Green Mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) Breeding Log!

[mwp]

Well, it's the 300th post to the thread, figured I should "celebrate" and add some new info!

Including my first post, we've had 11 spawns that I've noticed so far....it kind of averages out to about a spawn for every 5 days.

I haven't fully finished crunching data (partially because I can't figure out how to graph it properly) but after charting out the dates on our spawns and comparing them to moonphase...well, it's a bit early to identify a pattern but it certainly seems that FULL Moons are a good bet for a spawn so far. Our first spawn was on a full moon, and the next full moon that came through also had a spawn.

It also seems that the 7 days following a new moon are a good chance to have a spawn, but the biggest flurry of activity occured between 2 days prior and 7 days following the last full moon. On the flipside, there was NO spawns recorded following our first observed spawn, however I must be frank and suggest two possibilities. First, I wasn't EXPECTING spawns, so I wasn't actively looking for them. 2nd, it may have very well been their first spawn in this tank, and I only observed "POSSIBLE" spawning events a couple other times in the old tank. So, for the sake of argument, we can probably consider it their first spawn and consider them still "getting in a groove".

Also, we were out of town for a few days in there, and it's entirely possible I missed some spawns. And of course, coming up this weekend is the next full moon, so a flurry of activity next week might be possible if there is a correlation!

Despite our lighting photoperiod change, spawns are still falling within the regular old timeframe....to date our earliest spawn was 11:30 PM, and our latest spawn was 1:35 AM. So pretty much I have a 2 hour window in which it usually occurs; it seems "somewhat" triggered by lights out but also by internal clock...it may take a while to get them on an earlier spawning schedule after months of a later photoperiod. Darnit I don't want to have to start keeping track of when I turn the lights on and off...what a pain!

Well, the BIGGEST indicator that I can point to before I ever see courtship is a purely qualitative measurement - the female looks "SICKLY FAT" pretty much every day prior to a spawn. With the big drop off in spawning I've been absolutely STUFFING them with food yet the female is not "packing on the pounds". This either tells me that something ELSE has changed in the tank, or mearly that givin what phase of the moon we were going through this last week her biology is telling her it's not time to ripen up yet...

Oh well....MR. Ugly, I think the propeller setup ends up being significantly cheaper than a lab magnetic stirrer but wouldn't it be "cool". Granted, I'm still puzzled by Sadvoy's comments that the eggs were just thrown in a tank with an air feed....all of this propeller / kriesel stuff may just be "whooooey"? Granted, Sadavoy gives no indications on the hatch rate!

MP

 

[mwp]

Alrighty, so my PM inbox is becoming a perpetually FULLBOX!

I have some good PMs from experienced breeders, I hope they don't kill me for "outing" their details here but I gotta keep the inbox open for new PMS! Credit where it's due, these guys have helped out a lot so far and well, the information is far too valuable to simply flush into the virtual drain with one click of the delete button:

RSMAN, on 5-5-06, wrote:

sorry for the late response

ive gone thru your posts

OK, so you've done it. I've gotten my hatch (took about 14 hours). BOTH the air-driven Kriesel and the MINIJET 404 driven stirrer worked this time around. Both are currently turned off as the larvae are swimming.What the HECK do I do NOW?! Should I release them into the 10 gallon tank? Keep them in the incubators until tomorrow (when they've absorbed their yolk sacs)?


thats actually a little quicker than I was getting, but not so much glad the air driven has worked so far, it never worked for me. they need to come out of the hatcher as soon as you can.

yolk absorption occurs within 36 hours. 36 seems a little short also, the 2 brain cells in my head are thinking the air might have accelerated the hatch a bit? and the pics kinda show it a little, donno for sure as I dont have any successful experience with air to compare with, so just watch for it. IME yolk sacks were gone b4 3 days post fertilization. but that did mean that some faster ones were ready in 2 days.

air bubbles on the eggs is normal, if you didnt see them then that is more reason to think that the first batch was a dud.

yes you wanna darken the larval tank sides.

use more iso, than nano,tet. not for the rots, but for the mandarins.

and dont plan on having them on nhbs at day 14, 21-24 was more what i was getting.

