Green Mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) Breeding Log!

[mwp]

Well, 2 gallons of freshly mixed saltwater have gone in since 3:00 (it's now 4:45). I did a water test, it was already pristine...pH 8.2, free ammonia 0 ppm, total ammonia 0.05 ppm or so, Nitrite 0 ppm...basically any larval losses are NOT due to water quality issues.

All of the larvae were up at the water's SURFACE at 3:30 PM...not sure what that's all about but I DID get to see one open up it's "HUGE" mouth and take down a rotifer...very cool!

MP

 

[mwp]

Well, we're just past 96 hours on the larger babies - over the last 24 hours we lost 75% of the larvae from the spawn on the 27th. 2 left, lookin' "OK" but not very fat I added some 2 more basters of "Mandarin Mix" around 9:30 PM...actually found 2 bodies...frustrated at the moment! we're down to 2 from 613, well there are another 6 babies about 26 hours old...

MP

 

[mwp]

103.5 hours in, those 2 larvae made it through the night but man they look skinny! It's not like there isn't enough food, water quality is fine, but they seem a bit lethargic. I added a small splash of Nannochloropsis straight from a culture (the stuff in the fridge is a bit old at this point) as well as a bit of T-Ios from the cultures as well...can't hurt to round out the nutritional profile a bit more than just T-Iso and Tet. I don't think they're looking all that good at this point...we'll see.

MP

 

[Luis A M]

Wow,your film is great!.looks like an OVNI in outer soace!
And sound effects are terrific!
Using new or broodstock water have both pros and cons.I would try new water.

 

[mwp]

7-2-06, 12:25 AM - WE HAVE ANOTHER SPAWN! - It happened after midnight, I know that to be sure as I checked and then went off on the search for larvae.

BTW, for the record, we are now around 120 hours with the oldest larvae and they are actively swimming and feeding...got to see several strikes and at least a couple rotifer takedowns!

Wasn't prepared for a spawn tonight so I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet!

Matt

 

[Krypticol]

congrats Matt, 120 hours and active that is just awesome.
Very happy to know the dedication you have put into this.
keep up thegreat work, you are pioneering here.

 

[mwp]

Alrighty, so at 12:50 AM I pulled out 1/2 gallon of the parental tank water. Gave it 1 ML regular household bleach.

1:20 AM, tested the water with a dip clorine test - off the scale! Added 1 ML of Prime, swirled it, tested again, all gone! Swirled it a bit more and retested, still 0 free and 0 total chlorine! Not necessarily exactly what Martin Moe suggested, but close enough for a first try. They are now sitting in a 1/2 gallon specimen cup in the parental tank (for temperature regulation) with an air feed doing about 2-3 bubbles per second. By tomorrow afternoon I think we'll have a good idea what type of success this "Bleached parental water" might yield.

Now, historically I have not had any good successes incubating in this particular "specimen cup with air feed" type setup before, so even if it completely fails, I may be able to chalk it up to the container/circulation, not a disproval of Moe's suggestion. However, I still fail to see how doing the same thing in simply a larger container can make that much difference...the dimensions are roughly compareable, temperature regulation would be perhaps even more stable in the specimen cup (24 gallon tank vs. 10). I ALSO think it took me a relatively LONG time to set up this evening...there easily could have been a temperature DROP while waiting for the bleach (the eggs were in a small cup with little water) and then all the counting/photographing before finally getting put into the incubation vessel. My MAIN reason for going this route is that I have those 2 older larvae + a few from the subsequent (and now prior) spawn...I don't want any more dead eggs rotting in the tank NOR did I want to drain the tank and start over. However, whatever hatches in the specimen cup will likely go into the 10 gallon tank tomorrow evening. Well..we'll see.

I then started counting the eggs...just before 1:55 AM I was done with the picture taking. 2:25 AM I finished up counting all the eggs in the pictures - 458 eggs tonight!

