YWG: lost *another* nest!

[NicoleC]

My gobies laid yesterday right on schedule. When I came home, I thought, wow, that's a BIG nest and it's fresh! My plan was to make a kriesel today for the eggs, and seeing this nest I knew I would need it.

This morning, the nest had fallen down already I madly scrambled around trying to make a kreisel before my appointment in a few minutes. For the record, plastic mayo jars with slightly squared corners are not good enough!

Anyway, I was really depressed, but then I saw the male is still trying to aerate and take care of the eggs, since they are still in his flowerpot. He's keeping them moving pretty good. (Good papa!)

Maybe they will be okay until I can take the dog to vet, go shopping for the parts I need, and make a new kreisel for the eggs?

[dad300]

nicole.. you have a mated pair of YWG. How did you identify the sex of them?

[NicoleC]

I didn't really, but fortunately they did. Details here:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=347239

I have heard it said that the males are more aggressive and more powerfully built with a larger jaw and mouth. That has not been my experience.

My 2nd kreisel is better. Not good, but it may do. To get the eggs circulating, it ends up going through the air bubbles, which I assume is bad. So, I turned it down and am trying to find a spot where they are just suspended. It seems they eventually settle.

But, at least the water is circulating. Plus a lot of eggs came detached and are scattered around the bottom of the tank. I wonder if that is better or worse?

I think I am getting the idea of what I would need to do to build a successful one.

[oceanarus]

Hey girl. Sorry I have not been keeping up with this. I've been busy watching another thread as well as hatching more red-head gobies.We also have some cool fresh-water stuff going on now too. You really should just start taking the nest as soon as they lay it . It is not as bad a thing to do as you might think. If they were clownfish it would be much harder but you can get a good amount of gobies to live. Have you slowed down any on the feeding? If you continue to get nest this large take them as soon as you are sure they are done fertilizing them. you will need to use a tumbler or very small power head on a low setting, just enough to gently move them. PM me if you want to know exactly how we did it. I'll have to get Alan to e-mail you these matters are more his thing. Also do you need more s-type rotifers?


Amy

[NicoleC]

I wanted to leave them with the male for a couple of days per your earlier advice. I wasn't feeding less... guilt, I guess, since they have no pods or anything in their tank other than copepods, which they ignore. As of this morning I switched them to once per day.

I would like to see your tumbler; I'll send you a PM. I built a kriesel which seems to be doing the job but it's definately not a permanent structure.

I'm good on s-strain. Somehow they survived my vacation and me learning how to keep them. I've had several crashes, but I have more than one bucket going They double daily, so I am throwing out tons of them. Wonder if I can freeze them?

[oceanarus]

Extras (when we have them) get fed to the reef tanks. You can freeze them. Newly hatched fish won't take them, but ones that are a few days old and are already used to eating rotifers will take the frozen ones.

[NicoleC]

Hmmm. I will have to try that. There's an awful lot of garbage in there when I strain them. (Although I get the biggest chunks with a brine shrimp net... BBS go right through it, so I'm glad I found *some* use for it!) I'm not sure I want to freeze that garbage until I refine my technique some.

Or else bite the bullet and order that $250 worth of mesh that I need...

[Luis A M]

Originally posted by NicoleC

Or else bite the bullet and order that $250 worth of mesh that I need...

What exactly do you need?

[stevemc]

I use a rotifer strainer that Florida Aqua Farms makes and sells. It works great. It is a piece of 6" PVC about 8" long with a sleeve that holds a very fine mesh taut across the end. Works real good. You pour the water thru and get pure rotifers. Turn it upside down over a cup and pour clean water back thru screen to flush out rotifers. The only way to do it! Very well made and sturdy. Check them out on the net. No pun intended. They have all the other stuff you need for raising any phyto or zooplankton and have cultures. Good luck, Steve.

[stevemc]

You definetly dont want to pour the rotifer water into the tank, it will pollute the tank water.

[NicoleC]

I need 400 micron for pre-screening algae detritus, and 41um for the s-strain. Also, I am using an unknown generic "rotifer" net for BBS, which I think is 150.

I am just using s-strain for now, but if I add l-strain, I may want a larger mesh for them. Maybe not.

When you add up the fact everyone wants a minimum of 2 yards of material, it gets expensive fast! I have been eyeing the FAF and Aquatic Eco premade versions instead. I'm using a home-made version using 3" PVC, but I don't seem to have the knack of good superglue technique.

