Stonogobiops nematodes breeding once a week

[Schieby]

Hello,

my pair of Stonogobips nematodes is breeding once a week. Every sunday I`m catching around 100 larva and try to raise them in a small tank. After three days all of them are dead, I think the problem is starvation.
I tried to feed them with rotifiers and pods, IÃ"šÃ‚´m trying to enrich these with selco. No success yet.
Any ideas?
Is there somebody out there, who has raised this little cuties?

Erik

 

[Peter Schmiedel]

Erik,

I would like to know more baout the breeding observations you made. As I have never heard how they reproduce. You keep them with the Alpheus randalli? They lay the eggs in the sand burrow? etc

Als Kölner gerne auch per PM auf Deustch

 

[Schieby]

Hello Peter,

the pair lifes in a 30 gallon tank with 3 Alpheus randalli for around one year now. You never see them breeding. All this happens within the huge burrow system. The day the larva leave the burrow, the randallis will seal the burrow hermetically. The larva leave each sunday in the evening, not at the night ! At this moment the randallis open all entrances at the same time and the larva will leave, but you wonÃ"šÃ‚´t see one of the gobies at this time. They only come out two to three hours later.
Within the tank are two banded pipefish and some clams.

Bye Erik

 

[FateX8]

how much food are you putting in the tank
what kind of set-up are you using?
you might wanna try to increase the amount of food you put into the tank, if theyre larval its hard for them to get to the food
also is there any flow? even though they are larval they still need a very low flow so atleast they have a chance for the food to come to them

 

[marinebetta]

Cool....I believe this is the first bit of information on S nematodes breeding, maybe even all Stonogobiops?

I'm assuming they will be difficult to raise and will need S type rotifers at the minimum. Keep trying....one day you'll succeed.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[clownfish75]

i would surgest S strain rotifers or more likely ss strain would be better.

You could also try seeing if you collect anything on a 20 micron seize from your normal rotifer culture and feeding that, i have seperated out the 20-60micron section of a rotifer culture and got amblygobius phalanea larvae to feed on it.

after that playing with wild collected plankton as martin moe documents in his breeding orchid dottyback book would be the go.

Any pics of the larvae would be good

Christian

 

[Schieby]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7330526#post7330526 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by FateX8
how much food are you putting in the tank
what kind of set-up are you using?
you might wanna try to increase the amount of food you put into the tank, if theyre larval its hard for them to get to the food
also is there any flow? even though they are larval they still need a very low flow so atleast they have a chance for the food to come to them

Hello,
excuse my rubbish english, IÃ"šÃ‚´m posting from southern Germany. The larval tank is around 15 gallons, just a heater, and some air bubbles through an air hose for a little flow. Daily water change is around 1 litre. I tried it several times with Brachionus plicatilis, this time ( I was able to get some larva out of the main tank again yesterday ) I got a mix of living Pods with Brachionus rotundiformis enriched with Selco. I got some algae on the glass, I can see the nematodes often picking around this algae, there is a tiny animal on the algae which looks like a bell and you can see it filtering water under a microscope.

Bye Erik

 

[Schieby]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7331000#post7331000 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marinebetta
Cool....I believe this is the first bit of information on S nematodes breeding, maybe even all Stonogobiops?

I'm assuming they will be difficult to raise and will need S type rotifers at the minimum. Keep trying....one day you'll succeed.

Thanks for sharing.

Hello Christian and marinebetta,

I got both type of rotifiers, the problem is I can`t see a size difference under the microscop and I believe even the s type is way to big, IÃ"šÃ‚´m experimenting with pods washed out of the sand in the main tank and stuff like these. Living far away from any sea I canÃ"šÃ‚´t work with natural plankton.
Here is a pic of the female one day after the last breeding, you can clearly see that sheÃ"šÃ‚´s willing to do it again at her fat belly. I expect the next larva next wednesday afternoon.
Enjoy !
Bye Erik

 

[Schieby]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7335280#post7335280 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by clownfish75
<snip>Any pics of the larvae would be good

Christian

No problem sir !
IÃ"šÃ‚´m unable to get a usable pic with my digicam, but I got a microscope:
Nematodes Larva

Like a video?
Here a little video, made under the microscope too:
Nematodes Vid

Hope you like it !

