Damsel rearing from eggs? - need ciliates?

[Greg Hiller]

I checked the breeders registry already, but couldn't find the info I was looking for. My yellow-tail damsels have started spawning in one of my tanks. I may be able to get them to spawn on a piece of tile and remove it (the way I do for my clownfish spawns). Any idea if I can start these babies on rotifers? I have the smaller variety of rotifers, but I seem to recall hearing years ago that damsels were so small on hatching that they needed ciliates. I have a pretty good culture of rotifers going at the moment for my clownfish babies, will I be wasting my time trying to get the damsel eggs out? I realize there is no market for tank raised damsels, but I thought it would be cool to try since I have the extra rotifers.

[Louis Z]

Damsels could be a great feeder fish - one way to get away from goldfish. Just think your damsels could be less of a risk of introducing parasites or other disease to well established tanks. Greg you might have to try both ciliates and rotifers at the same time. Since you already culture rotifers- do you notice any ciliates already there in your cultures? Saw somewhere that they used a small nitex screen to eliminate rotifers from the ciliates. I also saw somewhere online that you could purchase a SW paramecium. Ill look further if you want. Thanks Louis Z.

[Totlxtc]

See this thread! (http://archive.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=59339&highlight=bluedevil) The rotifiers should be fine for the baby damsels. I used them on my Bluedevil fry and seemed to be fine until the cultures crashed. With my job, out of town alot, i just didnt have the time to mess with rearing the young. Now that i have more time i dont have the pair. I've been thinking of getting another male Bluedevil since my female still lays eggs once in awhile. Right now she is full of eggs but hesitate to lay them since she's in a community tank now. Try collecting some of the fry after the lights go out. They will hatch on either the 3rd or 4th day(its been to long). :rolleyes: Good luck and post if you have success with the rotifiers. Longest i kept them alive was almost a week.

[Greg Hiller]

Well, 3-4 day survival I'm afraid doesn't mean much. Sometimes fry can live off their yolk sac for that long I believe. I read Breeding the Orchid Dottyback a while back and I've looked for ciliate contaminants before, but never found much. Martin M. might just be lucky! I will probably try the rotifers anyhow, who knows. I have no intention of putting the effort into raising these guys to use them as feeder fish though!!!

[Greg Hiller]

The answer is NO. You must have something smaller than rotifers to raise this fish. Mine survived on the yolk sac for 3-4 days and then all died despite plenty of rotifers in the tank.

- Greg Hiller