Yellow Tail Blue Damsel Breeding

[reefdude420]

My yellow tail blue damsels have recently been laying eggs. The first few times I just let nature run it's course and the eggs died or were eaten. Now, I was thinking of trying to raise the eggs to sell the spawn to offset some reef related expenses. I was looking for some advice on how to do this. They are laying their eggs on the rear glass of my tank, should I just gently scrap them off and move them to my refugium area? If so, what after that? What should I feed the fry? Anyone with any experience or ideas on what to do or how to go about doing this would be awesome. Thanks alot in advance.

 

[billsreef]

They hatch out fairly small, your best bet for raising them would be s strain rotifers. To get them out of the display tank, you would need to wait for hatch and remove the larvae with some sort of larval collector (do a search in this forum), or a siphon and flashlight. Considering what's involved in rearing larval fish, and the current price of Yellow Tails, you'll never come close to break even on the cost of rearing the fry. So if you want to do it for fun, great, but don't do it if expect to actually offset costs. Those damsels wholesale for under a dollar, it'll cost you more per fish to rear them