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#51
05/08/2006, 11:27 PM
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Well, I somehow missed posting this sooner; 4 days have already gone by.
5-4-06 11:50 AM...we have ANOTHER spawn. Maybe by the time these are released the mandarin larvae will be large enough to handle some companions? My anticipated release date is 4-12 or so...I should be around this time! MP |
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#52
05/13/2006, 02:22 AM
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5-13-06 - 2:18 AM and the male is STILL holding onto that clutch...I suspect he's going to release them sometime soon, but i"m not sure when. I may pass this batch along, as I currently have another mandarin spawning in the kriesel as well as 194 GBG larvae...well it's either that or set up a 2nd larval tank...I technically have the space and some of the equipment already...it's convincing Renee that's the hard part!
Matt |
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#53
05/13/2006, 11:42 AM
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Matt,
Just tell her that setting up a second larval tank will help insure better survival and that very soon you will make a huge profit from the sale of the fish  By the time reality sets in it will have been setup for 6-12 months and she won't object  Brian
__________________
Currently redesigning my 90 gallon tank system to support coral and invertebrate breeding. Click on my red house to see the thread with the progress. |
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#54
05/13/2006, 11:49 AM
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Well, I've been watching and waiting for a NATURAL release on this last spawn. I expected a release as early as the 11th (7 days)...when that didn't happen I was sure it would happen last night (8 days). We are now almost to 9 days and the male is still holding strong. HMMM. Maybe some of those prior larvae were released prematurely? I checked my temperature records and well...it looks like the temperature while brooding has remained roughly the same, at most maybe a degree or two difference but generally still around 78F. The male is "chewing" a lot as I'm sitting here typing this, so maybe release is iminent.
Matt |
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#55
05/13/2006, 04:05 PM
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thats great... i would LOVE to buy some Captive Bred Apogon leptacanthus... they are my favorite
__________________
-30g. Oceanic Cube soon to be SPS -90g. Reef -50g. Reef -10g. Reef |
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#57
05/14/2006, 11:59 AM
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5-14-06 - NOON - OK, I clearly have NO CLUE what is going on...it's been 10 days since the spawn now and the male is STILL holding the clutch. Every other one ended around 7-8 days and we had viable larvae....
MP |
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#58
05/15/2006, 12:34 AM
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5-15-06 - 12:30 AM and the male is STILL HOLDING. This is VERY unusual. Not much else I can say other than I really really really am fighting the temptation to go in there and net him out. This no longer makes any sense as every other brood has been 7-8 days to produce viable larvae.
I should mention that I tried something different on the night of the 13th/14th...I turned out every single light and set up our brine shrimp net in the overflow...I figured maybe this added total darkness would spur the release AND prevent predation when I finally decided that I simply had to go to sleep at 3:30 AM. Obvously nothing happened, and tonight the moonlights are back on so I can observe. On the upside, I have to give our male leptacanthus major props considering our Bangaii Male won't hold past 2 days and both margaritophorus males consume spawns the moment they occur. So here's to you little skinny fish with the huge bulging throat! CHEERS! MP |
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#59
05/15/2006, 02:51 AM
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5-15-06, 2:45 AM - OK, so tonight is definitely the night..around 2:15 AM, after squaring things away with another surprise mandarin spawning, I checked my brine shrimp net in the overflow...2 leptacanthus larvae were in there but both looked Dead. I added them straight to the larval tank anyways, just out of hope.
I spent the next 30 minutes trying in vain to capture the brooding male leptacanthus...NO LUCK and I have the urchin stings to prove my good efforts. Yeah, try catching a NOCTURNAL species at night..it doesn't get you very far. Yes, I've been known to say "Screw the cardinalfish" when the mandarin babies show up, but hey, that doesn't mean I should just ignore them. So, basically here's what I've done (we'll know in the morning if it works). I raised up the water level in the filtration (topped off with FW) so that there's a good inch of water standing above the mechanical filters. On TOP of the mechanical sponge I placed a doubled-over carbon bag..the mesh is fine enough that babies aren't going to go through, and the form is such that it forms a barrier that covers the entire surface area of the mechanical chamber...thus ensuring that babies, once skimmed, will be in there. As per past experiences, the larval leptacanthus are NOT positively phototrophic and well, my basic hunch is that the male has been slowly releaseing larvae all day, only for them to instantly be picked off by the other cardinalfish in the tank. So the moonlights are back off, and as soon as I'm done typing this the computer monitor is going off too...it's going to be as dark as I can possibly make it...hopefully cardinalfish can't hunt in TOTAL darkness....we'll see I guess! MP |
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#60
05/15/2006, 11:09 AM
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As of 9:00 AM, there were no larvae in the overflow...I didn't get to scope out the male but I SUSPECT whatever larvae he was holding got eaten last night...maybe even by him after I harassed him and tried to catch him.
Oh well...they'll spawn again soon enough. MP |
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#61
05/22/2006, 07:27 PM
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5-22-06 - I arrived home around 7 PM today and found that we have ANOTHER mouthful of Apogon leptacanthus in the works...it could have happened pretty much anytime in the last 24 hours as I left for the office before the lights came on today. I may just strip these and tumble them - SS rotifers are going to be on their way soon too, so food may no longer be an issue!
