn't really seem to be a problem. If this batch keeps going and I get future spawns, they're going to go straight into sterile water in whatever will hold them with a slow air feed because it really looks like that's all it takes afterall?! Yes, I'm basing this off one good hatch from a group of eggs that got totally "mistreated" in the flow-through kriesel; if I can replicate this a couple more times I think we'll be onto something.
Here's what I AM comfortable in concluding - INCUBATION method really doesn't seem to be all that important! Kriesel, Stirrer, or tank with air feed, all have produced at least one 'double digit' hatch. Going back to the one good hatch with the kriesel, I'm pretty sure that was in a tank with freshly mixed water that had gone in earlier that day or the day before..in other words a pretty clean environment. This latest hatch, same deal. I think ED is definitely onto something with regards to fugus/bacteria getting in the way of things going normally.
Well, while I eagerly await the first true feeding of SS-Strain Rotifers and T-Iso, I can only hope for more spawns in the coming months to try out with sterile water. If I can start getting hatches at least this size it will be workable (i.e. I don't think placing smaller larvae in with older siblings is going to pose any major problems).
Settlement is only 11 to 13 days away now...I can hardly wait. DARNIT I have two trips out of town this week...NOT GOOD but I think I can leave the babies in good hands (if they make it that far).
GROW UP ALREADY (a directive to the baby mandarins)!
MP
mwp
In Memoriam
Indeed! I also have 2 of the 4 sides currently "blacked out"...I'm back to wondering about lighting...i.e. should I perhaps try gentle 24 hour lighting with the babies?
I have decided based on my earlier larval feeding attempts (i.e. GBGs) that I'm going to go "light" on the feeds this time. There's already a fog in the tank from the 200 ML of Tetraselmis, so I don't think I'm going to be dumping in a LITER of T-Iso (as you might with some of the goby breeding guidelines). Probably going to do 200 ML of T-Iso in the morning and see how that goes, + a small harvest of the SS-Strain.
Part of the problem we had in our 5-day record may have been that the tank almost looked more like a rotifer culture by that point...too much life vs. the larvae present. I'm going to also try to stay on top of small water changes (i.e. 1 gallon daily) to see if that helps at all, and we're still going sans-filtration of any kind at this point.
I think it was about the 36 hour mark that we lost most of the larvae in our last "double digit" hatch...if I still have 20 or so larvae by tomorrow evening I'm going to be feeling a bit more confident!
I'm too excited to sleep!
MP
AZreefkeeper
In Memoriam
mwp
all your efforts and patiance have inspired me to try breeding either clowns or cardinals and hopefully someday the mandarin.
Keep up the great work. Its all going to be worth it very soon and I'm sure everyone here is cheering for you.
good luck
all your efforts and patiance have inspired me to try breeding either clowns or cardinals and hopefully someday the mandarin.
Keep up the great work. Its all going to be worth it very soon and I'm sure everyone here is cheering for you.
good luck
mwp
In Memoriam
Thanks guys - I'm curiously pleased to hear that my consistent failures are inspiration enough to make other folks try
The latest news on the larvae...it looks like a few may not have made it through the night - either that or with the food in the tank they're harder to "find" than before! The larvae are now hanging motionless for the most part, usually head down but sometimes still upsidedown....They don't like quite ready to feed yet..they still have some "yolk sack" remaining. Probably by evening they'll be ready.
MP
The latest news on the larvae...it looks like a few may not have made it through the night - either that or with the food in the tank they're harder to "find" than before! The larvae are now hanging motionless for the most part, usually head down but sometimes still upsidedown....They don't like quite ready to feed yet..they still have some "yolk sack" remaining. Probably by evening they'll be ready.
MP
mwp
In Memoriam
Just an interesting "aside" to the larval development...I'm sitting here watching female #2 in the breeder net. For the most part she's very chilled...that is until our first female swims by the net.
The first female just kinda looks at her in the net and shrugs it off, going back to picking at the rocks and such. However, the new female goes NUTS anytime #1 shows up, flairing her fins as if to impress or scare #1. I'm glad that she's in the breeder net...she could be a trouble maker!
I think the upside of the breeder net "trail", in addition to being used to get her onto frozen foods, may be that the fish can slowly get used to each other without any serious combat. We've all read that you can't keep two mandarins together...if you dig deeper you find that that is usually in reference to two males. What I HAVEN'T been able to find is any references on the compatability of 2 female mandarins in the aquarium, but some of the earlier references to wild spawning events (thanks again!) suggest that females will congregate and that males will mate with any willling female...basically polygamous spawning behavior. So likely our male will not have a problem mating with #2 when she's ready and will not harrass her too much (any aggression he displays now is minimal, and with 2 females, that might be further diffused between the two females). What I just don't know is how the 2 females will get along, especially in such small quarters!
