Greenbanded Goby (Elacatinus multifasciatus, Gobidion etc..) Breeding Log

[mwp]

Well, I'm still "cleaning up the threads" and trying to keep my various project organized! I figured with all the activity I've had and what's currently going on, it might be time to consolidate the Greenbanded Gobies!

Our pair, photographed when they "weren't" a pair, a couple days after introduction...for the most part we rarely see them now!

First, here's the old threads:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=749279

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=758034

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=765587

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=770984

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Elactinus multifasciatus - I've also seen this species named as Gobiosoma multifasciatus and Tigrigobius tifasciatus

Common Names: Greenbanded Goby

Quick synopsis of tank/care/diet etc..
Current conditions as of 5-14-06

Tank - 24 galllon Nano Cube, Finnex 150 watt HQI 14K Metal Halide with 2 X 18 PC Actinic and upgraded mooonlighting. Filtration is basically stock with the addition of an air stone and purigen.

Co-Inhabitants - 1m/1f Pterapogon kaudernii, 2m/1f Apogon margaritophorus, 1m/1f Greenbanded Gobies (I've seen too many different scientific names to know which one to use anymore!), 2 Nemateleotris magnifica (suspected pair of Firefish). This tank is set up as a reef, MOST organisms in this tank are cultured from frags etc...captive raised fish whenever possible. This tank was not started with any live rock- the reef is constructed of "Lace" rock and Tufa.

Diet - Frozen Foods include: SF Bay Enriched Brine, SF Bay Spirulina Enriched Brine, Hikari Enriched Brine, Hikari Mysis, Cyclopeze, Formula 1, PE Mysis, Hikari Plankton. Occasional Live Foods Include: Live Brine Shrimp, adult and nauplii. I periodically soak frozen foods with SELCON.

Tank Care & Conditions - pH typically 8.2. Temps in upper 70's. Specific Gravity around 1.024 usually. Water changes are 3 gallons, weekly or as needed. All organic levels are usually very low to nonexistent (i.e. < 1 ppm Nitrate, 0 on the rest) although following our recent move (March '06), this tank has experienced elevated nitrate levels at times (i.e. 50 PPM). Calcium levels while probably not relevant hover between 350 and 400.

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Next up, a recap of events to the present...

MP

 

[mwp]

12-15-05 - We purchased 2 Captive Bred GBG's and added them to the cardinafish tank. For a while they did nothing but chase each other around and fight. Lots of face-to-face confrontation. I suspected we had 2 males.

1-12-06 - I noticed a change in behavior and posted about it, including video.

Today things have changed (or perhaps this is simply the first day I noticed it). One of the two seems to be leading the other one in a chase around the tank...the "leader" shimmies and quivers..the other one more or less just follows. Far cry from fighting, it looks like our 2 PO'd gobies may have just decided to get along (and perhaps they're M/F afterall). I got some crummy vids (those tiny guys move so fast in and out of focus)...will try to post today.

The VIDEO - http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/gobycourtship.html

It's worth mentioning at this point that a few people have proposed that, based on their experiences with this species, it *may* very well be hermaphroditic, which would definitely allow for any two young fish to pair up if given enough time and space. Granted, we had a 50/50 shot at getting a pair anyway...just food for thought on anyone considering this species.

1-23-06 - Mysteriously, BABIES appear in the adult's tank.

About the larvae

1. Sorry, no metric ruler around, but they're around 1/8" in length.

2. The Brine nauplii I have on hand was hatched 2 evenings ago...it's definitely TOO LARGE for them to eat, but they really, really want to.

3. L Strain rotifers seem like they could be the right size, but I haven't noticed any feeding.

4. The larvae are positively phototrophic.

5. They kinda move like gobies in a jumpy, herky jerky fashion, but at times they make mad dashes, moving rapidly through the water just under the surface.

6. They're transparent with "3 spots". The first "spot" is the eyes. The 2nd spot appears to be the gut. The 3rd spot, before the tail???

