Spawning!!

[SDguy]

Woo-hoo! My blackpot swallowtail angels spawned! :dance:

After NIGHTLY courting by the male, for at least a year or more, the female finally showed interest and participated! I could tell something was different. She was actually paying attention to the male, and her "rear" had a funny little bulge to it, just like my female anthias and female flame wrasses get when they are doing their thing with the males.

Not sure what caused this to finally happen, but I suspect it may be due to feeding. I recently picked up a whole lot of very fresh live blackworms for my butterflies in my FOWLR. Of course every fish I own, though, loves them too. So I've been feeding them to my reef as well.

Unfortunately I don't have pics of the event (you'd think after Sunday's earthquake I'd have the camera handy for such spur of the moment things :lol: ).

 

[stunreefer]

Awesome, congrats Peter! :thumbsup:

You must be doing something right

 

[SDguy]

Thanks Austin. I'm pretty excited about it. I've had them for about 3 years now, and was always worried they were a bit too cramped in a 110g, now upgraded to a 150g tank.

Maybe the lyretail anthias put them in the mood, since they too spawned that night (though in all fairness, I never watch the tank at this time of night, so maybe they always do it... ).

 

[roktsintst]

Incredible Peter!!!

That is sooo Cool...

Im trying to pair multiple species in my tank in an effort to watch them spawn!

 

[michealprater]

That rocks!

 

[Luiz Rocha]

Just to make sure... Are we talking about Genicanthus melanospilos here? If so, very nice! Are you trying to collect the eggs and transfer them somewhere?

 

[SDguy]

Just to make sure... Are we talking about Genicanthus melanospilos here? If so, very nice! Are you trying to collect the eggs and transfer them somewhere?

Yes, G. melanospilos. No, I made no effort to collect the spawn. All my anthias did that one their own.

 

[FMarini]

awesome-- congrats
After all that activity-- they finally figured it out. I suspect they will spawn frequently now

 

[michealprater]

If you know anyone local to you that has a broodstock system, you should let them know.

 

[SDguy]

If you know anyone local to you that has a broodstock system, you should let them know.

We do have a local breeder. I will contact him.



Thanks Frank! I was just about to post in my thread I have going with you

 

[snorvich]

Wonderful. My pair of G. bellus spawn and it is a great voyeuristic event.

 

[SDguy]

Wonderful. My pair of G. bellus spawn and it is a great voyeuristic event.

Nice, Steve! I noticed Sanjay's video of his bellus spawning. How often do yours spawn?

 

[JHemdal]

Peter,

You may not need to stick with a local breeder - when our boarfish spawned, we sent eggs out via FedEx to Atlantis Marineworld and they managed to raise one...and larval boarfish are very similar to larval angels. What I did was collect the eggs in a fishnet, bag them in water that was pre-charged with oxygen (no free bubbles though) and shipped them prioirty overnight. One big difference is that the boarfish spawn at 8am, so I could get the eggs sent off that morning. If I shipped one day old eggs, some hatched enroute and the mortality rate was higher. If you want to get really serious about this, you can gradually manipulate the aquarium's lights so that spawning takes place during your morning - still evening for the angels.

There is a major public aquarium proposal coming along that will take these sorts of serendipitous egg events from public aquariums and ship them to a central rearing facility in Florida. Very exciting!


Jay

 

[SDguy]

Wow, that's really interesting! Thanks for the info, Jay.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

That's pretty exciting news! I'd love to see that if you could post a video next time the get busy.

 

[Jacob D]

Congrats Peter. When I saw it was you who posted I was wondering if it was your melanospilos. Interesting about the blackworms as you're not the first person I know to correlate feeding with them to spawning. Look up Paul B 's worm jacuzzi sometime

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Look up Paul B 's worm jacuzzi sometime

Exactly what I was thinking when he mentioned blackworms. Paul has had great success with that.

 

[SDguy]

I think the fact that the worms were very fresh might have made a difference as well? I have fed my fish live blackworms numerous times. This last time, the worms just came in to the LFS, and holy moly! They are large, thick, and very robust!! The smallest fish even slightly "fight" with them when feeding :lol:

 

[snorvich]

Nice, Steve! I noticed Sanjay's video of his bellus spawning. How often do yours spawn?

I am not always there in late afternoon when sunset occurs. But I seem them a couple of times per month. (that is an approximation) How about yours?

 

[mpoletti]

Thats cool Peter. I enjoy watching the different fish spawn in my tank as well :thumbsup: