Yellow Assessor

[A sea K]

Man that is some really terrible luck. IME they are pretty tough shippers. In previous orders I went through BZA and at one point had a shipping mishap and took well over two days for my assessors to arrive but they all pulled through acclimation and stayed with me for many years. I ordered my last one from LA about two years ago, I had ordered two but one came in DOA, the remaining one has flourished.

 

[Oshkosh]

I order an ORA trio from Liveaquaria about 10 days ago and they are in QT at the moment but I'm struggling with getting them to eat. It's possible that since they are only 1 1/2" that they are indeed eating but not in noticeable amounts (timid eaters?). Tried flakes, Hikari S pellets and Rod's.

Definitely an interesting fish to watch!

 

[HowieUMD]

Frozen PE Calanus. Had a hard time getting mine to eat at first, finally got that and they took to it then Mysis soon after.

 

[ThRoewer]

I got two wild caught Yellow Assessors now (got them from Jordan after all the ones from LA came in so bad that they died the first day).
They behave very different from the captive bred ORA ones. Where the ORA ones are shy and reclusive these wild one are curious and always on the glass when they see me.
Interestingly enough these wild ones also don't swim much on their back but most of the time like normal fish. And I have them in the same 20 gallon Nuvo Abyss tank where I had previously another trio of ORA captive bred.

 

[A sea K]

Glad to hear you finally have some acclimated to your system.

Mine have all been wild caught and the one I have now always swims on his back with the only exception as noted in my previous post.

 

[ThRoewer]

I have now 2 ORA in my 100 gallon mixed reef that are never out.
The 2 wild are in my 20 gallon Nuvo Abyss together with a pair of Janssi pipefish and a Yasha goby. Those 2 are always out.

 

[A sea K]

What else is in your 100gal with the 2 ORA?

Your 20 gal sounds like a really nice mix of fish!

 

[ThRoewer]

What else is in your 100gal with the 2 ORA?
...

2+1 Amphiprion percula, pair #1 (True Percula Clownfish, Solomons)
2 Pygoplites diacanthus, pair (Sumatra Yellow Regal Angel, 95 & 80mm)
2 Synchiropus splendidus, pair (Green Mandarin Fish)
2 Assessor flavissimus, pair (Yellow Assessor)
4 Chrysiptera starcki (Melanesia)
3 Gramma loreto, 1 male, 1 female, 1 ??? (Royal Gramma)
3 Stonogobiops nematodes, 1 pair and 1 single (Hi-Fin Shrimp Goby)
2 Amblyeleotris latifasciata, pair (Wide Barred Shrimp Goby)
1 Opistognathus sp. 6 (Chinstrap Jawfish), (2nd in QT)
2 Doryrhamphus exisus, pair (Blue Stripe Pipefish, Africa)
1 Doryrhamphus janssi, male (Janss' Pipefish)

1 Neopetrolisthes maculatus (Anemone Porcelain Crab)
2 Stenopus cyanoscelis, pair (Yellow Coral Banded Shrimp)
2 Periclimenes brevicarpalis, pair (White Spot Anemone Shrimp)
2 Lysmata ambionensis (Cleaner shrimp)
2 Lysmata debelius (Fire shrimp)
2 Thor amboinensis, pair (Sexy shrimp)
4 Lysmata wurdemanni (Pepermint shrimp)
1 Urocaridella antonbruunii (Bruun's Cleaner Shrimp)
5 Trapezia spp.
~8+ Alpheus randalli (Candycane Pistol Shrimp)
~8+ Petrolisthes spp. (Blue Porcelain Crab)

1 Stichodactyla gigantea, purple

Various SPS

 

[A sea K]

Wow! I realize most of the fish are small but that must be a busy tank.
The only issue I can see is with the 3 Royal Gramma, I would like to keep some myself but am worried about aggression between the RG and the Assessor.

 

[ThRoewer]

It's actually not too busy. Most of the fish are rather stationary. Only the Regals and the Starcki are more lively. But there are times when the tank looks like as if there are no fish at all in it.

Here a video during feeding:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JvZ0_YP15I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[A sea K]

Very nice, Thanks for sharing.

 

[ThRoewer]

In preparation for moving my wild Yellow Assessor pair to my new fish system, I started to remove and clean some rock. While doing that I found an egg ball in a hole of one of the rocks which could only be from the Assessors. Judging by the silvery eyes the eggs were about to hatch, so I quickly grabbed a small critter container and set it up as an improvised larva tank.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wLh5p9GCqGs" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I have a fairly decent Tisbe culture so I strained some of those in the hope that they will be suitable food.

Here a video of the one-day-old larva (as good as my phone camera allows):

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-PsK9JLqlCQ" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's too early to tell if they go after the Tisbe. It seems their yolk sack lasts for at least a day or even two.

 

[mx36]

That's awesome home they make it.

 

[CoralNerd]

Nice find good fish daddy [emoji106]

 

[ThRoewer]

Good news! They stuff themselves with Tisbe larva but the adult Tisbe are for now too large for them.
I estimate that there are about 50 Assessor larva. They are not much smaller than Amphiprion larva so I would think that they should need about two weeks to a month to metamorphosis, similar to Pseudochromis or Calloplesiops.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[OrionN]

Great. Keep us update. Pictures?

 

[ThRoewer]

Video of them on their 3rd day:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iUctZmggVTk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[ThRoewer]

They are still hanging in and eating well. I'm now worried that I may run out of Tisbe before they get big enough for Tigriopus. But I want to avoid feeding Artemia if possible.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[ThRoewer]

Day 7 - Tonight I could only find two, but those had full bellies. I suppose the issue is with the small tank size - I got to build a better larva tank.