LMK if you need any more info, and ill try and respond sooner as i know you need it more now

GOOD LUCK

A note on times, when i was breeding mandarins i was having significant heating issues, that and some still questionable thoughts were to keep the temp down to assist feeding along with many other reasons holding the larva temps down. which will extend the times i was getting, you may not be getting those times just because of temps...

RSMAN, on 5-18-06, wrote:

I dont keep up as much as i shud, i have not caught up much on your thread, last vid i saw was 2+ weeks ago +/- ish

I'm gonna try the propeller...going to get online and purchase the materials tomorrow (I need SLEEP). The 1.25% hatch rate on last night's spawn was totally unacceptable in my book.considering only 60% will make it thru meta and only 60% of them will make it to sellable YEA


Here's what I have to work with. 3 gallons of rotifers, L Strain, that are interspersed with some sort of copepod
is this bigger or smaller than L-strain, do you have a pic of it? how about an estimate of its shape does it look like a lamabean with feet (feet might be SMALL depending on your available magnification)

Tetraselmis, T-Iso
these are the 2 algaes you wanna focus on as direct food.


What's the best plan of attack? my *BEST* was wild plankton, ill post in the thread on this, HOWEVER i did have success with non wild stuff.

I've gone through SOOOO many larvae and countless spawns of my 3 cardinalfish, the GBGs and now the Mandarins (spawning every 24 hours??!??!)...It's been almost 5 months of effort and nothing to show for it...granted I KNOW I should've stuck with the bangaiis but they're too much of a cakewalk now (considering my cichlid hatchery experience). private sale will bring you $50 each, straight to LFS $25~30 and wholesale $15~$20 so YEA, but if you get tooo good the market $'s may drop

Gotta do it, and well, might as well be mandarins, right? YEP

THANKS so much for any help you can provide. BTW, I don't recall asking, but are you still raising mandarins, or did you do it and then move on to the next challenge?
actually generally speaking im not breeding anything, I have some cardinals that toss out babbies and i kinda sorta raise those but only what i can raise in a 29T tank i have a 100 g setup now, down from 5000 at its largest wanna guess why i was having temp problems now btw b4 i forget 70F is ok, not great, but ok. and cooler is better for larva gives them time to get smart b4 they need to eat.

Ediaz, on 6-2-06, wrote:

I though I was going to need help on this one but no

The way researches hatch pelagic is in a flask

see pic:

http://campus.murraystate.edu/acade...0Erlenmeyer.jpg

with a slow movement of air something like MR. ugly shows in the diagram or drawing in his prop tank.

Martin moe's personal comunication( he is working with pygmy angels pelagic eggs, he uses antibiotics and you must change water twice a day, if you don't want to use AB use methilene blue I suspect the eggs are going bad, when i don't use those with dottybacks or gobies they go bad.

I seen that kriesel thing that does not work right.

The water you use for incubation MUST be sterile or this can cause the eggs to go bad also, natural seawater is one of the cleanest ecosystems on earth.

the advantage of the flask is that it can be boiled in the microwave unlike the plastic bottle.

Tha is a way to change water you can also attach a piece of small size nitex to the siphon and drain about a drop per second, the low suction won't suck in the eggs.Make sure the water temp is exactly the same.

If the meth blue is 1 tsp per 10 gal. use 1 drop per liter.Add the meth to the water and then add the eggs it is very tricky to get just one drop .

 

[FishGuttz]

I am amazed by the level of breeders you have direct, indirect contact with. Please take my advice, I'm sure you already do, as that from an innocent bystander. I have bred guppies and bettas only.

You may think I'm crazy. Is it possible to inject more yolk into the eggsack using a 9 gauge needle(I think its under 1mm). you could harvest from a nonviable egg or a donor egg. I thought you might be able to fill up the yolk sac of fry that is still inside an egg to about double the size (in theory) just before hatch. Then the fish would be 72 hours old before needing to eat.

Or are the fry too small- or would this cause them too much stress. Is it even worth the effort.

https://www1.vaxserve.com/index.cfm?event=getProductDetail&product_id=2504&cat_id=41

 

[mwp]

OK, yeah, um that's kinda crazy FishGuttz...I think we finally crossed the line! Well...if I was adept at working under a microscope like they do for invitro fertilization, maybe then...granted that'd probably push the market price per fish to something like a grand a piece!