Now the good news:
I was afraid that my eggs were not developing. Today, I came home and there were little black eyes everywhere! Even the eggs that got scattered across the bottom of the tank seem to be developing normally. I'll admit I usually haven't gotten a good look at the nest until it would fall off on Day 3, so I didn't really know what to expect in terms of development.

Alan emailed me a description of his version of an egg tumbler and it's WAY simpler than I came up with, and probably more effective, too. I even had all the parts for his. Well, it seems mine is working okay anyway.

My rots are not doing as well as they have been, but I think I am okay on quantity even if I have a good hatch tomorrow night. I just won't throw them out or feed them to the reef when I clean tomorrow, and that should get me a few hundred thousand extra for the babies. I will start the co-culture tomorrow night so they have something to eat when they hatch. There I go being optimistic again -- well, I should at least have a FEW babies.

Here's my ghetto setup. The two buckets on the bottom are s-strain, the 20g is me trying to start a 3rd culture in live phyto (ain't working for some reason; I will dose with Rotifer Diet instead tonight), and the 10g is the larval/hatching tank. The 20g will be a growout tank... someday!


Cheesy but effective - -and cheap -- air manifold:


Disposable tupperware egg tumbler/kriesel (thanks to DavidM for the inspiration). I cut a hole in the lid for ventilation, and there's toile (wedding veil material) behind the lid.


From the side you can see the air inlet. There's also a big hole on top for the air bubbles to escape:


Finally, a bad closeup of the eggs, but I was shooting at an angle all the way from the side of the tank. You can see the dark spots where the eyes are, though:

[Dman]

Nicole,
What size mesh are you looking for.
Check with DavidM to see if he has any 23micron screen left to sell.
I grabbed a couple of feet off of him awhile back in anticipation of needing "s" strain eventually.
Dman

[Luis A M]

Hi,
For pre-screening you need a 200.
53 is OK for any rot.
How to make your sieve:Cut the piece of pipe you need and run the cement all around the edge.I use Suprabond,dunno if it exists there.Let aside for a while.Put some newspaper on a table and the screen fabric on it.Put the pipe on the screen and press with a board and something heavy on it for some hours.Now remove the weight and cut the screen all around the pipe with a sharp cutter.Remove carefully the paper of the center but don´t try to peel off at the edge,it will go with use.

[NicoleC]

That's what I did, Luis, but mine leaks around the edges anyway. It's like the superglue doesn't want to stick to the mesh. Anyway, a rubber band around the PVC solved the problem, holding some extra mesh.

[Luis A M]

Originally posted by NicoleC
That's what I did, Luis, but mine leaks around the edges anyway. It's like the superglue doesn't want to stick to the mesh. Anyway, a rubber band around the PVC solved the problem, holding some extra mesh.

Yes,or holding it with the threaded cap of a container,as per Martin M.
Yet you should make it as I say which a neater result.Suprabond is not Superglue,it is the stuff used to glue rubber and plastic inflatable toys.And the glue fix the newspaper and the pipe together sandwiching the screen.
An even better sieve can be made with clear plexiglass pipe,wide enough to fit in a Petri dish and low enough to fit under your scope.You then can observe directly in the sieve what you have fished

[NicoleC]

I will look for something like that product. That name doesn't appear to be available here, but it may be marketted under a different brand name. Thanks for the tips.

Meanwhile, the hatch countdown has begun...

[NicoleC]

The hatching has begun. I'm posting so I will tear myself away for more than 15 seconds.

I was afraid the nest wouldn't hatch because of the problems with it, but I have about 4 babies already who popped out the instant lights went out. The main tank lights are still on, so it's not completely dark in there yet. I could have sworn the light timer was on 8pm for the larval tank but I was wrong and didn't want to change it. It was a very long half hour!

I started the co-culture at 7:30pm in the larval tank with well-strained rots and fresh IA Rotifer Diet plus plenty of ClorAmX. Density is pretty good, but I would like it higher. The past few days my rot culture hasn't been producing too well and I am suddenly worried I won't have enough.

I took the lid and mesh off the kriesel, but them decided that I wanted to keep the circulation going until the hatch was complete. I propped the kriesel up against the tank wall and the few babies I have are trapped in there, but they have plenty of rots if they are ready to eat already. I will pull the kriesel when most of the nest has hatched.