7. The larvae appeared around 9:00 PM this evening, typically 1-3 hours before "lights out". Hatching lasted maybe 1 hour. As of lights out (11:00 PM) no new larvae have been found.

8. When "appearing" they'd make a mad dash for the surface, popping out of the rockwork almost like corks held underneath water. At times 5-6 would "pop up" together.

9. Brood size - well, I didn't find any in the mechanical chamber of the nanocube and today it's not "surface skimming" anyways. I collected approximately 50 babies.

An image was also posted, as well as more video:

Quicktime Format, around 2.8 mb, 10 seconds.
http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanore...2-06_larvae.MOV

Well, I feel the larvae are too small to place in a "breeder net". I don't have any free tankspace on hand either, so I have the larvae roughly split 50/50 into two specimen cups (one large, one small).

Into the small one I placed the 2 day old brine nauplii until I realized these fry are WAY too small to eat them. I also placed L-Strain Rotifers and 10 drops of phytoplex.

The large specimen cup contains L-Strain rotifers and just a couple nauplii I didn't get out.

The general consensus was that these mystery larvae were in fact GreenBanded Goby larvae.

 

[mwp]

1-23-06 We'd lost 50% of the larvae, but another 10 larvae showed up in the tank that night, so not everything had hatched out the first time around.

Large Specimen Cup - roughly maybe 25-30 larvae captured last night. I've introduced a "fair amount" of L-Strain Rotifers last night. Added 10 drops of phytoplex this AM, along with a cup's worth of rotifers that were enriched with 2 drops Selcon overnight. Added more rotifers this evening. Admittedly, it looks like some larvae are going downhill. I added an air-feed this evening, bubbling around 2-3 bubbles per second. I also removed 1/4 of the water this evening and replaced it with tank water.

Small Specimen Cup - this also had maybe 25 larvae last night. It inadvertently got a thousand or so 2 day old brine shrimp nauplii, + rotifers, + 10 drops of phytoplex last night. This mornign I gave them another 10 drops of phytoplex and a baster full of copepod nauplii (from the "Tiggerpods" that Reed is putting out). This afternoon Renee came home to find all the fish dead. She simply poured it back into the tank, filled it back up, and placed the dozen or so new larvae into it.

The smaller specimen cup is roughly 0.24 gallons, the larger is 0.59 gallons.

More or less I suspect the larvae are starving.

1-24-06 - Only 6 larvae remained alive. Within the next 24 hours they were dead as well.

 

[mwp]

1-31-6 - SPAWN #2!

Hurah! Another spawn of our "mystery" larvae has appeared...granted a couple days "late" but who cares! A much larger batch, roughly 150?

So I've considered our experience the first time around and made some adjustments. First, all larvae are in one large specimen container (roughly 1/2 gallon). I harvested 1/3 gallon from a rotifer culture (that's at a density of roughly 50-100 per ml, L-Strain), sieved it and fed it in (again, lots of those copepods went in as well). As my phyto cultures are not yet up to snuff, I added enough Phytoplankton (this time Liquid Life's) to turn the water ever so slightly green.

The other change I've made is that an airline is already in place, bubbling about 5 bubbles per second. It's enough to keep the water moving slowly...just a touch more movement than I use in my rotifer cultures.

Anyone have any different ideas at this point? I'm hoping to make it past 24 hours this time. Someone suggested adding a small amount of carbon which I think I'm going to do as well.

The only other thing I can say at the moment is that I pulled one out and looked at it under the 10X loop...didn't see it eat anything and it sure looks "SKINNY" already, i.e. sunken belly, and that's on a newly hatched fish! There are definitely NO yolk sacks on these guys, so instant feeding is likely a must! It LOOKS as though they *might* be feeding, but honestly, I haven't seen any "S" curve-type striking.....

One more comment, I left about a dozen in a net breeding with the female mandarin we're "training" to take frozen foods (it's working quite well). These larvae seem entirely too fast for her as well as really not having quite the right movement (all she's eating now is frozen enriched brine )

At least this way, if the large batch in the specimen cup keels and we still have live ones in the net breeder, we'll have a better idea that it's a water quality issue!

2-1-06 - The next morning, things don't look good:

Quick update. Things were not looking good this morning and are continuing today to look subpar.

A water test revealed a slightly elevated nitrite level (0.25 or so) - 50% of the culture water was changed and 2 drops of Prime added. The rotifer population was definitely "down" a bit, so I added some more. Also added around 10 ML from a Nannochloris culture that's coming on strong (only started it this past weekend). Also added some Caulerpa springs to help maintain good water quality.

With that said, it's looking like this is going to go down just like the last one...all DOA in 24 hours or so...at least that's where it looks to be headed.

I'm not at the point yet where I can follow the recommended steps of doing a 10 gallon tank, painted sides, adding 1 L of Isocrysis per day (in fact, that culture seems like it's not starting from the disk I used...). We're simply not at that point yet.

Knowing how this has all gone down, I also know to expect a small secondary hatch tonight (if we follow the pattern of the first time around). I'll get some more babies to work with in another, small specimen cup. What if anything should I try to change to increase my chances?

By the end of the day, things look grim:

24 hours in, we're at about a 75% loss - not 100%, but most of the remaining live babies are on their sides on the bottom. The larvae seem to go from VERY active at hatch to less active, to losing attitude control, to being on the bottom, swimming briefly, to finally death. Sure sounds like starvation thus far...I pulled a larvae earlier today and looked at it under the 10X loop - didn't look like there was anything in the gut. Another look this evening...still can't say they're getting ANYTHING in the way of rotifers! Let me say that in a size-comparison, it *looks* like one of these larvae taking down an L-Strain rotifer would be equivelent to a human shoving a double-quarter-pounder-with-cheese in their mouth in one gulp! In other words, the rotifers look too big.

2-2-06 - We still have some going...

We're now 36 hours in, a new record of sorts, as we still have 4-5 larvae swimming around. If they've made it past the "hump" by tonight, 2 days in, I think we have a shot at making some progress. Remember, we had larvae show up at "24 hours in" on the first spawn, and they were all gone within 24 hours of isolation as well. So 48 hours, that's the mark to beat right now.

Also probably worth mentioning, no new larvae showed up last night...different than our first time around.

By the end of the day, we've made it further than before:

Well, all I can say is we've broken the 48 hour mark. The only real changes I've made from the first is the addition of carbon, immediate aeration, and definitely better feeding of the larvae (including small introductions of Nannochloris, Isocrysis and Tetraselmis). Only 4-5 remain, but we're definitely going in the right direction here. Hopefully by the time the next batch is ready, the phyto cultures will be up to speed.

2-3-06 - (play game over sound from Pacman)

Well, somewhere between 48 and 60 hours the last 4 larvae kicked the bucket

 

[mwp]

2-7-06 - SPAWN #3

Alrighty, today (2-7-06), around 11:30 (lights came on late around 11:00 AM) we had another hatching of Greenbanded Gobies!

A quick recap. Our first two spawns hatched in the evening...this morning hatch was totally unexpected, and again, I noticed it when the Bangaii's were "feeding" yet I hadn't placed any food in the tank!

This 3rd spawn seems to be around 75-100 larvae...not sure how many were eaten. So, larger than the first spawn, probably a little smaller than the 2nd spawn. So far, since they started spawning on the 23rd...we're looking at an average 7 day window between each hatch!

2-9-06 - 48 hours in...

So 48 hours have passed and we still have ONE larvae alive. A new "record" in the making, but not sure how much longer this guy will stick around. To lose over 99% in the first 48 hours is getting very frustrating.

And that was the end of the third spawn.

 

[mwp]

2-27-06 - Spawn #4 - totally ignored this hatch, read below:

Just a quick note. It's been a while since our 3rd hatch. Today (2-27-06) we had another hatch at 11:00 AM or so - 20 days since the last one. I suspect that we had at least 1 additional hatch in between that we never noticed.

In any case, due to the fact that we're moving sometime this week, I had to make the tough choice to just let the babies get eaten by the cardinalfish in the tank. If ANYONE in the Chicago area wants to try to raise these, again, I'm happy to fork over the larvae.

 

[mwp]

3-12-06 - Spawn #5 - another one goes without any care:

Well, I'm literally in the midst of our moving the 2 tanks (and setting up 2 more - during the move I pulled all the live rock and utilized some of the water in a new tank. It figures...I poured a bunch of GBG larvae out of the bucket - they actually hatched in transit. So there's another hatch as of today. Just like the last batch, they've been left to fend for themselves.

Obviously, as with #4, nothing happened..the babies just disappeared.

 

[mwp]

4-7-06 - Spawn #6 - still having to "pass" on raising the GBG's as other fish are taking priority - interestingly I either missed somehatches OR the fish stopped spawning for a while following the move:

Wow, it's been almost a month since the last hatch, at least the last hatch I "noticed". I managed to scoop out 50 or so larvae today starting at around 10:30 am (30 minutes after the halide came on). Yahutch expressed an interest in trying to raise them (I'm focusing my efforts on A. leptacanthus) so hopefully Yahutch is ready and can meet me to take possesion of the little lurching silver slivers today.

4-8-06 - Overnight the entire clutch crashes:

posted on 4-10 - Well, haven't yet heard back from Yahutch and overnight, the first night, all the GBG larvae kicked the bucket in one mass die off. Pretty much done screwin' around with specimen cups in the main tank..that 10 gallon is getting set up ASAP for the forthcoming A. leptacanthus larvae...and I'm sure another goby spawn will come up soon enough!

 

[mwp]

5-12-06 - SPAWN #7! Well, it just happened and as I'm recapping all my prior experience I have baby GBG's in a larval tank...here's the recap for the current spawn:

They're not going with their former regularity, or maybe I"ve just missed the last few spawns. However, none of that matters at the moment - WE HAVE GBG BABIES again!.

The 10 gallon larval tank is set up, although last night it had a HUGE nitrite problem...no mandarins hatched because of it.

One note about the GBG fry that I may have mentioned before - in addition to being positivey phototrophic they are also REALLY interested in the bright blue silicone airline tubing....makes removing them a piece of cake!

As always, I noticed this hatch when my fish started feeding on something at 10:25 AM today...I hadn't fed yet.

By 12:00 PM I had drained and refilled the tank with water from the parent's tank, about 5 gallons. I then added 1 Liter of Fresh T-Iso (aka. Isocrysis) from a culture. By 6:30 PM I had seived a portion of each rotifer and copepod culture I have going through 110 and collected the efluent with a 10 micron sieve, that was then placed into the tank. I finally caved and blacked out the sides of the tank...this time around, I was ready to do things "by the book".

That night, we had a spawn of mandarins, so the kriesel was set back up in the tank. I had also taken a picture of the larvae I collected and in the evening counted them up:

So, I took a headcount of my collected larvae (shot a picture of them in the tupperware and FINALLY finished counting them all this evening). Is a clutch of 194 Green Banded Gobies BIG??? Round that to 200 easily, as a few got eaten before I noticed the spawn!

5-13-06 - the latest happenings. Today we had NO hatch on the mandarins (OK, briefly this evening 1 was hatched out but has since disappeared). Nitrites were again creeping up, so a 2 gallon water change was done along with a dosing of 1 ML Prime and 5 ML Stability. The rotifers and T-Iso were basically gone, so this afternoon I fed 1 liter of fresh Nannochloropsis and doubled up the amount of rotifers and copepods that I seived and fed (same meshes as before).

A fair amount of the "GBG" larvae somehow made their way into the kriesel...I know I've had losses but with the "discoloration" of the tank from the algae it's making it hard to see how we're doing.