A Mandarin egg is about 1 mm in diameter

I think we're all getting antsy for the pair to spawn again...I want to see that propeller stirrer do its thing!

MP

 

[mwp]

Alrighty folks, keep your fingers crossed - looks like tonight may be the night, the female is portly beyond belief! Anyone in Chicago want to try raising them (I have a fishing guide all weekend), or at the very least, any suggestions on how to deal with eggs that should hatch about 4 hours after I leave...?

I *think* I may be able to get one of my local buddies to come and feed and watch the eggs...maybe...

MP

 

[mwp]

Alrighty, 6-8-06, 11:08 PM and we have heavy duty courtship going on...lots of rises (turned the lights out in the tank around 10:30 PM but the phyto/orchid rack is still on in the room).

Matt

 

[mwp]

6-9-06, 12:25 AM, we have ANOTHER SPAWN! - gonna start scooping them out in a minute, add them to the stirrer, drain out at least 50% of the tank water from that (from the bottom, eggs will be floating) and replace with freshly mixed saltwater, shoot a vid maybe, 3 drops of MB, drop them in the larval tank and forget about them until noon tomorrow when I have to hit the road. One of my local fish buddies (and a former LFS coworker) is going to take care of the larvae - I'm going to follow the same rough guidelines I gave Renee the last time I had to go out of town..figures when I'm the one NOT taking care of them they get the longest survival!

MP

 

[mwp]

So almost 30 minutes collecting eggs and I still left at least a few in the tank (5 that I KNOW of). This was definitely the largest spawn to date, perhaps 500 to 600 eggs. Looking at the 1 gallon fish bowl, it's FULL, and well, there are eggs EVERYWHERE, not just at the top. A water change, even with an air hose, isn't going to be practical so I'm probably going to skip it.

 

[mwp]

Alrighty, the stirrer is set up and after posting this, I'm off to bed!

Initially I had the water level up to the top of the bowl...it just didn't "look right" though with a lot of eggs stuck at the waterline up against the plastic surface. Simply dabbing my finger in the water produced enough turbulance to knock them off.

So, I slowly siphoned (air hose) into a specimen cup sitting next to the bowl...only lost about 5 eggs that way so hey..maybe it IS possible to do a water change or to even drain it down most of the way...if this doesn't work I may have to try that next spawn. Anyway, I brought the water level down so that the propeller is right underneath the surface of the water...well maybe 1/4" to 1" (it's not "level" in it's rotation). Anyways, I hope this produces a better result to keep eggs OFF the meniscus (spelling?).

Anyway, I don't know, after watching this thing in action with the eggs, 4 RPM seems really slow...certainly not enough to create any readily noticeable centripital force to bring the eggs inward, away from the sides of the bowl. Granted, maybe tomorrow they'll all be clustered in the center!

So, RSMAN, this post is for you - here's 2 vids of the stirrer in action with REAL LIVE MANDARIN EGGS - PRAY folks, PRAY it works! I want AT LEAST 100 larvae to work with!

Quicktime vids, first one around 7 MB, 2nd one around 9 MB:
http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/DSCN2780.mov
http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/DSCN2781.mov

They're uploading now - should be available by 2:00 AM central time.

MP!

 

[mwp]

Wait, I did have to come back and render one other observation about the spawning times and other notes.

First, as noted earlier, the lights were turned off almost 2 hours before the spawning..heck the fish weren't courting when the lights were on this evening. However, once EVERY SINGLE LIGHT ambient in the house was off, including the computer monitor, the spawned. I'm starting to think that regardless of when the main lights go off, the mandarins are waiting for the onset of the DARKEST light levels they experience in a given 24 hour period.

The other observation - these last two spawns have had less large "clusters" of eggs..the eggs are either slightly less sticky or are getting more broken apart during the spawning event. This time around, I noticed a half dozen or so eggs that were already milky...I'm pretty sure we can assume these are duds, but with 5 or 6 hundred eggs, it's not like I'm going to be able to keep track anyway...I expect a LOT of duds.

FWIW,

MP

 

[FishGuttz]

My fingers are crossed.

