Green Mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) Breeding Log!

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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8159834#post8159834 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwp
FINAL COUNT - 167 larvae, 38 unhatched eggs remaining in the cup!

Matt
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That is just freakin awesome Matt!!! All that hard work and you now have cracked getting them hatched!!! Now you can start working on foods :)

Keep up the great work!

Brian
 
Matt,

That's Great! I hope you're right in that it's temp that's been the hatching issue all this time. I noted you said this was the "stickiest" spawn yet with only one loose egg....that seems to indicate something different right from the start. You'll have to test the temp theory with another spawn that isn't so sticky to see if it's solely the temp ... any changes in the parents diet recently?

tom
 
Now that´s a hatch !!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations !
I´m with Tom on the stickness of the spawn, has anything changed at all ?
Anderson.
 
First to answer some questions - other than a reduced spawning frequency which may in part be due to less massive feedings, nothing else has really changed in my mandarin care. Have two larger hatches at 80-81 and then 81-82 F respectively seems to pretty well prove the temp influence so far - I think I mentioned before that I think the REAL test will be when I get a back-to-back spawn again - seeing how the one on the 1st and 2nd day hatch out when given the same higher temps would probably solidify the working "thesis" that temp is the key.

So it's 9-17-06, 10:00 PM, 32 hours post hatch. I thought some QX5 pictures of the 32 hour old larvae were in order - I pulled out 2 larvae to shoot; I think it's self explainitory which is 10X, 60X and 200X :)

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The tank got 0.75 L of Tetraselmis this evening...they're still sharing the tank with Apogon leptacanthus larvae for now....

FWIW,

MP
 
Whooowooo! That has to be the "hatch of the day"! On to the feeding ... a breeders work is never done.

Hope you raise that "ONE" pretty soon.
 
9-18-06, 1:04 AM - WE HAVE ANOTHER SPAWN! - looks like we'll get some answers quickly, hopefully. It looked like a normal spawn, maybe 300 eggs, some singles, little clumps and some big ones. The actuall spawning occured between 12:35 and 1:04 AM. The eggs were scooped out with 1/2 gallon of tank water into the large specimen cup and are hanging in the larval tank (82F) with no circulation / aeration.

FWIW,

Matt
 
Just a side note, based on my "fishing" dates, those dates where I was not in Chicago overnight, there have been 26 dates on which I was unable to observe the nocturnal behaviors of my mandarins since 4-14-06.

To date I've been around 86% of the time to watch for spawns since I first started observing and recording. It's entirely possible I've missed a few along the way ;) BTW, tonight's is our 35th observed spawn!

If I eliminate those days on which I wasn't able to observe, our pair is currently spawning at a rate of once every 3.8 days; 4.54 days if I assume that there were no spawns on the 26 days I couldn't watch for them. Realistically, if the observation average holds true, we're probably closer to 40 spawns since I first witnessed a spawn. So, based on what I wrote earlier, although we've been in a "dry spell" the last couple weeks perhaps, we're still averaging roughly a spawn every 4 days.

I chuckle - we're not even halfway through 1 year yet! Just think it took 34 prior spawns to get to where we are at this point, and that's WITH all the available information out there AND some unpublished personal observation from folks who've done them in the past! If I consider an average spawn to be 300 eggs, we've worked with over 10,000 eggs to date!

Just some food for thought.

Matt
 
INITIAL PROOF OF CONCEPT - 176 larvae hatched today, counted as of 7:30 PM this evening! I counted 30 unhatched eggs, so my spawn size estimate was off by about 100. I'm um, stunned and surprised. NA NA NA NA to all you guys who went through all these hassels (including myself) of creating kriesels and propeller driven stirrers...it turns out you don't even need AERATION!

3 incubations above 80F, all successful hatches, and those at 82F were rockstars! Time to try 84F (next time the larval tank is EMPTY). So, anyone else out there getting mandarin eggs, please give this method a shot - any container that can be consistently heated at 82F (which in my case is anywhere from 3-5 degrees warmer than the parental tank) - collect the spawn via cupping, place it into the container that's "stagnant" (no circulation of any kind) and check 12-16 hours later.

FWIW, I'm harvesting the newly hatched larvae with a pipette to count them one by one as I suck them up. After I've gotten every last swimming light green larvae I'm going back to the container once all the unhatched eggs settle and doing a count.

I have no clue what I'm going to do with this batch of 176 larvae - the larval tank is FULL of little ones already!

Matt
 
Well - it appears that rules for fresh water hatching also apply to salt water hatching. Raise temp and you get quick successful hatches. No special gadgets just water and heat. Good story Matt. Now feed, feed, feed till they cant eat anymore LOL
 
Well, I made the REALLY TOUGH CALL to "cull" our latest hatchlings...they became food for the cardinalfish tank. The single 10 gallon I have for larval rearing is full of babies from the hatch 2 days ago and I don't want a repeat of "is it 10 days or 14 days old" as I photograph their progress.

I guess it's now official, if you're in the Chicago area and willing to come to the city within 24 hours notice, I'm willing to hatch and hold baby mandarins for other folks to try to raise. I'd say "shoot me a PM" but my inbox is still full, so email me at matt@cichlidrecipe.com with your contact info (including phone and email(s)) if you're interested in trying to raise mandarins. You'll definitely need to have SS Strain Rotifers on hand + live algae cultures and ideally some sort of copepod cultures...that's what all the info online suggests we'll need to actually get them reared!

On a side note, I finally locally procured a female Red Scooter Blenny..the male already wants to spawn. She's VERY THIN but eating like a pig only hours after introduction, so I'm hoping things go well.

Matt
 
Another Round of Pictures! These mandarin larvae are 58 hours post hatch. Again I collected 2, and you can tell there are some "gaps" in development (i.e. one is slightly further along than the other). I included 18 pics and 2 vids, so expect a few posts!

man_58_1.jpg


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man_58_6.jpg
 
It's wierd but I have to keep track of maintenance in two places when I have two species of larvae in the same tank at the same time (right now, Apogon leptacanthus).

Rotifer concentrations were way above 15/ML, more like 25-30, so I removed 3 gallons. In the process, I siphoned out 3-4 mandarins which were returned to the tank. I'm currently siphoning back in 1 gallon of clean water + 5 drops phytofeast + 300 ML live phyto (Tet., Nan and T-Iso in equal 100 ML portions).

Tomorrow the "plan" is to take it down another 3 gallons and start adding in phyto+clean water again. I'm thinking of bringing the tank down to a running volume of 5 gallons vs. 8-10 where it's been lately...it's too much "water" to work with and I don't tihnk the larvae need it. Keeping rotifers under control yet still nutritious looks like it's going to be a challenge going forward.

Matt
 
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