Pseudanthias tuka

[Matt_Wandell]

I've been wanting to try the Tuka's and/or Evansii which are also difficult to feed. I'm starting to think that the odds of keeping any difficult to feed fish are highly increased for people who are already committed to feeding multiple times (4-5x for me) daily.

Of course there are always the fish that just won't eat, or are too passive to compete for food. In those cases I haven't had much luck, but either of those situations can occur even with less difficult fish.


BTW, I think an anthias thread is a great idea... somebody should start one :thumbsup:

Hi Jacob,

For people that are hatching live baby brine every day (I know, that is no simple matter), these anthias are pretty straightforward. You just drip it in all day. Add a suitable b'flyfish for Aiptasia control. Feed 2-3x with stuff like cyclops, fish eggs, clam, etc to vary the diet.

These guys don't gulp big pieces of food. There is a video of them here where you can see how they feed--they snap at the water once every 1-2 seconds at stuff that you can't even see. Give them the opportunity and they will do this continuously all day long.
(Excuse the ragged Tubastrea, they were newly confiscated pieces)
http://vimeo.com/channels/glassboxdesign#11979156

 

[snorvich]

Good luck, I'm guessing that you're past the "thinking about it stage'' and have your mind made up. I've got to be careful: so often when a thread starts " I'm thinking about....", it means they already have them. I'm sure this isn't the case with you, though.

No, "thinking about . . ." for me means researching. And I have a lot more to go before I get to the next stage which is looking for a source. But, at this point, my mind is not made up.

 

[snorvich]

Hi Jacob,

For people that are hatching live baby brine every day (I know, that is no simple matter), these anthias are pretty straightforward. You just drip it in all day. Add a suitable b'flyfish for Aiptasia control. Feed 2-3x with stuff like cyclops, fish eggs, clam, etc to vary the diet.

These guys don't gulp big pieces of food. There is a video of them here where you can see how they feed--they snap at the water once every 1-2 seconds at stuff that you can't even see. Give them the opportunity and they will do this continuously all day long.
(Excuse the ragged Tubastrea, they were newly confiscated pieces)
http://vimeo.com/channels/glassboxdesign#11979156

Wonderful video and superb fish. What are they eating (that we cannot see), and which anthias are in that video. Also, how does one hatch brine shrimp continuously and drip into the tank?

 

[snorvich]

Matt, your article is superb. Printing as we type.

 

[Matt_Wandell]

Wonderful video and superb fish. What are they eating (that we cannot see), and which anthias are in that video. Also, how does one hatch brine shrimp continuously and drip into the tank?

The first anthias you can see in that video is a male P. randalli. There are lots of female P. randalli as well (the overall orange anthias). I'm sure you recognize the tukas. There are also some P. ventralis and P. lori. I've since added some S. latus but I'm not sure if they're in that vid. The tank also has a pair of candy basslets but they are pretty secretive. The stuff you're seeing them eat is baby brine.

Hatching baby brine is simple, but time consuming especially if you do it every day. There are lots of brine shrimp hatcheries you can make with 2 liter bottles. Look up sources for frozen cans of Artemia cysts, and look up how to decapsulate the cysts with bleach and sodium hydroxide.

 

[Matt_Wandell]

Matt, your article is superb. Printing as we type.

Oh, thanks Steve. Glad you appreciate it. I considered these guys unkeepable and the "holy grail" of anthias for so long I was glad we had so much success with them.

Long term goal is to break down the husbandry requirements for all the fish that have been declared "unkeepable" like these. Ghost pipefish are on my radar next.

 

[SDguy]

Matt's article is fantastic! Oh, and if the worst thing to happen after success with these is ending up with too many gorgeous males, life could be worse

 

[MrTuskfish]

No, "thinking about . . ." for me means researching. And I have a lot more to go before I get to the next stage which is looking for a source. But, at this point, my mind is not made up.

I didn't think so; I wish everyone (often, including me) would be this patient.

 

[snorvich]

Hatching baby brine is simple, but time consuming especially if you do it every day. There are lots of brine shrimp hatcheries you can make with 2 liter bottles. Look up sources for frozen cans of Artemia cysts, and look up how to decapsulate the cysts with bleach and sodium hydroxide.

