The build thread: 430gal. display

[Ummfish]

I just found a fun little paper this evening (Seishi Kimura and Takanari, "Development of Eggs, Larvae and Juveniles of the Labrid Fish, Halichoered poecilopterus, Reared in the Laboratory," Japanese Journal of Ichthyology, Vol. 39, No. 4, 1993). Assuming that sixlines have a larval stage that are roughly similar to these other wrasses, the prolarvae should be roughly halfway round the diameter of the egg by about 10.5 hours after spawn. I should be seeing _some_ development in there, at any rate. So, probably infertile.

But, I collected 81 eggs tonight! Already in the antibiotic bath. We'll see.

 

[Ummfish]

Sixline wrasse embryo, 15 hours post-collection and somewhere between 15 and 18 hours post-spawn!!

 

[Zooid]

wooohoooo......good luck with those guys.

 

[Ummfish]

Thanks, Gale! 151 eggs tonight!

 

[Ummfish]

Elkhorn coral, plus guest:

Who couldn't love a face like that?

 

[Atari]

WOW theses pics are from the future...

 

[Ummfish]

Yeah, every time I unplug the dang microscope the date changes back to that. Sigh.

 

[Ummfish]

Sixline wrasse prolarva!!!

This is killing me. I thought I was taking a bunch of video, washed the little one back into the petri dish, and then found out that the microscope hadn't saved any of it. So, this photo is the only one I have right now. Details: the prolarva is looking close to 2+ mm. Measurements were one of the things I was going to use video for. The yolk sac looks pretty depleted at this point, though still present. The larva looks pretty close to Figure 2, B ("1 day, 2.44mm TL") from the Kimura & Kiriyama paper referenced above.

 

[Zooid]

What do you intend to try and feed them, Andy?
2mm is pretty tiny
Greenwater for a while? Maybe some copepod nauplii?

 

[Ummfish]

When I get cultures going (sigh), yes. Plus I'm planning to try a really high concentration of small-strain rots, with the hope that they could get by on the juvenile rotifers. You don't happen to have any S strain, do you?

I've got to get moving on the cultures. Maybe tomorrow I can grab some time.

 

[Ummfish]

111 eggs tonight. I made a new egg incubator this afternoon, so the eggs went in there. That's a water pitcher from Target.

And here's my egg collector with pipette.

 

[Zooid]

I don't have any live rots left......I'm going to have to siphon the bottom of the rotifer tank and see if I can restart the culture but first I need to start culturing phyto again. I have a feeling my black and white ocellaris are going to start laying eggs. The pair you were holding for me (the onyx perc and ocellaris) a few months ago just laid their second nest this afternoon. I'm not gathering any more hybrid perc/ocellaris though. I have about 300 or so juveniles already. LOL

 

[Ummfish]

Good job, Gale! Now you just need a really snazzy name and you can sell them on Live Aquaria like Sanjay did with his hybrids.

Good luck with the rots. I need to bite the bullet and order up some small ones and cops from Seahorse Source.

-------------------

Well, there was also a green mandarin spawn tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC7oiotlQPs

And I managed to catch one single egg. As you can see, it's also very small but it's quite a but different from the sixline eggs. It's also much, much more buoyant than the sixline eggs.

 

[Zooid]

Now you just need a really snazzy name and you can sell them on Live Aquaria like Sanjay did with his hybrids.

Yeah, I noticed that too.
I think making up a name for a true variant (like the picasso) is cool, but making up a name for a hybrid with no distinguishing characteristics is too misleading. Case in point is the guy who named his picassos with extreme markings "snowcassos".

 

[Ummfish]

Well, but I'm glad Sanjay did something to make sure people knew that they weren't getting a purebred fish. He just did it in a way that made him some extra money, too.

News from tonight: 218 sixline wrasse eggs. I had a petri dish open, so that's where they went.

And, here's a short video of a sixline wrasse prolarva from earlier today! It's still not too far from hatching. You'll see that the mouth hasn't developed yet and there's still part of the yolk sac where the mouth will be. Also, does it look like the heart is in front of the eyes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKm8R7f3R8o

Stills from the video:

Without backlighting:

 

[Ummfish]

Looks like we had a power outage last night that I didn't even notice. All of the non-backed up plugs--including the computer that serves up the photos--went down. The fish all look fine upstairs and in the fish room. Looks like the backup generator saved my bacon. Any time I've had something similar happen in the past I've had at least some mortalities. If you don't have a plan for power outages, I'd certainly suggest thinking about one. My bedside clock happens to be on one of the backed-up circuits, so I didn't even get up late to take the kiddo to her camp. Something to consider.

 

[Ummfish]

I left the water flow a little too strong through the collector and when I went down there was flow coming over the top. So, lame collection tonight. I only managed to find about 30 eggs.

 

[Ummfish]

Weirdness with the Banggais today. Looks like they may have messed up fertilization on the last batch of eggs. The male held them a looonggg time and finally abandoned them today. I'm a little worried because he had a new mouthful before the end of the day, without taking time to regain any weight. I don't want her to wear him out. At any rate, today is day one.

 

[Ummfish]

I spent today working on a culture station. So far, so good. Room for a sump underneath and everything.

 

[Ummfish]

Time again for a filefish update. This is day 160 and doing fine.

Male file, day 1:

Male file, day 159 (last night):

Female file, day 1:

Female, day 159: