Maybe Baby Maxis on the Way??

bradleym

Premium Member
A friend of mine is having tank troubles, so he asked me to babysit his nems. These are the ones I took home with me last night:

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Tonight I had a male and female spawn! For the record, the male is the green at the top, and the female is the red at bottom right. It's clearly stress related but I can hope right? I turned my skimmer down to minimize loss there, but I'm at a loss as to what I should do to help the potential larvae, so advice is welcome!

OK, enough chit-chat! For those that haven't seen this I took some pics!

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More to follow.
 
WOW.. Everywhere!

Imagine that many maxi's suddenly growing.. Talk about mail order.
 
After about 2 hours, the male joined in. Here are some pics that show the difference between eggs and sperm. It's pretty easy to tell them apart because the sperm always comes out looking like smoke, but here I caught some pics of the two being released at the same time, side by side.

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Too bad that was not a video.

I actually had the same idea. I did the best I could, but Hollywood won't be calling me anytime soon. :) I wasn't able to see the male enough to record, but here's a video of the female releasing eggs.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pWN9anOFT_c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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WOW.. Everywhere!

Imagine that many maxi's suddenly growing.. Talk about mail order.

LOL I'll be happy if I get any babies at all. I'm not even sure how long they need before they get big enough to plant themselves. The odds are definitely against me, but I'm gonna hope anyway. :)
 
I've had that happen several times in my 5.5 maxi garden. The only filtration/flow is from a AC70 fuge mod with just cheato in it. Even with no filters to trap the eggs and its a nem dominated tank, I still haven't seen any baby nems popping up.
 
Seamonkey, how long did you leave it before the next water change? I would think that would foul up a 5.5g pretty quick.
 
What do you think caused the stress spawning? Salinity, temp, light, time out of water?

I have a bunch of these and I would like to try and get them to spawn like this. Then try and culture the larva.

Thanks
 
Honestly it cleared up by the next morning, as far as water quality, I was doing about 25% water changes weekly. The first couple times that I witnessed the event I waited a day or two and did a change sucking out just water, but after that I just let it go and I didn't notice any fouling or negative spikes in nutrients.
Mind you, I didn't test for it, but none of the tank inhabitants seemed effected by it not did I ever get an algae bloom. I know they spawn every few months in my tank, randomly it seems, but I don't usually catch it, just see a few eggs floating around the next morning.
 
I imagine if you have the male separate and only add a little sperm to the tank, you may get the egg to develop. It is likely that the egg maybe getting fertilized by too many sperms.
I am not sure but it may be like Tridacna clams, these eggs get polyspermia in the confined space of our tank.
 
Hey Minh, thanks for chiming in. Any thoughts on how to help the larvae reach polyp stage? Also, any clue as to how long it takes? My skimmer is set so low it isn't pulling anything, so I will need to turn it back up eventually, but I don't wanna suck out the free floating babies (if I get any).
 
What do you think caused the stress spawning? Salinity, temp, light, time out of water?

I have a bunch of these and I would like to try and get them to spawn like this. Then try and culture the larva.

Thanks

The jury is still out, but I believe the tank they were stressed by was running a Salinity of 1.029. Then they were acclimated to my tank (1.024) in about 2 hours. As far as we can tell, everything else in my friend's tank is spot on.
 
I think that you likely will not have any larvae from this spawn likely due to polyspermia. I think there are some people documented reproduction with Rock anemone but not with Maxi-mini, and of course BTA sexual reproduction at the Waikiki aquarium.

There have been frequent spawn of Maximini included in my aquarium with no virable babies. I think that we need a very low concentration of sperms so that there will not be polyspermia in our tank.

I had Malu reproduction with live larvae in my tank. (Malu and Gigantea have internal fertilization). The mother Malu released the larvae after 4 days during the night and they all got chewed up my my filter system. Right after this event, my tank cracked and I lost the female Malu. I have been looking for a female Malu ever since. Now I have two male Malu, still on the hunt.
 
Thanks for the information. I forgot to mention that the purple one, shown at the very bottom of the first picture, is also female, and she spawned after all the lights had been out for awhile. So maybe with a 2-to-1 ratio I might get lucky. You are right though, the odds of polyspermia are very high. Thanks again.
 
Oh yes, I frag them, but if there was a way to get 100 plus off spring at a time that would be great. I was thinking 2 Dif tanks, ! for the male & 1 for the girls and the remove just a little from each spawn and mix in a seperate system. Just a thought.
Mad scientist thing you know LOL
 
Oh yes, I frag them, but if there was a way to get 100 plus off spring at a time that would be great. I was thinking 2 Dif tanks, ! for the male & 1 for the girls and the remove just a little from each spawn and mix in a seperate system. Just a thought.
Mad scientist thing you know LOL
Just separate the boys and the girls. When the boys spawn, just get a little of the sperms into the girls tank. This will induce them to put out the eggs. Catch the eggs and put it in a tank that circulate with just air stone. This will/may results in babies.
 
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