MP |
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#62
05/31/2006, 02:38 PM
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5-30-06 - slowly, almost imperceptably over the course of the evening I noticed the males brood getting smaller and smaller...darnit if I just didn't have too much other work to deal with to handle this release (if in fact it was a release and he wasn't eating them). Thankfully it looks like I'll have many chances in the future to get it right
 Anyone have a good idea on how to collect non-phototrophic larvae from a community tank without having to go in and catch the fish (afterall, I'm always knocking down my SPS frags when I'm netting fish!).. MP |
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#63
06/25/2006, 10:11 PM
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6-25-06 - well, sometime between the afternoon of the 23rd and the afternoon of the 25th the Apogon leptcanthus have spawned again. Since I wasn't around for the last couple days, I can't pinpoint it any closer, but that gives me an idea of when they should be ready (sometime while we're out of town of course). I'm still wanting to get these to go...I may try stripping and incubating in sterilized water with some formaline or methelyne blue..the problem is that I probably won't be around for the hatch - local fish buddy to the rescue again perhaps? At least I have the SS Strain rotifers on hand...could prove beneficial for getting some larvae raised up, but I still have that one baby mandarin that's now 5-6 days post spawning and doing well; not sure how he'd compete with a bunch of baby leptacanthus!
Too many fish breeding, not enough larval tanks! MP |
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#65
07/11/2006, 12:59 AM
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7-10-06 - while out of town from Friday evening through Sunday Evening, I came home to find the male A. leptacanthus holding yet another mouthful of eggs. I'm going to keep an eye on them, and if I can figure out the right time to strip, I may make the effort to do so. After all the failures with the Mandarins, these guys, with their increased size, are looking like better prospects to tackle first
We'll see how I feel about it towards the week's end when they're due to hatch.MP |
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#66
07/17/2006, 01:43 AM
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"Dag Nabit" - Sometime between Saturday night and Sunday Morning the male leptacanthus either consumed or released his latest batch...never saw anything but around noon noticed him feeding with the rest of the fish! NUTS! Guess these guys are going to have to wait a while longer...
Matt |
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#69
08/16/2006, 02:56 AM
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Ok, so I am getting VERY frustrated with these cardinals and could use some ideas. I just spent probably 30-45 minutes trying to coral the male out into the open to catch him and take his mouthful away...basically because I noticed tonight it was getting SMALLER yet I havent' noticed ANY larvae, so he's either eating them or something else is going on.
That something else is something I've suspected but can't prove - basically I think the male slowly releases larvae over several hours. My OTHER hypothesis is that he's slowly eating them when we get up into the 8-9 day range. In any event, the ONLY way I've really come across leptacanthus larvae is 1 lucky event where I noticed a few, and the other time where I captured him and stimulated the eggs to hatch (best results). If this was a dedicated breeding tank, it wouldn't be an issue (just a bunch of PVC) but this is a full blown reef. So, I need fancy ideas for larval collection for larvae that are NOT attracted to light! Either that OR I think I may just part with the trio in the hopes that the Bangaii's, in the absence of any other cardinalfish species, will actually hold to term for a change. ASDWER@#$!!#$!#@$!$EQFDGW$%@!#!!! Matt |
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#70
08/16/2006, 11:47 PM
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Matt my best guess would be to catch the male and collect the eggs but in a reef it can be hard if not impossible sometimes...
If another tank (breeding dedicate) is out of possibility maybe it´s time for the bangai to take their turn. Anderson.
__________________
"Posso não saber de nada mas suspeito de muita coisa..." |
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#71
08/17/2006, 12:42 AM
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Anderson, around 3:00 PM on the 16th the bangaii's spawned, so I'm going to see if they hold to term with just the leptacanthus sharing their tank (folks may or may not have caught on another thread that the female margaritophorus passed on due to egg binding and the two males were removed).
I've been brainstorming larval collectors that could be created to catch "some" larvae...it seems A. leptacanthus could have several hundred, even collecting 50 would be enough to start work with. The male already holds to term, and catching him in the reef proved to be a nightmare last night - I had him in the net at one point and lost him at the surface...after that he wised up. Not giving up yet, because I really think at this point I could raise this species given a couple more tries. A dedicated breeding tank WOULD be ideal, but with the limited space I have AND the "request" that all our tanks look nice, they're ALL set up as reefs except the larval tank. Matt |
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#73
09/08/2006, 02:31 PM
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Another spawn today, 9-8-6 - this time around 17 days since the spawn prior.
Maybe this time around I'll get som ebabies...??? Not likely until I get my act together and build a larval collector, which may not work anyways with the phototrophically "neutral" larvae. MP |
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#74
09/08/2006, 03:37 PM
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I'm going to follow along here and see when mine spawn next. I started that other thread that you made posted in about the spawn and the babies. I know how hard it is to catch these guys. I got mine out of a 135 gal tank. I did it during the day though to put him in the fuge but he spit out the eggs into the net. There is no sign of any of the babies in the fuge, but I can't see much in there with all the algea. I may actually put a setup together for food for these guys. I just don't have any place in the house right now. Should have the space after december, so until then any that I catch are just going into the fuge.
With the timeframe you give I should have another spawn next week sometime.
__________________
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin |
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#75
09/14/2006, 12:18 AM
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OK, here's my *thought*. It's been 6 days since I noticed the spawn, and the male is looking pretty "bulgy" in the mouth and I see eyes on the larvae. I am going to TRY to catch him tonight. Worst case, I don't get him. Best case, he spits the eggs and they're already ready. More likely he's either going to spit an egg mass that isn't quite ready for hatching and will require some incubation, OR he'll hold the eggs and could be placed in the larval tank to release them on his own....not sure how that will "fly". In any case, the larval tank is emtpy (currently filled with 119.3 F tap water for a cleaning), and these are the only fish that I know are "ready".
Wish me luck! Matt |
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