Shot in the very wee hours of the morning on 6/29/2012:
- About The Lightning Project
- Inventory of F1 PNG Lightning and White Stripe Maroon Clownfish
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, BZLM1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, BZLM2
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, FW1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM10
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM11
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM12
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM13
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM14
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM15
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM16
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM17
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM18
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM19
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM20
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM3
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM4
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM5
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM6
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM7
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM8
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM9
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, MD1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, MWP3
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, WS17
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon, EC1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon, GL1
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, BZWS1
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, BZWS2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, BZWS3
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS10
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS11
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS12
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS13
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS14
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS15
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS16
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS4
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS5
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS6
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS7
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS8
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS9
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, EC2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, FW2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, GL2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, MD2
- Lightning Breeding Directive
- Lightning Maroon Clownfish Links
- Home
- About The Lightning Project
- Inventory of F1 PNG Lightning and White Stripe Maroon Clownfish
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, BZLM1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, BZLM2
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, FW1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM10
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM11
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM12
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM13
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM14
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM15
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM16
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM17
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM18
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM19
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM20
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM3
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM4
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM5
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM6
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM7
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM8
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, LM9
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, MD1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, MWP3
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish, WS17
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon, EC1
- F1 PNG Lightning Maroon, GL1
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, BZWS1
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, BZWS2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, BZWS3
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS10
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS11
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS12
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS13
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS14
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS15
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS16
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS4
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS5
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS6
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS7
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS8
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon Clownfish, WS9
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, EC2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, FW2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, GL2
- F1 PNG White Stripe Maroon, MD2
- Lightning Breeding Directive
- Lightning Maroon Clownfish Links
So not sure how much I’ve conveyed, but the jist was that I had an artificial incubation hatch last night.
Black round tub, incubating the eggs.
Once hatched, I tinted the water (about 5 gallons of broodstock water) green with Reed Mariculture’s RotiGreen Nanno (a frozen algae paste specifically made for use in greenwater technique). It took about 20 drops. I added 10 drops of Chloram-X (for ammonia control). And I sieved 2 gallons of rotifers to innoculate the black round tub.
Greenwater Technique with Reed Mariculture's RotiGreen Nanno
Lightning Maroon Clownfish Offspring
Mike Doty came over to check everything out, as he is in charge from now until my return from the Boston club’s event where I’m speaking this weekend.
Blame this guy if it doesn't work! Just Kidding! - Mike Doty, Maroon Clownfish Breeder and custodian of Lightning Maroon clownfish fry in my absence.
As of noon today, there are likely a couple hundred baby clownfish zooming around. A quick check of the water showed that rotifer densities were already quite minimal, so another 3 gallons of sieved rotifers were added.
And that’s it – I’ll have to write this up more thoroughly sometime next week (assuming time permits).
Impossible to say how many just yet, but after turning out the lights at midnight, I gave them about an hour, and I’ll give it another hour yet before I turn on lights to check for any remaining eggs (split hatches are common). But in that quick peek with a tiny flashlight at roughly 1:05 AM, I saw all I needed to see.
Ladies and Gentleman; we’re rearing Lightning Maroon Larvae.
Seriously, one baby found hatched in the tank, and failed to collect it. One more baby has hatched out in the BRT (Black Round Tub), and that’s it! It’s now 4:00 AM, so I turned on the lights on the BRT, angled it off to the side so that the light intensity is greatly diminished. The eggs appear to be fine, so my guess is that I was tricked by a couple early hatchers, and the bulk will hatch tomorrow (Thursday, 7 days post spawn). That’s my hope anyways, but wouldn’t it be just like the rest of this project to only get ONE baby?! Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
In a balancing act, I introduced a very light level of Rotifers and equally light dosing of RotiGreen Nanno into the BRT so that our lone ranger has something to do with all this time on his hands. I went very light to hopefully avoid any contamination that could foul and kill the remaining eggs who have probably another 24 hours to hatch.
I’ve been taking photos, so at some point I’ll post a pictorial recap of tonight’s (and hopefully tomorrow’s) big event!
6-28-2012 1:23 AM – HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH HATCH!!!!!!
(after discovering a single hatched-out baby in the flashlight’s beam, the tile was pulled under cover of darkness and moved to dedicated Black Round Tub for artificial hatching)
Pumps are off for the next 2.5 hours (used a feed timer on the Apex to ensure it’s automatically turned back on tonight – no way am I going to screw up and leave the pump off overnight!), lights out save one flashlight for attracting larvae. I’m still leaning towards tomorrow, and my worst fear is that the hatch out at 4 AM or something long after I’ve given up. Now we wait.
12:20 AM – got excited when I saw movement in the flashlight beam – darn swimming copepods….
12:30 AM – ran the MP10 on battery power for a minute, then back off. Turned out my flashlight for a bit; it’s on the opposite side of the tank, completely blocked by rockwork, but going to take no changes.
12:45 AM – ran the MP10 again for a minute, flashlight back on…no hatch yet. HMM. Thinking tomorrow is more likely at the moment. But…should I pull the tile tonight? Afterall, tiles like this are shipped successfully with ZERO “incubation” performed by the parents…so as long as I don’t screw up, there’s no reason I couldn’t incubate them for the last 24 hours. My head is leaning in that direction at the moment.
1:23 AM – that aint’ a copepod….
There has been a lot going on – the Lightning Maroon actually came down with yet ANOTHER recurrent bacterial infection, we removed the Butterflyfish from the tank, I started treatments with Maracyn & Maracyn II back on Sunday night which restored the Lightning’s appetite and appears to have fought back the problem. All the while they have been tending their nest.