They don't seem to be strong swimmer fresh out of the gate, but either they are bigger than the previous ones or my eyes are getting better.

8:50pm - Lights out, I had to run and check. No additional babies. Last time i had a good hatch in the parent tank, I forgot to check until 1/2 hour after lights out, then I had babies *everywhere.* OS I don't really know what to expect of hatch time.

Meanwhile, a couple of pics I took tonight. Not my best work, but it's hard to get a good focus on a rotating ball that looks like a yellow smudge!





Boy, there are a LOT of eye balls there!

9:10pm - I'm going to go blind. Anyway, I can only count two babies now, but I see there is a gap now between the kriesel edge and the glass, so couple may have escaped. I don't know if papa would do anything to encourage the babies to come out, so I don't know if I should turn up the current or turn it down and let them settle.

The couple of babies I saw seemed to be trying to eat, and rotifer density is better than I first thought. Less than 1-2 fish lengths between rots, or so it appears from my angle.

I'm going to stop pointing my little red flashlight at them for a while, now...

[NicoleC]

Reluctantly, it seems that I must admit that this nest is not going to hatch, either. As of 10:30pm, I can count 6 babies. All are large and swimming well with full yolk sacs -- one is a bit smaller but is a lightning fast, agile swimmer.

Egg development was good right up until tonight, so I have no idea what I did, or did not do, that prevented the hatch.

Perhaps I will have a miracle in the morning, but I am not feeling optimistic.

[NicoleC]

Babies! And a surprise.

The hatch has started -- at first light! These don't seem to be quite as big as the ones last night, so maybe the ones last night just wouldn't fit in their eggs anymore?

I tried to get pics of the babies hatching out, but I will need to check them later to see if they are any good. The babies just kind of float up and away from the nest, then suddenly jerk into action.

I was very depressed when I had no babies when I got up this morning. Guess they fooled me! I wonder now if the mega nighttime hatch I saw before was pistol shrimp? And daytime hatches would explain the difficulty I've been having trying to watch the hatch

[Kathy55g]

Wow, How many do you have now? They sure look like good eggs!
Kathy

[NicoleC]

When I left for work, there were maybe a hundred babies swimming around, and the nest not looking that much smaller yet. I'm guessing there must be at least 1500 eggs in the nest, but I'm not going to try and count eyeballs to find out for sure. The sections shown in the nest pictures above are about 2/3 of the nest.

Suddenly a few million rotifers doesn't seem like enough...

Hope ya'll don't mind me using the forum as a back-up journal. I keep a journal, but if I lost it I wouldn't want to have to rely on memory until I have things better in my head.

Speaking of journals, I checked through my notes, and almost every month there's and entry that goes something like this:
- No hatch 4th night
- No nest on eve of 5th day. Daytime hatch?

Doh! No why was it stuck in my head that they hatch at night? I guess I didn't make the mental connection until I actually saw some eggs hatching out.

[Kathy55g]

Interesting that they hatch at daybreak.
I would think it would help them to escape predators to hatch in the dark. I wonder why?

[NicoleC]

Maybe 'cause other fish hatch at night? Maybe this is an anomally with my pair and their timing in laying their eggs? Or in general with captive conditions? Maybe the larvae need light to hunt and with a daylight hatch they can start eating right away?

Interestingly, because it's a slow hatch, there isn't a cloud of babies that suddenly rises up (like my clowns do). Maybe that prevents attracting predators?

Perhaps Alan and Amy's upcoming article -- which won't come a day too soon for me -- will mention when their's hatch and I will have their experience to compare to at least. Unlike clowns, it's not like there is 30 years of study and a few thousand breeders with experiences to compare to!

I'm just glad I'm not the FIRST and have Alan and Amy's generous sharing of knowledge to at least give me some hints of what to expect next. I'm making my fair share of mistakes, but at least I can avoid a few -- and knowing what to *feed* the larvae is a huge bit of info right there.

I am very frustrated sitting at work right now. Not getting much done, either! I think I need a web cam at home on the larval tank... but that would be a heck of a camera to let me see 2mm translucent babies!

[Kathy55g]

Who are Alan and Amy, and where do i read more?

[Luis A M]

Good luck with the babies!

I wish I could have some



But my pair (both yellow)after some time of being together,decided to split.

They now occupy opposite corners of the tank.They don´t fight though.

I keep them in a bare tank with pipes,you use sand substrate?you said you had pistol shrimps there.