Ruby Red Dragonet Breeding?

[FlyfisherDan]

Has anyone had any luck with captive breeding of ruby red dragonets? We have a pair that have been actively "courting" for a month now. They are doing the mating dance at dusk and into the night and the female looks like a bullfrog tadpole with all the eggs she is carrying but I have not noticed any egg masses. Any thoughts?

 

[kizanne]

I haven't heard of anyone doing these. As they are much smaller than say the ones that have been successfully bred I would think initial food for larva could be problematic. But that shouldn't stop you from trying. Do you have any copepods? or T-Iso? And please keep us updated on how it goes.

 

[FlyfisherDan]

We have pods and am going to get a "pod mix" of different sizes from the LFS to seed our fuge and dt, but have also seen rotifer starters on eBay. From the little I have read(found), the egg masses end up on the surface of the water and would imagine they would end up in the overflow and eventually the sump. The male we have is actually a captive bred dragonet according to the reefer we bought him from. He said it was an "accident" and just noticed one day that he had some juvenile ruby reds. I think he has gone out of business because I do not see his adds on our local reefing page and an internet search comes up with nothing new. Maybe we will see him at a future frag swap. I just want to be prepared in the event I do find egg masses or freshly hatched ruby reds and to be sure there is a food source for them. I would imagine the fuge would be a good place for them to provide protection from predation.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Look into Matthew Wittenrich's articles on breeding mandarin dragonets. They give some detail on how he caught the eggs and hatched them. I think I read that ruby reds have a longer larval stage, and need copepod nauplii to get to maturity.