Regards Erik

 

[jnowell]

Nice Work Erik! Good luck with them.

Jason

 

[NicoleC]

That looks a lot like YWG larvae -- long and skinny and very little yolk sac. They move the same, too. Did you get the size when you put it under the microscope?

Have you raised fish before? It took me several tries to get any YWG survivors past a few days, even with the right food. I never did figure out what I was doing wrong.

You might try straining your S-strain culture for juveniles and use live phyto in the larval tank if you aren't already -- perhaps algae wil be an acceptable first food or partial first food.

 

[clownfish75]

When you collect rotifers what size screens do you use? Perhaps try a smaller screen and see what you get.

Nice pic of the larvae, certianly looks ready to feed.

Have you tried some algae in the culture tank, this seemed to help with the amblygobius.

Christian

 

[Schieby]

Hello Nicole and Christian,

IÃ"šÃ‚´m not able to measure sizes under my el-cheapo microscope at the moment, but the larva should be under 2 millimetres.
I got some some nannochloropsis salina in the culture tank, I will will order a mixture of live phyto these days to see, if this could help.
Seems to be impossible to get real small rotifiers in Germany at the moment.
Screensize for collecting pods and rotifiers is at 40 micrometres at this time. Do you think I should screen the water a second time to pick out the even smaller pods? 40 micrometres are ok to get rid off the Euplotes, I got some since the Selco was put in use.

Have a nice day.

Erik

 

[mwp]

Erik, I tried seiving from my rotifer cultures...120 was the first screen, and the pass-through was then collected in a 10 micron...it seemed to work for a bit with the Mandarin larvae (also too darn small). I think this next time around I'm going to strain out anything larger than 50 or so, and then collect in the 10 and see what I get.

FWIW,

Matt

 

[NicoleC]

Erik,

Just under 2mm would be about the same size as YWG larvae. There's a lady on here that raises them very successfully and swears by S-strain for them, but my most successful batch took L-strain. The mouth ln my larvae looks about the same proportions, too. I would not give up on your S-strain just yet.

With these little larvae, it so hard to see them! You can't really see them hunting and feeding until about day 7; until then you just have to wait.

 

[Schieby]

Hello Nicole,

this sounds very interesting to me, please tell me who is this lady?
By the way: a black blackground paper behind and under the bottom of your tank helps you to make this larvae a bit more visible, depending on your lights, but your right, they are pretty hard to see.
And yes, I wonÃ"šÃ‚´t give up, but I fear the parental fishes will one day, and I want to raise some larvaes successfully till this day.

Sorry, I have no idea what means YWG ??? And the search is down.....

Kind regards from Bavaria !
Bye Erik
:bum:

 

[NicoleC]

YWG = Yellow Watchman Goby aka Cryptocentrus cinctus.

<----- These guys. Sorry; I forget sometimes that common names vary from place to place.

The fish are not closely related, but they are at least both watchman gobies of similar body shape and behavior, and the larvae look similar, so perhaps their may be some similarities in raising them. That's a lot of possibilities, I know!

The lady's name is Amy Drehmel; she raises lots of fish with her husband Alan. I haven't seen then check into RC lately, but their handle is "oceanarus."

 

[Schieby]

Hello Nicole,

thank you for your input, I will try to contact her these days, and I have never raised seawater fishes before, IÃ"šÃ‚´m just in that thing for a year or so. Any help is appreciated.
How did you find my english?

 

[NicoleC]

Ihr English ist besser als mein Deutsch!

I didn't even get to practice my rusty German when I went to Germany, as everyone there wanted to practice their English!

 

[Schieby]

Hello Nicole,

yes, I found her and some interesting information. I got to keep on reading.
Again, all nematodes larvae are dead after the third day, I think they are starving.
I`ll try a new setup, with a smaller tank, more Pods and Brachionus and only 10 till 15 larvae.
I think this will give them the opportunity to get more food and not so much swimming work to get it.
I will keep you informed.

Bye Erik