So will the eggs hatch tonight? I wasn’t planning for a hatch so-soon, but looking at the fact that the eggs showed eyes yesterday and are looking pretty silvery tonight, I’m seriously wondering. It’s up in the air…clownfish hatch times can vary between pairs even if all other items remain the same. That said, here’s a quick rundown of data scrubbed from the MBI (Marine Breeding Initiative Database) by simply viewing the “hatch” reports for Premnas biaculeatus – http://www.mbisite.org/Search.aspx?Species=17
83F = 6 days
28C (82.4F) = 8 days
81F = 5 days
30C (86F) = 5 days
78-80F = 7 days
78F = 8 days
79-80F = 6 days
So what does this all mean? Well, the above data set is still pretty small, but it suggests that I could had a hatch as early as yesterday. Other than the one odd 8 day one at 28C, the rest paint a pretty convincing picture of “higher temps” = “shorter incubation times”. With the lovely data logging capabilities of my Apex Lite controller, I was able to log in and see that my temperatures have ranged pretty consistently between 79.5 and 81.2 – that all points to a high probability of a hatch tonight. I’m not sure whether I will pull the tile, or wait to see the first hatchlings in the tank and THEN pull the tile. Tough deciisons to make.
I’m off to prepare.
Some photos of the nest laid yesterday 🙂
The big question now is how I’m going to be dealing with the eggs / babies while I’m speaking to the Boston Reefers next weekend! Mike’s Maroons are on a 7 day schedule, and I can certainly bump up the temp a bit to encourage faster incubation so they hatch while I’m here. I would hate to botch this, and since it’s been a year since I pulled a clownfish nest it’s certainly a possibility. Who knows really. But we’re definitely getting closer. Looks like having Mike Doty, who is also now quite adept at reaing clowns, living 4 blocks away, is really, really a handy thing 🙂
Yes, that “surprise” that happened today was the honestly unanticipated 2nd spawning of the Lightning Maroon. The massive flooding in Duluth the last couple days prevented Barb from making the trip to teach me how to do a skin scrape on the Lightning Maroon; had she come yesterday as originally planned, I very well may have a) fished out the male, or possibly even the Lightning Maroon herself for a skin scrape and thus b) probably delayed or prevented this very spawn from happening. Serendipity at it’s finest. It was still the plan to skin scrape the fish today to rule out any external parasites, but when Barb called to say she was on her way, I had to tell her that the fish had started spawning behavior, and that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to touch them today. This was shot right after I got off the phone with her:
By the time she and Heidi had arrived, things were looking pretty serious, so much so that I had to excuse myself from being a good host to immediately film the fish’s behavior. Lucky thing I did, because I caught the very first few eggs being laid as it happened (left the audio commentary on, if you can imagine me shooting while talking and pointing to the tank…)
Afterwards, believe it or not, I actually tore myself away so that we could do some skin scrapes on some other fish downstairs just so I could learn how to do it. Turns out it was really easy, but honestly, it’s one of those things that I think you simply want to see done the first time, just so you know you’re doing it right. And between my two microscopes, I really a) don’t have one powerful enough to look at the sample and b) wouldn’t necessarily know what to look for, whereas Barb has that experience. The samples we took from the fish downstairs were clean (no pathogens noted). Always a nice thing to hear 😉
After Barb and Heidi departed, I sat down and took some additional video of the post-spawn behavior. You can clearly see both the mark on the male right between the eyes, as well as the inflamed tissue around the left eye of the female.
So that’s where we’re at. A new batch of eggs, and new hope that maybe, just maybe, I can take some of the pressure off if things go our way and we get some baby Lightning Maroon Clownfish. Wouldn’t that be great? If we have success, it’s realistic that 1-2 months from now we might have our first ideas at what we’re looking at. Of course I’ve just now done the math and realized – I will be speaking in Boston the weekend these eggs are due to hatch. THANKFULLY I have not one, but TWO local hobbyists here in town who have both hatched and reared maroon clownfish. Looks like I’ll be asking both Mike Doty and Jay Hansen to do some pretty serious fish sitting next weekend!!!
So the day after I said “we’re all good”, I should’ve known better.
The very next day, the left eye on the Lightning Maroon started to pop out yet again. It’s an odd thing in that it’s the tissue that surrounds the eye in the socket that is getting pushed out, creating a ring around the eye. Once again, back with Dr. Amy Kizer to brainstorm & trouble shoot. Barb and Heidi were here this afternoon to do a skin scrape on the Lightning (or more likely,the mate, since both have shown problems in the past few months and the mate is replaceable, the Lightning isn’t). The scrape is simply to go one step closer to ruling out any other possible causes. The eye didn’t get as bad as it did the second time (not like the first when I thought it was mechanical damage, nor the third where it came and went before we could really intervene) but still, this is getting annoying. Since we’ve used multiple types of medications already, one option is to remove the Lightning Maroon to another tank, and possibly to treat it with Nitrofurazone, which Barb has had good luck with in the treatment of “pop-eye” in the past.
In our ongoing process of elimination, I think we’re leaning towards removing the Foureye Butterflyfish from the tank. We’re running out of other possible things to do. The upside is that I do have a completely sterilized aquarium that can recieve the butterflyfish to keep it “clean” while we see what happens with the pair – if I have to reintroduce the Butterfly later, it won’t introduce anything new from it’s vacation. Also thinking of trying out an Aiptasia wand, and part of me has even been thinking about a tank revamp and shifting towards a nice green BTA as the main focus. But honestly, the SPS and Goniopora are doing SO DARN WELL (minus the ones that bleached following the back-to-back antibiotic rounds), it’s tough to tear the thing down when it’s really just finally starting to come together.
I did learn to do a skin scrape, but there is news following the visit. I’ve given Jake Adams the scoop on this one, so watch Reef Builders for an update, probably today.
Matt
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