Red Scooter Blenny / RSB (Synchiropus stellatus) Breeding Log!

[mwp]

OK, so I'm starting this thread up NOW for when things actually happen. First, two prior threads to reference:

Red Scooter Blenny Sexing - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=841804

Mandarin Breeding Log - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=824111

I'll come back and post up a summary to date in my next post - basically we currently have a male and female who have recently started the mating "dance" on an almost nightly basis. The female does not appear to be in spawning condition yet, so I beleive she may be undertaking this exercise simply to appease the male at this point. I've had one or two suspected spawnings, but since the pair also reside with our 2nd mandarin pair, the only way to be 100% sure it's an RSB spawn is to literally see it happen, which I haven't just yet.

I have some updated pics to post, and even some vids....so for now, stay tuned

Matt

 

[MperRluvR]

Re: Red Scooter Blenny / RSB (Synchiropus stellatus) Breeding Log!

I've had one or two suspected spawnings, but since the pair also reside with our 2nd mandarin pair, the only way to be 100% sure it's an RSB spawn is to literally see it happen, which I haven't just yet.

That's a lot of love makin in one tank...you play Marvin Gaye in the background??

 

[mwp]

TRUE TRUE. What seems to get the lovin' going is simply tons of feeding good foods and darkness I have a spawning pair of mandarins and rusty gobies in 1 tank, the RSB's and Mandarin pair #2 ALSO share their tank with a spawning pair of Bangaiis, a spawning group of Apogon leptacanthus, and a spawning pair of Greenbanded Gobies, PLUS dwarf blue leg hermits that spawn and peppermint shrimp who are perpetually pregnant. And tank #3 currently houses our spawning pair of Onyx Percs. TOO MUCH BREEDING - I have to pick and chose my battles at this point!

Matt

 

[mwp]

Darnit, I haven't even gotten to do the "back story" on these!

10-29-06 - 11:05 PM, We've had the first confirmed Red Scooter Blenny Spawning!

Actually looks like a large spawn considering the female's size...maybe 200-250 eggs. All sticky...only saw 1-2 loose eggs.

The rise, the dance, all like our mandarins with one exception - these guys have the good sense to start their spawning dance FROM the tank floor, not from 3-4" below the surface! Unlike our mandarins, these guys maybe stopped 1" short of the surface...it was a very quiet spawn, no splashing!

I'm gonna put some eggs under the QX5 in a few minutes here...the rest will be incubated at 82F stagnant as have been most of my successful hatches. I'll be in the office, so I may miss hatching tomorrow...keep your fingers crossed!

Matt

 

[Atticus]

I hate you Matt.... Congrats!!!!

 

[mwp]

Here are the egg pics, shot maybe 20-30 minutes post spawn!

WHOOO HOO!

Matt

 

[mwp]

So the plan with the eggs under the microscope is to time lapse them and hope for the best. I'm shutting down my desktop, putting the microscope in a very stable location (on top of mandarin tank #1 ) and hoping that vibrations don't get transmitted to the microscope - I've found the slightest vibrations, even just walking by the thing, can cause the eggs to shift out of the field of view.

I guess I know what I'm doing this evening as well - playing "catchup" on the details of this breeding log (pics, maybe vids, and otherwise the historical details to date).

FWIW,

Matt

 

[mwp]

First a note - I started shooting the time lapse of the egg development, shooting 1 frame per minute, around 11:55 PM.

I don't have any pictures of our current female yet, but here's the male shortly after arrival!

Here's the background history on our breeding pair:

5-15-06 - Added our current male Red Scooter to the cardinalfish's 24 gallon tank. He started life off in a breeder net for training onto frozen foods (see the mandarin thread for details on how to do this).

5-16-06 - the male is already feeding on Live Brine as WELL as frozen mysis.

6-30-06 - pretty confident the male is feeding well on frozen foods - he's released from the breeder net into the main tank.

9-18-06 - added the female Red Scooter Blenny. Courtship started off IMMEDIATELY! HERE's VIDEO of it! - http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/DSCN5246_RSB_gg.MOV

9-26-06 - the female didn't really take well to frozen foods although she was eating them from the get go - put her in the breeder net. I didn't note when I put her back into the main tank, but I suspect it was only a week or so that I had to isolate her.

10-18-06 - I believe this was the first time I noticed late night spawning courtship. Got some VID! - http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/DSCN6671.MOV

10-19-06 - still the same night as what started on the 18th, we had a spawn in the tank, but since both the mandarins and the RSBs were rising, it was hard to say WHO was responsible. Morning rolls around, and it looks like this may have actually been an RSB spawn, as the female RSB has lost wieght whereas the female mandarin still is FAT. By nightfall on the 19th, the RSBs were dancing again.

10-21-06 - more dancing with the RSBs

10-23-06 - we have a spawn in the tank, but again both the mandarins and RSBs were dancing, so it's hard to say who did it.

10-28-06 - more dancing in the RSBs, but this time it appears the female burried herself for the night without spawning.

10-29-06 - so that pretty much brings us up to date just prior to the spawn. Here's the post from the Mandarin thread - 10-29-06 - the RSBs are dancing and "Fatboy" is muckin' it up...apparently he feels like breeding tonight, and since he's large and in charge (double the size of our male RSB) he's getting in the way. The female RSB did a rise with him...so um, there could be a possibility of intra-species mating between two species of Synchiropus housed together. While I don't foresee this happening, it does mean that I may very well have to visually observe any spawns I try to utilize from this tank!

So that's where we're at. Video of egg development and maybe hatching by morning, and well, chalk up another personal first spawning of another species

Matt

 

[mwp]

Egg Development in Synchiropus stellatus

Egg Development in Synchiropus stellatus

Here they are, 2 vids, shot at 1 frame per minute, played back at 15 frames per second, so 1 second of video = 15 minutes of actual time.