So that's where we're at...24 hours. I honestly can't say things look much better than any prior spawn...we'll have to wait and see I guess.

Going forward, I intend to keep any and all happenings with the GBGs current and posted to this thread. Enjoy!

MP

 

[mwp]

5-14-06 - We're well into day #3 this time around...we've broke that 48 hour barrier but hey, I know others have made it this far...by tomorrow night maybe we'll really be onto something. The number of larvae is really difficult to estimate at this point because the water is green, the tank sides are covered and well...There's one here and there but I haven't found any big cluster (I may use a light this evening to concentrate them and see how many we actually have going). AGAIN, we have some NITRITE in the water (about 0.5 PPM) so again I'm going to treat that with 1 ML Prime and 5 ML Stability. Man, this is annoying!

MP

 

[mwp]

5-15-06 - as of 10:00 PM tonight we still have some GBG larvae running around, and those that are in there look BIG and active...maybe we cracked the nut?

MP

 

[ediaz]

 

[mwp]

INDEED Ed, INDEED!

5-16-06 - well I looked around the tank today and it took a LONG time to find larvae, but I did manage to find one still kicking...there may be more running around in there. Last night they got some Tetraselmis and today they got another liter of Isocrysis (T-Iso)...all teh same I'm pretty PO'd about the success rate consider we started with almost 200. I'm really thinking that S-Strain rotifers are going to be the only way in the long term...STILL only have L-Strain.

MP

 

[mwp]

Well, after testing on 5-17, AGAIN, we have nitrites that are really HIGH (5 PPM) which probably killed off the few remaining larvae. I tore down the tank and REMOVED the sponge filter, then set it back up with established, strained tank water for a mandarin spawn. So this batch of GBG's is done, but we doubled our survival time from roughly 2 to 4 days, so the T-Iso seems to have helped! My next few hatches are probably going to go off to other breeders to try to raise -> I'm really, really focusing my efforts on raising up the mandarins for a bit.

MP

 

[mwp]

5-19-06 - well, 9:30 AM we had another hatch! imbuggin is gonna pick them up and try to raise them (already has had some success with clowns, so we'll see!). This batch is outta my hands in about an hour!

MP

 

[mwp]

6-3-06 - Well, Memorial Day weekend we were out of town - if we had a weekly hatch I wasn't here to see it.

Today I slept in this morning and woke up around 10:30 AM to find ANOTHER GBG hatch! It looks like a lot got eaten or otherwise maybe got sucked into the filtration...the hatch had long since ended by the time I made it to the tank and started scooping out fry. I'm gonna see if imbuggin wants to try them again - I'm busy with mandarin eggs!

MP

 

[mwp]

Well, imbuggin is tied up, so this batch...hmm. Gonna keep trying to find a foster home, or maybe I"ll just have to go the specimin cup route with the SS rotifers and see if that works.

MP

 

[mwp]

Well, I'm out of time to try and find these guys a home, so they are back into the 1/2 gallon specime cup with an air feed (about 2 bubbles per second), 75 ML of T-Iso and a bunch of seived L-Strain Rotifers (passed through 120 to take out the bigguns and collected with 10 micron). Going to add some more algae before I leave for the day, maybe some Nannochloropsis. I also added in what I could from my likely crashed SS Strain Rotifer cultures...so *maybe* there are some in there, not sure.

Looks like the mandarins AND the GBGs will get another shot at living this week.

MP

 

[mwp]

Added another 40 ML of T-Iso and 30 ML of Nannochloropsis (it was looking really clear in there already). Keep those fingers crossed.

MP

 

[mwp]

Well, the last larval attempt didn't get very far. I've been in and out of town a lot lately and may have missed a spawn or two.

Today (6-19-06) we MIGHT have had a hatch early on, perhaps when the actinics came on (before I was awake)...I noticed the cardinalfish feeding on something as usual but saw ONE mangled but still alive fish larvae in the tank. I turned off the pumps but nothing else showed up...so I think I "missed it".

FWIW,

MP