Since the eggs obviously sat around a while again, I also wanted to remark that I looked at the pics with an extra side-note...I was looking for signs of viability / development...usually around this time there's a little cell mass of sorts as a sphere inside a larger sphere. Using that as my criteria for a "fertilized egg" I want to say that roughly 95% or higher were fertilized. If this is indeed the case then we really have to focus in further on incubation techniques to maximize hatch rates - microscope observations on future spawns will help confirm if what I'm seeing is actually a cell mass vs. an oil deposit or something.

I'm starting to notice some sort of relationship between the amount I feed in the day or two prior to a spawn and the number of eggs produced. I can't really quantify by the amount of food being eaten by the mandarins, but I can tell you that yesterday they got fed 3-4 times whereas a spawn like our 200 some odd spawn was immediately proceded by some time out of town where Renee's sister was only instructed to feed once per day. I'm not going to dive any further into researching this relationship between food availability vs. fecudity, but I just want to let you guys know that it appears that bigger spawns are the result of more frequent feedings (and thus more food available throughout the day).

MP

 

[mwp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7667064#post7667064 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Krypticol
congrats Matt, 120 hours and active that is just awesome.
Very happy to know the dedication you have put into this.
keep up thegreat work, you are pioneering here.

Thanks Krypt! I don't know that I'd say I'm "pioneering" since at least a few individuals before me have successfully reared various Synchiropus. It does seem that more folks have done it with ease when wild plankton is utilized but I really can't say for certain - you'll notice RSMan has the "proof" right in his avitar, some citations from Moe's email, C-Quest, Sadovy, Mai and others have all raised S. splendidus.

Where I'd like to maybe contribute is to figure out a no-nonsense formula for success. We ALL know that we're going to lose larvae, that's a given - i.e. I lost 75% of the older larvae yesterday...that's a big hit. RSMan has suggested two developmental points where you'll lose as many as 60% of the live larvae at each stage....when you're starting with hatches of only 2-3 dozen on the best ones, the numerical odds are simply so against you, especially when you consider my INEXPERIENCE raising any marine larvae. However, if I could get a HIGH hatch rate and start out with TONS of larvae, the odds simply go up...suddenly losing 60% of 400 babies almost becomes a necessity if all you have to raise the with is 1 10 gallon tank!

Thanks for the props Krypt - I aim to please

Matt

 

[mwp]

FAT BELLIES! I took one last look at the larvae this evening...the ones from two days ago have their eyes, and while I only found 1 of the oldest ones (2 spawns prior now) man what a joy to watch! It was CRUISING on a rampage of destruction...taking a stab at something every 1-2 seconds. VERY VERY actively feeding but honestly, I don't exactly know WHAT it's eating as it's too small for me to see. YES, I've seen them take down smaller rotifers, but there's something else in here they're feeding on that are likely smaller than adult SS strain (no doubt I have some L-Strain rotifers in here as well now...it's one big jumble of life in the 10 gallon tank!) My biggest joy is seeing the fat belly on this active little larvae! Even if I only get to see my mandarins this far (which hasn't happened very often) they are some of the neatest little fish...and FWIW looks NOTHING like the parents. Take one of those lanternfish with the huge heads and sabertooth jaws and miniaturize the heck out of it...the mouth opens up as big as the whole head and make the coloration an olive-green type...that's what thse baby mandarins look like to the naked eye right now!

I THINK the 24 hour lighting has maybe helped just a wee bit but I also think they could use brighter and more direct lighting overhead. Perhaps that's for future experiments..it just seems like the larvae go into a berzerk feeding frenzy every time I'm highlighting them with the flashlight (granted they're pretty hard to observe otherwise).

MP

 

[Krypticol]

Your getting there! Sounds like offering lots of different types, sizes of food is starting to mimic wild plankton maybe.?
Pull that off while keeping their water params good and you might have something...Not as easy as it was to type obviously.
what other first food are there? what more could be offered?
there is certainly more super tiny critter on the reefs than we have access to....I remember seeing a compmay selling liters of live wild plankton, 1 gearing towards copepods, and one not...
I will checkit out...could besomething there.

 

[morejongg]

Great thread mwp

I've been following this thread with great
interest for awhile now.I have a question though.
Which salt mix are you using?
Just wondering if it might have anything to do
with your sucess.