First Video - approximately 1 hour after spawning to 9 hours after spawning - http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/RSB_eggdev_1-9.avi

Second Video - approximately 9 hours to 19 hours post spawning. - http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/RSB_eggdev_9-19.avi

It is worth mentioning that the eggs under the microscope failed to full develop and hatch.

More soon...

Matt

 

[mwp]

Synchiropus stellatus larvae - Day 0

Synchiropus stellatus larvae - Day 0

So we definitely have had a hatch!!! I haven't counted yet - put my priority on taking microscope pictures! Here's a slew of pics shot around 8:00 PM at 60X and 200X. I'm considering these "0 hours post hatch" although they may have hatched several hours ago. However, we still have many eggs floating in the incubator unhatched. Overall, perhaps they take longer to hatch than mandarins (maybe by 4-6 hours?). We'll see...

FWIW,

Matt

 

[mwp]

One more picture, this time with the scale and adjusted for contrast/levels. 1.5 MM is the newly hatched size.

Matt

 

[mwp]

Hatch Count as of 8:50 PM - 13 larvae. At least half of those may have hatched but possibly are no longer alive (no swimming movements detected during capture).

FWIW,

Matt

 

[mwp]

Hatch count as of 10:00 PM - 18. I'm not going to make any SERIOUS efforts to raise these...looking for a better hatch. But, they'll be given the chance in the new 10 gallon tank with the Larval clownfish (5 days old). Most likely they'll become food, but even a 24 hour shot will be insightful.

Matt

 

[mwp]

10:13 PM - guess who's doing the mating dance again? Fun fun fun!

Matt

 

[Sylvio]

Hallo Matt

Viele Grüße aus Deutschland und viel Glück bei der Aufzucht.

MfG Sylvio

 

[mwp]

Dank für die Ermutigung Silvio! Die private Anzeige, die vor kurzem mir durch unsere gegenseitige Bekanntschaft nachgeschickt wird, hat mir einige andere Ideen gegeben zu versuchen - ich bin sehr dankbar. Ich werde nicht vorbereitet, diese bestimmte Reihe noch zu versuchen, aber werde sie zukünftig versuchen, sobald ich die notwendigen hohen Kulturen habe und runing (A. tonsa von Luis erhielt gerade oben gestern begonnen). Ich hoffe, daß dieses gut von englischem zum Deutschen übersetzt.

Matt

 

[mwp]

So just an update - since introducing the larvae to the clownfish larval tank, I pretty much haven't seen them. If one pops up, you know it's destined for a photospread under the QX5.

Matt

 

[mwp]

Synchiropus stellatus larvae - 66 hours post hatch

Synchiropus stellatus larvae - 66 hours post hatch

So I was pretty much ruling out any RSB's still being around when I noticed a brine shrimp with eyes in the tank today...wait a second - brine shrimp don't have EYES!

So at least one has made it out to 86 hours (just over 3.5 days) since being SPAWNED...so that's roughly 2.75 days post hatch, or 66 hours post hatch (I'm using Oct 30th, 8 PM as the hatch time when I shot the pictures of the 0 hour fish). I shot these with the QX5 at 10X, 60X and 200X, both top lit and lit from underneath.

FWIW,

MP

 

[apayne]

5-15-06 - Added our current male Red Scooter to the cardinalfish's 24 gallon tank. He started life off in a breeder net for training onto frozen foods (see the mandarin thread for details on how to do this).

Matt,

Love all of your threads. I looked in the mentioned thread and did not see how you got your scooter and mandarin to eat frozen food. I must have missed it. If you could point me in the right direction I would love to read it before i get a mandarin and scooter.

Thanks and keep up the hard work
Aaron

 

[mwp]

2nd post on the 2nd page of the mandarin thread, reprinted here for your enjoyment

One last tidbit for the evening - training these wild caught mandarins to accept frozen food. It was actually not "that" difficult. I had come across the "mandarin diner" article that's out there and it got me thinking, so I actually started by simply placing a jar of frozen brine into the tank each day.

Along the way, the male and female had a pretty bitter disagreement and she got the brunt of the battle wounds, so I separated her into a "breeder net". I continued the "mandarin diner" training but it only went SO-SO...she "kinda" got it but also freaked out in the jar sometimes (couldn't figure out how to get back out). All the while I was also offering enriched LIVE BRINE to the fish in general, and both Mandarins would take this with relative gusto.

Well, weeks went by and I got lazy with the jar. I continued to add live brine...it would get pulled into the sides of the breeder net by the current, and the mandarin would simply pick 'em off. At the same time I started adding frozen brine WHEN feeding live brine...this too got sucked onto the sides of the breeder net. I'd add some brine when feeding the main tank everyday, and slowly added live brine less frequently.

So, basically, all it really took was to first get the mandarin to accept the live version of the food. Then, adding in the frozen version while feeding the live version, and by having it "settled" and "act" much like the live version, the difference in "presentation" was minimal. Once you start seeing the mandarin accepting the frozen alternative, you can cut back on the live and eventually they're just on the frozen...at that point all it takes is to just make sure they're getting enough nutrition from the food and the conversion is done!

The big key, at least for me, was the isolation in the little pen - no competition for food, the food doesn't get blown away, and there's all the time in the world for the mandarin to examine the food and make a decision. In the case of the female, she really took to it and started to recognize food the moment I swirled it in the water with my fingers...she'll take it right out of the water column. Our male is a bit less aggressive about it, but he too now does feed from the water column as long as he can "look" at the food long enough first. Both will now occasionally take mysis that's put in for the seahorses, but they still prefer the various types of enriched frozen brine.

Matt