G. oceanops update

[David M]

Good news/ bad news. One of the neon pairs spawned last night, bad news- I wasn't ready for it. I had just moved them two days ago to a new tank and really did not expect this. There are snails in that tank, I really meant to remove them. All I found was a handful of loose eggs on the barebottom portion of the tank and 3 bumble bee snails on the upper inside surface of the pvc pipe.

So assuming I get off my butt and get the snails out, how long until the next spawn?

[jferg]

David,

Is this their first spawn? I don't know if I'd blame the snails just yet. Loose eggs (poor adhesion) can be caused by a poor broodstock diet (lack of chitin). The pair of neon gobies I have spawn every eight to nine days.

-Jim

[David M]

Yes, first spawn. I feed them live fortified bbs, cycllops-eeze and masago and they get some scraps of the PE mysis as they are in a seahorse tank. Also these tanks are have numerous mysids, 'pods & bugs but I don't know if they eat them. Anything else I might want to add? Thay get all these foods 2X per day

I see your point but there were snails in the tube exactly where I expected eggs to be, never saw them there before.

[Dlckwood]

Congrats David!!! Seems like your on your way to having another thing to raise. I wonder if the newly hatched larvae will be big enough to eat the L-strain rotifers.
David

[jferg]

Hi David,

I'm just wondering if the parents may have abandoned the nest, perhaps because the eggs were not sticking to the tube. Once they abandoned the nest, the snails moved in. Generally the parents will protect the eggs against most preditors. If it makes you feel safer, remove them (snails).

If the problem is lack of adhesiveness with the (goby) eggs, you might want to add shrimp (complete with the shell) to their diet. Take some marine shrimp (no head) but with the shells still on and put them in a blender. Add some water and grind them up. Freeze the mixture and feed daily along with the other foods you are using. The shells contain chitin which will help with the adhesiveness of the goby eggs.

-Jim

[David M]

Jeff, I have used shrimp as you suggest but I just hate the mess it makes I do the shrimp ball as Martin Moe describes. I think I'll remove the snails and see how the next batch goes before going to the mess again.

[Morgman]

I wonder if the newly hatched larvae will be big enough to eat the L-strain rotifers.

Dlckwood, yes the neons can handle L strain no problem. They need alot more than clowns for a longer period. Clowns will need rots for about 10 days, neons will need them for 30 days or more depending on temperature.

[Atticus]

Ugh, 30 days.... I do not envy you... I like my batch cultures of rots just fine When I need to add shrimp to my broodstock's diet I just freeze it whole and use a cheese grater to grate it into a cup of tank water or directly to the tanks.

[Morgman]

That is one of the reasons I am not working on neons right now. I need my rots for clownfish.

[jferg]

David,

I know it is a mess to work with but I think you'll find it will work (if the problem is the nonadhesiveness of the eggs). I had a pair of maroons that had a problem with getting their eggs to stick to a substrate. As they fanned the eggs a few would continually come off. This continued for a couple of days until the nest was half gone. At that point the parents gave up and ate the remaining eggs still attached to the substrate. The eggs which had fallen off were just left to roll around on the bottom of the aquarium. After the fifth spawn I added the chitin to their diet and within two spawns I never noticed any eggs coming loose.

-Jim

[David M]

A second pair spawned, more like "dumped" really. This morning I found eggs scattered in one of the tanks, laying in piles on the substrate. They are too small and the wrong shape to be seahorse eggs, which do often get spilled during transfer. However they don't really look like the neon eggs I had the other day either, they are more oblong and do not have a clearly defined yolk, the orange part is just a blob. I'm thinking they are unfertilized?

[David M]

Never mind, I have determined they were seahorse eggs after all. I'd delete the post but I can't, if a mod wants to that's fine with me (and this one too).