Welcome New COMAS Members

[Travis L. Stevens]

<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central and COMAS</b></i></big></big>

Well, there has been many new faces around COMAS lately. I just wanted to condense it all and say welcome!! Some of you guys have been around for a little while now, some are quite active, but there are still some that we don't hear from often Please feel free to post here and say hello and tell us a little about yourselves.

 

[herpchat]

OK here goes;

Gerald Griffin

Run the Species Maintenance Program of the International Betta Congress www.ibc-smp.org . This is basically a preservation unit to ensure that no species of Wild Betta becomes extinct. We work by captive breeding various species and maintaining stock banks. About half of my 70 tanks are dedicated to wild betta stocks. We have scientists that live in the area where Wild Bettas come from and they monitor the health of populations and notify us when there are problems. We also have the leading ichthyologists in Asia also assisting us in our endevours.

I bred my first fish at the age of 12 - Colisa sota, then Colisa lalia and then collected the rest of the Colisa and spawned and raised them. Then read "All About Bettas" by Walt Maurus and got hooked on Bettas but not the domestic ones but the Wild Ones.

I got involved in massive breeding fish after joining the OKAA and getting into their BAP program. Since I have so many tanks it made sense to gain general knowledge and expand upon what I knew (that and competition always gets me going), so I started picking up various FW fish and spawning them.

I have always had a facination with seahorses and just recently after selling off FW fish to my LFS started earing enough where I could start buying SW fish and figured why not, lets try the ponies. So I set up a seahorse tank and it was easy enough so am now branching into other SW fish. Yes I will BAP the species I breed but its mainly for the experience. A few years ago I did a talk on sustainable aquaculture and pulled up the fact that 99% of FW are produced in aquacultured ponds yet the majority of SW fish are still caught from the wild. There is a lot to learn in SW fish husbandry and I want to know. I will start with easy fish and move on to harder fish.

Well that is me, and no matter where I go I make waves whether I want to or not, however just wait until I do a belly buster, that will make a lot of waves.

 

[captbunzo]

Wow. I am excited about the knowledge and experience you bring into this club, Gerald. I definately agree that the saltwater hobby has much room for growth in the area of aquaculturing of fish. I am sure that your prior experience with FW breeding will assist you greatly when it comes to working with Saltwater fish.

Seriously, if I were you I would head over to the expert forums around here (and around) and pull their brains as well for saltwater fish breeding knowledge. I believe most of them would be excited to see someone with such real world fish breeding experience who has an interest in working with SW fish.

I will PM you some suggested forums.

 

[TimV]

If you want any luck breeding SW fish, I suggest you start with one of these specieshttp://www.orafarm.com/products.html

The vast majority of SW fish cannot be bred at all at this time. You can't even get them to spawn in a captive environment, even it tanks measured in the tens of thousands of gallons. Clowns, cardinals, gobies, dottybacks and seahorses are about it. Even then, breeding some of these can be a very expensive and time-consuming adventure.

T

 

[captbunzo]

But the question is this: Is that because it is not possible (or extremely improbable) to breed them in captivity? Or because the right knowledge, discoveries, etc, have not yet been made?

50 years ago, people were proud to keep Kenya tree alive and couldn't imagine keeping most other corals alive. Now we not only keep those corals, but frag (breed) them and trade them and love them and pet them and call them George.... (Wait, no, that's just my anemone)

Anyhow, you get the point of my idea.

The question is, IMHO, what tricks (techniques) need to be discovered in order to progress with successful breeding of more SW fish.

I do think that link is great though, btw...

 

[pwhitby]

i would think that a lot rests on diet and general nutritional status of the fish. That coupled with the lifestyle of the fish. Look at all the SW fish that currently are known to breed. Gobies, Clowns, Seahorses, Grammas, all are known to be territorial to within a space the size of a large tank. Once you move to the more pelagic wrasses, tangs etc, even larger systems have failed.

We all know that SW fish are extremely sensitive and again this may play a part. It may be that there is secret ingredient required in the SW itself that we dont replicate. Isnt it true (gerald) that wter condition and additives play a part in the spawning of a lot of FW fish?.

Regarding corals, yes a lot of advancements have been made, notably better lighting and calcium reactors have had a great impact, but true breeding of corals?? Some have had spawnings but it is a very rare event.

Personally, I would love to see more fish being bred. I used to work for the Scottish Department of Agriculture on a program dedicated breeding marine fish (food fish) for fish farms and it was not easy at all. The size tanks we had to use to even encourage spawning behaviour were immense. It was never a viable option. Species such as salmon had to be artificially induced to spawn and then eggs manually mixed with milt.

Anyways.....my point is, yeah there really is a great deal to learn, the problem is figuring what it is thats missing from the equation.

 

[TimV]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7760322#post7760322 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by captbunzo
But the question is this: Is that because it is not possible (or extremely improbable) to breed them in captivity? Or because the right knowledge, discoveries, etc, have not yet been made?

That is tough to know. However, there is a magnitude of difference between trying to get eggs to hatch and raise the fry for fish that will do so readily in a tank, and getting fish that have never been seen to spawn in captivity to actually do so. It will likely go a little beyond just sticking two yellow tangs in a glass box. Companies out there like ORA are likely trying, but AFAIK haven't yet had success. If one really wants to try, feel free, but you'd have to be prepared to spend a lot of money. At least with clownfish, you know that it can be done.

50 years ago, people were proud to keep Kenya tree alive and couldn't imagine keeping most other corals alive. Now we not only keep those corals, but frag (breed) them and trade them and love them and pet them and call them George.... (Wait, no, that's just my anemone)

Anyhow, you get the point of my idea.

The question is, IMHO, what tricks (techniques) need to be discovered in order to progress with successful breeding of more SW fish.

I do think that link is great though, btw...

If you can answer those questions, you'd make a lot of money.

 

[herpchat]

That is all so very true, and it may not be diet but minerals that might be missing. We had a situation with Betta channoides would not spawn and keep fry in captivity. People replicated their environments exactly with no sucess, but how exact is exact? It was later learned that the missing key was iron in the water, you add iron, they make babies, if the water does not have it they don't.

I totally agree, and as I work on SW fish I plan to bring my FW perspective to them and figure out exactly what might be needed. I really don't think space is the exact trigger but could be anything from temperature variation, cycle of the moon, some tidal variation, or could be some vitamin combination or mineral missing in the typical prepared diet.

 

[herpchat]

As to water conditions, that is hard to say. Tetras will not spawn well in hard water, most can be trigered with acidic soft water. Many blackwater fishes pH < 5.0 can be spawned and raised in pH 8.0.

Wild caught fishes tend to be spawned best in their natural waters but like I mentioned 99% of FW fish are spawned at pH 7.0 in moderately soft water so they don't know what the natural waters they come from are like.

 

[herpchat]

Here are my goals;

Within 5 years to spawn Mandarine fish and have them eating frozen foods consistantly.

Within 10 years to spawn lionfish.

 

[pwhitby]

I think the timeline you have is about right. I believe mandarins have been bred and there is information on them. If i remember right they spawn mid water.

 

[pwhitby]

Just to keep things tidy, lets start a new thread for the issues pertaining to breeding and lets keep this one for new people to say hello.

P.