Keep up the good work

 

[mwp]

7-2-06, just before noon. 132 hours on the 2 older larvae, that's 5 days since hatching, 5.5 since being spawned, they're both still present! There is also 4-5 larvae from the prior spawn that are now at 60 hours post spawn, they're running around and apparently feeding too.

All the eggs from last night's spawn so far look good...in the next few hours we should start to see hatching!

2 basters of "Mandarin Mix" have gone into the larval tank.

That's the news from Lake Wobegon.

MP

 

[mwp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7668051#post7668051 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by morejongg
Great thread mwp

I've been following this thread with great
interest for awhile now.I have a question though.
Which salt mix are you using?
Just wondering if it might have anything to do
with your sucess.

Keep up the good work

Thanks ! I'm using Reef Crystals. I'm a Tropic Marin guy at heart, but I'm never able to get it locally anymore and with the amount of salt I'm now going through it's just too expensive.

Matt

 

[mwp]

Well, 6:40 PM and we have a hatch of 1 larvae, so this initial experiment with bleached parental water in a 1/2 gallon specimen cup with air feed is a failure...remeniscent of so many before it....

FWIW,

MP

 

[mwp]

Gave the larvae another "splash" of fresh Nannochloropsis around 8:00 PM - I looked and look and it seems like they're still all there actively feeding but at this point it's pretty hard to tell which larvae are the newer ones and which ones are older...they all look the same color (whereas earlier today the older ones looked more tan and the younger ones were still very green).

FWIW,

MP

 

[mwp]

OK, so if you want to see the last time we got "this far", look back to page 5 of this thread. It's 5 days, 23 hours or so and we still have 2 viable larvae (sounds really familiar compared to last time).

This time around, I also have a few younger larvae in the tank, SS rotifers and full blown cultures at my disposal. In looking at the last picture I got of a mandarin larvae of this age, I'd say our current 'oldest' larvae look to be in better shape...not any easier to find than the infamous "houdini" that escaped the kriesel though!

Tomorrow morning I'll be pretty preoccupied with a car purchase but I hope to get a quick look in there to see if we've broken our record by any significant amount (I could check at 2:00 AM, but what would be the point).

FWIW, the larval tank remains a full blown "soup" of microscopic and other invertebrate life and ALL the mandarins are feeding frequently. The only real difference between our "old pair" and the younger ones is that they old pair are slightly larger, have slightly different finage, bigger eyes (porportionately to the body) and are still slightly more "tan" than the "greenish" larvae from the more recent successful hatch. Sorry, but pics of these little guys are still really hard to come by unless I pull one out and put it on the makeshift microscope.

Which brings me to another topic...a QX5 has been purchased and paid for (a special thanks to an anonymous donor on this front, seriously, THANKS for helpin' out)....haven't heard squat from Aquatic Eco-Systems on my return even though it arrived last Wednesday.... HRM...

So, 11:18 PM, another splash of T-Isocrysis...FWIW a "splash" is probably 100 ML at most...just pouring off some fresh culture from a 2L (the Mandarin mix is about a week old at this point, time to feed off or dispose of the rest of it to things that don't NEED live algae). In general, I'm not really using a "greenwater" technique...the tank is easily visible front to back, top to bottom and even from one end to the other (20"). Even with this sparse algae feeding there is tons of life, so there's no point in adding in more and potentially polluting the tank. Probably tomorrow I'll try another small water change or maybe just an "addition"...the tank level is around 8 gallons right now.

FWIW,

Matt

 

[FishGuttz]

Good news so far... I could be wrong and I usually am but I don't recall you talking about Ph as a significant factor in larval tank. Do you think it even relates?

Doug
-
Can't wait to see the microscopic images!

 

[mwp]

Doug, water chemistry has remained pretty stable in the 10 gallon too much now, at least with the tests I've done. There is a lot of aeration vs. load as well, so things should stay somewhat stable.

So the big news - we still have two viable "oldest" larvae, but it's getting more and more difficult to be sure that I've identified the oldest ones from their younger siblings. The two I found and assume to be the older ones are definitely focused at feeding right at the water's surface and are a bit larger. The rest of the larvae appear to be smaller and are more intent to sit in the water column. I can't be sure, but that's as good as it gets right now.

So, another splash of Nannochloropsis and T-Iso have gone into the larval tank. Looks like we're into new territory!

MP

 

[Jatuki]

Wow, i've been reading this thread/book over the past few days and I can say your success is truly remarkable! Your hatch and survival rate is looking extremely optimistic and improving all the time!

The spawning pair look to be in great condition - fat and happy!

How are the females reacting to eachother at the moment? Still aggro or starting to chill out?

I wish you the best of luck and am crossing my fingers for you all the way!

cheers,

J

 

[mwp]

Some creative googling lead me to some more folk's attempts at raising Mandarins. First up, some threads by "Bang Guy" at the Saltwaterfish.com forums:

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=50784&highlight=mandarin

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=123170&highlight=mandarin

Also, OzReef set up a "Mandarin Survey" at some point - if you're into general dragonette info of all sorts, this may be worth a read.

http://ozreef.org/library/articles/mandarin_survey.html

On the spawning front, with all the excitement around here I've only fed the fish once or twice per day for the last couple days...not too surprisingly there hasn't been much interest in spawning (also, I have not been around to observe the tanks as much as when I work my 9-5 from home during most weeks!).

Jatuki, at this point I'd have to say the "2 females" are still up in the air. I haven't noticed any aggression in the last 48 hours but as I mentioned just a minute ago, I haven't been around as much. #2 is eating frozen foods, but not with the gusto required to make me comfortable with putting her into the tank from a feeding standpoint - she's still somewhat skinny and could use some more fattening up, but it's basically her fault as there's plenty of uneaten food around. She may get a live brine "infusion" tomorrow. On a somewhat related note in the planned "followup project", the male Red Scooter Blenny was released into the 24 gallon cardinalfish tank a couple days ago...he's not losing weight but I haven't really figured out a good feeding "station" for him yet. Overall though he seems happy and now has some live rock to pick on too, so I'm not overly worried about him doing well.

- Larval Update -

It's 11:37, I think we can safely call this 7 days now but officially I can no longer comfortably say which larvae are the older vs. younger ones. It looks like we lost 1 larvae today...a "head" is floating around. There are 2 larvae feeding on the glass, 1 or 2 larvae feeding at the surface, and a few MISC larvae just doing their thing in the water column.

Here's my "take". We're about to kick-off day 8 on the oldest larvae. According to Sadovy's research (which so far has been relatively DEAD ON ACCURATE) larvae in days 6-7 feed actively and are often at the surface. Larvae in days 8-9 are in the presettlement period, and switch to foraging on the verticle glass or the tank bottom.

I had to recheck my math here (dates and times getting me all confused). Oldest larvae were spawned on 6-27-06, 12:06 AM. So basically they are 168 hours old (from the moment of spawning) at this point, finishing up day 7 since the spawn, and about to enter day 8. The younger larvae in the tank were spawned sometime just prior to 12:00 AM on 6-30, so they are 96 hours old, 4 days completed, about to enter their 5th day of life.

I haven't witnessed tank-side feeding prior to this evening. IF we consider that we could be slightly "ahead of the curve" so to speak, either through good nutrition or higher temps, suddenly what I'm seeing makes a whole lotta sense. In theory, the two guys picking at the tank's sides should be my oldest larvae, but I have to say from looking at them they don't appear to be as large as the ones at the surface. Since I have NEVER observed this feeding behavior before, and since it falls into the observations presented by Sadovy, I'm pretty confident that we still have our 2 oldest larvae.

Of course, I only need 1 more full (Tuesday) and without a doubt we'll have past the older record of 5.5 days of life as nothing in the larval tank has been added since the wee morning hours of 6-30 - midnight tomorrow the youngest larvae will have lived 6 full days I'm PRETTY sure that's gonna happen!!!!

WHEEEEE! VERY Excited!

Darnit, I looked back at the tank and guess who's on the back wall flairing fins and trying to impress a tankmate! I just want some sleep!

MP