Spawning Warning for LR and Reef Tanks

[M.Dandaneau]

I posted this in the reef fishes section in response to a query regarding keeping Dwarf Fuzzy Lions in a reef tank and decided to post it over here as well, just as a precaution.
In a reef tank, no, but in a FOWLR tank that contains mushrooms, leather corals, polyps, moon and star coral, yes (I know it sounds like a reef tank, but honest, it's not )
The real reason I'm replying to this post however is because I just made a rather startling discovery that I've not seen mentioned ANYWHERE before, and would have a direct bearing on keeping one or more in a reef tank.......the gelatinous egg masses are highly toxic and will quite likely kill any and all coral they come in contact with if a pair should spawn.
We currently have a mated pair of 4" dwarf fuzzy lions (D. brachypterus) that have now spawned eight times in the last six weeks.
Spawings occur in the middle of the night with a gelatenous egg mass released that look very much like a comb jelly (possibly an evolutionary developement to cut down on predation) that has been documented to be distasteful to other fish.
On seven of the spawnings, the eggs were removed to a seperate tank for attempted rearing (no luck so far....the eggs hatch after 24-36 hours but die off after 8 days, even though we're feeding live wild caught plankton), but on one occassion a few days ago one of the masses settled onto the LR before we noticed it.
I'm attaching a photo I just took.......4 days later, the LR where the eggs came to rest is COMPLETELY bleached out as if concentrated bleach had been poured on it.
Algae, sponges......the small area is completely lifeless.
As a single specimen in a reef, I'd see no problems of any kind, but indications are an accidental spawning in such a setting could be highly damaging.

[Mad Scientist]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

[FMarini]

Mike:
fascinating observation. I've not noticed this before, but of course i never kept my lions in a reeftank.
Thanks
frank

[M.Dandaneau]

Well, ours isn't technically a reef tank either, although it contains mushroom corals, leather corals, moon and star corals, urchins,macroalgaes, sponges, etc.,(Jeez, it DOES sound like a reef tank, doesn't it? ) along with other fish and crustaceans.
I've always tried to duplicate the natural surroundings for my fish (and any other exotic pets) as closely as possible, assuming (hoping?) that by doing so I'll see as close to natural behavior as is possible without actually going to where they live.

[AAA88]

So did you ever have any lavae hatch?

[M.Dandaneau]

Oh, they definitely hatch alright, and so far each successive spawn has been bigger than the last....the two are together again tonight, so I'm expecting spawn numer 9.
At hatching, the fry are phototropic and all go to the surface if the light is on, and, as previously stated, where the live plankton also collect, they too being attracted to light.
At day eight the young simply die of within a matter of an hour or so, almost simultaneously, and as closely as I can tell, this is consistant with the results anyone else who has spawned them in captivity has had.
While watching the Discovery Channel in a program about giant squid, a fact was brought out that has me considering another possibility......in their trawls, all the larval squid were collected not from the same depth, but rather from levels that were the same temperature.
This got me to pondering the fact that established lionfish colonies that they've found here in the Atlantic are consistantly roughly 12 miles from shore (the limit where ballast would be dumped from incoming ships) and about 150 feet down, ranging from the Gulf of Mexico to as far north as New York.......in other words, in cooler water!
I'm now wondering if perhaps the die offs might not be temperature related, rather than a problem with the food, thus am planning on trying to reduce the temp in the hatching tank with the next brood or two and see if the results differ.....perhaps in the wild, once the larvae have hatched they sink to an appropriate depth during the first night and remain there until a certain size is reached before dropping out of the water column and settling on a reef.
The fun part is often what's NOT in the books, eh?
Here's a photo of the yellow topped male...he finally came out when I had the camera handy!
The substantial variation from fish to fish in wild caught specimens makes me think that they would be an ideal candidate for selective breeding to establish color strains, much like has been done with many freshwater tropicals......yellow, red, brown, orange, striped etc.
Once keeping the fry alive has been achieved, the rest ought to be even more interesting.

[coral78]

WoW that is so cool. Do you have any pics of the viable eggs? What are you feeding your pair?

[M.Dandaneau]

This thread over in the breeding forum has most of the answers to your questions, along with some other thoughts on the subject, both to save time and space.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=283318

Mike