Is feeding decapsulated brine egg hatchout superior to feeding live brine babies from undecapsulated eggs? Will they eat the decapsulated eggs that are not hatched? Can those be digested?

 

[Makenna]

I do the day long drip of BBS on a regular basis, say every 7-10 days. I set up the hatchery nad they hatch in full within 36 hours. A few drops of Phyto and Selcon, and then 12 hours later I siphon the BBS away from the hatched cysts into a container of tank water. I set this on top of the canopy with a siphon through airline tubing with a small valve on the end (like a ca Rxr tube valve.

2 liters will drip for about 10 hours or so.

I put up a vid of the Pictilis feeding on the original thread, check it out and let me know what you think.

Bobby

 

[aquaph8]

Link?

 

[Makenna]

Link?

If you are asking about mine, it is on front page of 'reef fish' atm....

 

[aquaph8]

Thanks

 

[Matt_Wandell]

Is feeding decapsulated brine egg hatchout superior to feeding live brine babies from undecapsulated eggs? Will they eat the decapsulated eggs that are not hatched? Can those be digested?

Yes, yes, and yes.

It takes the nauplii a lot of work to break the cyst so they have less energy when they get out. From what I understand the cysts are not digested when eaten, but decapsulated cysts (aka just "eggs") that do not hatch are digested. Anyway, it is easy to separate out the unhatched eggs from live nauplii so I generally do not feed out the unhatched eggs anyway.

In short there is really no reason not to decapsulate the cysts--you get higher hatch rates and higher energy nauplii.

Our recipe to do it involves bleach, sodium hydroxide, and a whole lot of rinsing. I can post that recipe here if you like. You can also decapsulate in batches and then store in a supersaturated brine solution for several weeks to a month. So the decapsulation can be done once a month with hatching done more frequently.

One thing I've never considered doing is keeping the nauplii alive longer by enriching them. We need newly hatched babies every day, so we have to hatch them every day. Whatever surplus we have at the end of the day gets fed out to reef tanks or simply tossed. But, if you hatched out much more than you needed in one day you could certainly keep them alive for long periods with water changes and feeding them with phytoplankton. I don't have any experience doing this (other than accidentally when artemia nauplii contaminate rotifer cultures), nor any idea whether the nutritional value of "teenage" Artemia (I forget the proper term) are suitable for fish long term.

 

[Jacob D]

Thanks for all of the great info Matt. I need to visit one of these days.

 

[ryanrid]

i kept tuka for 2 years till i shut the tank down and sold them.

i only fed twice per day which was in AM a mix of spectrum and cyclopese and PM either hikari frozen brone spirulina or mysis and they ate even the largest mysis....eventually.

this may sound easy but wasnt always so, i started with live baby brine then slowly added frozen BB and daphnia with it. Then i started adding brine chopped to this, till they took larger pieces then did the same with mysis.
Then i started adding pellets and cyclopese to the above mixture, i was feeding 3 time a day, 7.30am, 5pm and 9.30 pm, i then reduced this to 7.30AM and PM once they were eating everything, i guess this process took 4-6 weeks.

i could never add any other tukato the herim as they would just kill them, tank mates in a 120gal were

purple tang
powder blue tang
banana wrasse
flame hawk
royal gramma
decora pair
i got a school of all females one started turning male but never got there as you can see the faded one in this top pic, it stayed like that for about a year

 

[mowhawk]

I always wondered why when I added tukas to my existing shoal, I would find that they had jumped out of the tank :worried:

Possability that ythe new additions were bullied until they jumped!

 

[pacislandaqua]

I would raise copepods to feed them. Its relatively easy to do, and eventually they will take to other foods.

I've found that in a large group of fish that eat, they will try to eat more often. I use to keep them with bartletts (100+) or dispars and feed very heavy. more often than not they would eat mysis or very small pellets.

 

[pacislandaqua]

what is the anthia in the background of your article? its pink with orange lines.

beautiful tukas!

 

[MIKE NY]

..the one with orange line along the back and tail is the female..the male is solid purple. Do a search.. I started a thread on them back in August. It took about a week for them to come out and then a few more days beforethey started to eat. I got them eating NutrMar Ova and gradually they started excepting other foods including pellets ....the male even takes larger foods like PE mysis now.