 

[BrianPlankis]

MP,

Great videos man! WOW those eggs are small. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as well, although it is hard to type this way

Brian

 

[mwp]

6-11-06, 5:30 PM - gave the stirrer a LOOK; the instructions were pretty simple and the guy keeping an eye on it wouldn't make a bum call, so suffice it to say that unless he totally goofed up we had NO HATCH (or a very MINIMAL HATCH) with the propeller stirrer

MP

 

[FishGuttz]

 

[mwp]

6-11-06 - Turned the lights off around 10:40 PM - came back to find the mandarin male courting and the female looking receptive. Don't know if they spawned Friday or Saturday night as I wasn't around, but it sure looks like they'll spawn tonight! As tough as it is for me to do, I think I'll give the propeller setup another go if we get another spawn this evening.

MP

 

[mwp]

Yup, a spawn is coming...I accidentally turned off the moonlights - just got them back on to see them rising.

MP

 

[Gerad]

wow that is simply amazing. a stunning fish comencing.WOW

 

[mwp]

So, my theory about them waiting for the "onset of the darkest light levels of the 24 hour cycle" might be shot...I turned off the monitor around 11:05 (computer time)..10 minutes later they're still just futzing around not making any real earnest attempts to spawn yet. I think they're simply marching to their own drumbeat.

MP

 

[mwp]

6-11-06, 11:20 PM, WE HAVE A SPAWN! - I must have had my back turned 'cause...it probably hapened around 5 minutes ago when I turned on the computer monitor because when I went back, the were "missing"...I figured they were just lost in the Caulerpa again. But I looked back again and still no sign of them..that's when I noticed something floating...took out the flashlight and sure enough...eggs all over the place! I'm off to set up the propeller again - this time I'm doing it desktop, no external heat, 1 drop Methelyne Blue, parental tank water only. Should be the last post for the evening.

ONE other note - while we were gone the ambient room lighting was higher than normal - the phyto/orchid rack was on 24/7.

MP

 

[mwp]

OK, one more set of BTW notes - this turned out to be a rather SMALL spawn. This most likely may be attributed to the fact Friday they only got 2 feedings, and Saturday only 1. Returning this evening they got one more feeding for Sunday. I'm guestimating the # of eggs at around only 150 to 200. For the prior spawn, I removed a full gallon of water in the process of removing all the eggs. This time around, it only took me 1/4 gallon of water to remove them all.

The propeller stirrer is in action with the propeller only a couple millimeters below the surface. Going to add that 1 drop of MB in a few minutes and call it a night.

OK, if THIS doesn't work, I'm going to seriously doubt the fertility of the pair and start focusing on trying to improve that. The two glaring possibilities are nutrition and water column height - they STILL start the majority of their rises from less than 6" below the surface DESPITE having 14-16" to work with....I suspect that lower the rockwork and removing some of the tall gorgonians to have a full 10-12" of clear water above them *MAY* help but honestly I'm not liking that proposition - where am I going to put all my gorgonians and live rock and corals?!.

I CAN'T set up YET ANOTHER TANK, so doing something like placing them in a tall hex is out of the question as well.

Reviewing their diet, I'm at a loss for what could be MISSING - they feed with gusto on the frozen mysis and brine shrimp and there is a wide VARIETY of types and brands in there. They get supplemented with Reef Plus in the tank water plus Vibrance II and Selcon for soaking the foods, PLUS the foods are enriched themselves (i.e. Spirulina and Omega-3 Enriched Brine from San Fransisco Bay Brand). I even tried adding in Reed's new Arctipods (neat stuff BTW, THANKS Randy!) and they occasionally get cyclopeze. I just don't know WHAT I could do differently on the food end.

The more sinister possibility is that one or both of the fish in the pair may have been drug caught which may have damaged their reproductive organs....not LIKELY but surely possible. Or one of them could be really "old" although if you ask me I think they've grown a bit since I bought them and I've certainly seen mandarins substantially LARGER than the ones that make up our pair.

Grasping at straws...I have EVERYTHING I NEED to start raising them (I think), I just need a good hatch again. At this point I think I'd be THRILLED with a hatch of 25 larvae tomorrow evening!

MP