Matt
The first female just kinda looks at her in the net and shrugs it off, going back to picking at the rocks and such. However, the new female goes NUTS anytime #1 shows up, flairing her fins as if to impress or scare #1. I'm glad that she's in the breeder net...she could be a trouble maker!
I think the upside of the breeder net "trail", in addition to being used to get her onto frozen foods, may be that the fish can slowly get used to each other without any serious combat. We've all read that you can't keep two mandarins together...if you dig deeper you find that that is usually in reference to two males. What I HAVEN'T been able to find is any references on the compatability of 2 female mandarins in the aquarium, but some of the earlier references to wild spawning events (thanks again!) suggest that females will congregate and that males will mate with any willling female...basically polygamous spawning behavior. So likely our male will not have a problem mating with #2 when she's ready and will not harrass her too much (any aggression he displays now is minimal, and with 2 females, that might be further diffused between the two females). What I just don't know is how the 2 females will get along, especially in such small quarters!
Matt
mwp
In Memoriam
Christine, yeah, it's a book at this point. I've posted the info before but for now here's the latest that's in the feed rotation:
Mysis - Piscene Energetics, Life Line, San Fransisco Bay and Hikari
Brine Shrimp - SFB Omega 3, SFB Spirulina Enriched, Hikari
Enriched Plankton - Hikari
Copepods - Reed Maricultures Arcti-Pods (or is it all one word, Arctipods) and just a touch of Cyclopeze
The foods are soaked in Reef Plus (Seachem), Super Selcon, and Ocean Rider's Vibrance II. Sometime's it's just one supplement, sometimes 2, and occasionally all three. I tend to make up a batch consisting of EVERYTHING in a cup, add supplements, and let it defrost in the Fridge. It usually lasts me 2 days and I simply grab the food out of the cup with a pair of forceps...keeps most of the liquid in the cup, not in the tank.
So a couple updates. First, Mrs. Mandarin II is chowing down on live brine with LOTS of gusto. This can only be promising...she wasn't on her deathbed when I bought her but the belly was definitely hollow. Enrichment for the next week or so should fatten her up a bit, and during the 2nd week if all is going well I'll try to pull off the switch to frozen brine...wish me luck on this front.
The LARVAE - well, 2 runs through the tank and both times the count was 4. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Now, they are harder to see with the algae in the tank, but it's not like pea soup or anything. The strange part is that I'm not finding bodies, yet the unhatched eggs litter the bottom everywhere. The only thing I can think to explain this is that the eggs have a tough protective outer shell whereas a larvae does not, so when a larvae dies it decays rapidly whereas the eggs take a while longer.
Water quality - pH 8.1, Nitrite appears 0. I'm going to let the ammonia tests sit for 30 minutes...Alice at the thermometer and the new one hasn't arrived yet - by touch I'd say it's around 78F.
FWIW,
Matt
Mysis - Piscene Energetics, Life Line, San Fransisco Bay and Hikari
Brine Shrimp - SFB Omega 3, SFB Spirulina Enriched, Hikari
Enriched Plankton - Hikari
Copepods - Reed Maricultures Arcti-Pods (or is it all one word, Arctipods) and just a touch of Cyclopeze
The foods are soaked in Reef Plus (Seachem), Super Selcon, and Ocean Rider's Vibrance II. Sometime's it's just one supplement, sometimes 2, and occasionally all three. I tend to make up a batch consisting of EVERYTHING in a cup, add supplements, and let it defrost in the Fridge. It usually lasts me 2 days and I simply grab the food out of the cup with a pair of forceps...keeps most of the liquid in the cup, not in the tank.
So a couple updates. First, Mrs. Mandarin II is chowing down on live brine with LOTS of gusto. This can only be promising...she wasn't on her deathbed when I bought her but the belly was definitely hollow. Enrichment for the next week or so should fatten her up a bit, and during the 2nd week if all is going well I'll try to pull off the switch to frozen brine...wish me luck on this front.
The LARVAE - well, 2 runs through the tank and both times the count was 4. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Now, they are harder to see with the algae in the tank, but it's not like pea soup or anything. The strange part is that I'm not finding bodies, yet the unhatched eggs litter the bottom everywhere. The only thing I can think to explain this is that the eggs have a tough protective outer shell whereas a larvae does not, so when a larvae dies it decays rapidly whereas the eggs take a while longer.
Water quality - pH 8.1, Nitrite appears 0. I'm going to let the ammonia tests sit for 30 minutes...Alice at the thermometer and the new one hasn't arrived yet - by touch I'd say it's around 78F.
FWIW,
Matt
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