My Aiptaisia Farm- Berghia Breeding Thread

[BeanMachine]

I made a couple changes. Petco's sale is going on right now so I got a 5.5 gallon and a 20 gallon tall.

I did a water change, was careful to match the salinity, and added the nudis to the 5.5 gallon.

As of this morning there are 4 new egg strands.

This is my cup floating with a little piece of egg crate with loose aiptasias that I've been scraping and cutting off. I've been giving them approx. 1 aip per day to the three of them... trying to limit they're food supply right now in order to conserve for the babies when they hatch.

Here's a berg just cruising along...

 

[reefish123]

I have various sized tanks you can have for free if you need more just PM me. Good luck with your set up.

 

[BeanMachine]

I have various sized tanks you can have for free if you need more just PM me. Good luck with your set up.

Thanks Omar I am good for now... I actually in my rush got one two many 10 gallon tanks so now I have an extra.

Free for anyone reading this. Let me know. :wavehand:

 

[BeanMachine]

Anyone with experience with this care to share how many babies I should be expecting? 6 coils thus far.

 

[BeanMachine]

I saw 3 more coils this morning. My best guess based on reading is they will hatch (but nothing for me to see) in approx 14 days so that would put the first coil to hatch at about April 9, 2013. Not sure how I'll know except for the coil being gone hehe so this is just approx. Then about 30 days after that I should see some babies with my eyes, so that would put it at May 9, 2013. So that's the goal to see some babies at this point.

What's amazing about this in comparison is how fast they lay eggs... so those hobbyists with montipora or zoanthid eating nudis and no predators are in for a world of trouble.

 

[BeanMachine]

Some Berghia doing their mating hug.

 

[Catchoftheday]

Great Work so far Cody

 

[29reef]

Nice, make sure to get some baby brine for those aptasia if you haven't already. Good luck with your project.

 

[reefish123]

WoW sweet never keep it up/.

 

[bigdog0598]

I could use some when you sell, I actually have a couple rocks they could feed a family off of

 

[BeanMachine]

I made a mistake and got lazy... I put a frag of zoas with some aiptasia in the berg tank and two big amphipods came flying out. I managed to kill them tho... I won't be making that mistake again.

This worked pretty well. I cut the tops off the nems in my growout tank... placed them in this cup with some eggcrate. And in just a few days they attached to the eggrate and I pulled them out and place them in the tank.

From last night to this morning they ate 2... thats about the rate they've been eating each night. So 2/3 an aip each hehe

 

[solitude127]

Do the amphipods eat berghia?

 

[BeanMachine]

Supposedly they'll eat the egg coils and babies.

 

[solitude127]

That makes sense. So how many berghias do you have now?

 

[BeanMachine]

That makes sense. So how many berghias do you have now?

I started with 3 as that is the minimum recommended if you were to add them to your tank... theory is if one dies you'll still have two that will breed and make the eggs.

So far this hasn't been that much work... first few days I was adding the rocks and driving around getting stuff. But the last few have been just topping it off with RODI and dropping in a few aips like I'm feeding my other fish. No more work than a separate system or frag tank really. I'm using water from my display to change water in the berghia tank so I'm not having to use new saltwater for this.

 

[laverda]

let me know if you need some more Aiptaisia

 

[fchanes]

Will you be selling off any?

 

[SoCal LowBaller]

bristle worms are bad for the eggs too

 

[BeanMachine]

All of the aips are gone from the above pic so time to add more... no coils have hatched yet hopefully should be any day.

let me know if you need some more Aiptaisia

Thanks Steve I may I've just never done this before so I'm not sure how many I'll need.

 

[BeanMachine]

So the first coil I had is no longer there, so hoping it hatched and didn't melt... hehe I have no idea.

There are at least 20 coils in the 5.5 gallon.

I've been limiting the aiptasia the last few days, I didn't feed them at all last night. Plan to cut some off tonight and fill their little stomachs.

I've done 1 - 1 gallon water change with my display water each week. Topping it off every day or two.