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Unread 02/11/2017, 11:41 PM   #1
taricha
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Yellow head jawfish spawning

My very entertaining pair of jawfish became even more entertaining today. I saw eggs in the mouth of the larger one.


They never shared a tunnel, so this caught me by surprise. If he doesn't eat the eggs, I might give it a try.


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Unread 02/12/2017, 12:13 AM   #2
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That's great. Keep us posted.


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Unread 02/12/2017, 02:43 AM   #3
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Awesome. Best of luck.

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Unread 02/12/2017, 07:50 AM   #4
taricha
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These are the most informative accounts of success with this species - Opistognathus aurifrons - I've found so far.
Let me know if there are other good ones.
Martin Moe raised on wildcaught plankton - "I started them out on wild plankton, dissected a few in the first few days and found only small copepod napulii."
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1053375

Classroom hatching done at Southampton High School on Long Island.
http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?&m=98002&mpage=1
"Today[Day 13] we started mixing in some Apocyclops panamensis nauplii to our daily feeding of 10 Parvocalanus crassirostris nauplii/mL."
the parvocalanus are fed by "1-L of Chaetoceros muelleri algae is added to the tank at a slow drip each day."

Lots of accounts of bad fathers swallowing the eggs around day 4 or so (they hatch at day 7-9).

My guys spawned in the display tank of a mixed reef. No special arrangements were made to promote their breeding... EXCEPT: my tank runs consistently hot - sometimes worryingly hot for the corals - because it gets morning sunlight through a window. (Sump lighting contributes as well). Tank is between 80-82F 90% of the time. Other accounts also ran their tanks at 80 &81F.



Last edited by taricha; 02/12/2017 at 07:57 AM. Reason: species name
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Unread 02/12/2017, 05:27 PM   #5
taricha
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Was interested to see how male would behave at feeding time.
Before feeding, had his mouth full of eggs. Then when food went in tank, he came out and chowed down. When he finished eating, his mouth was empty.
I couldn't tell for sure if he had swallowed the eggs or had spit them out. I heard some of them will spit the eggs out, then eat and take them back up after. Looked closely for egg mass, because that would make collecting really easy close to hatch time. No luck.
A few minutes after eating he popped his head out of the burrow mouth full of eggs again.
So apparently he likes to stash the eggs in his tunnel while he eats. Good to know he's smart enough to get fed without eating eggs. Might have a chance of seeing some fry.


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Unread 02/12/2017, 05:35 PM   #6
farfromsea
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Very cool! And fascinating he eats while brooding unlike the banggai cardinals

Did you buy a mated pair or did you pair them yourself?


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Unread 02/12/2017, 07:28 PM   #7
taricha
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Quote:
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Very cool! And fascinating he eats while brooding unlike the banggai cardinals

Did you buy a mated pair or did you pair them yourself?


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Mated pair ordered from k&p aquatics (amazing job by them on everything) on 4/26 last year. This is their first spawning event in my tank.
I didn't know until the eggs which was which.
I saw a pic elsewhere that showed clear abdomen length/shape difference between male and female. I'll try to get my own pics to compare and see if it holds.
This kind from FL doesn't develop the two black spots under the chin on the male so other clues needed.

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Unread 02/13/2017, 01:13 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taricha View Post
Mated pair ordered from k&p aquatics (amazing job by them on everything) on 4/26 last year. This is their first spawning event in my tank.
I didn't know until the eggs which was which.
I saw a pic elsewhere that showed clear abdomen length/shape difference between male and female. I'll try to get my own pics to compare and see if it holds.
This kind from FL doesn't develop the two black spots under the chin on the male so other clues needed.

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I've been planning to order for them as well. Hopefully they get another pair. I just missed the last one in stock! I've read that a 14H photoperiod helps them spawn


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Unread 02/13/2017, 07:41 PM   #9
taricha
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Ok, here's the pic I was thinking of. A very pronounced difference in abdomen size/shape. Mine don't show as much, but it's still there.



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Unread 02/13/2017, 08:48 PM   #10
taricha
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Okay, here's how my fish compare.
Males have slightly larger heads and smaller abdomens, females smaller heads larger abdomens. The overall effect is that females head looks like it would almost fit in her abdomen, males head not really even close.


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File Type: jpg JawfishMaleFemale.jpg (74.4 KB, 95 views)
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Unread 02/13/2017, 10:27 PM   #11
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I like that analogy. Fitting the head in the abdomen lol. The female does have a quite smaller head. Makes sense for the egg storage!


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Unread 02/14/2017, 06:01 PM   #12
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I love the first pic! Let us know how this works out.


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Unread 02/14/2017, 09:44 PM   #13
taricha
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I love the first pic! Let us know how this works out.
Thanks. Here's one more from yesterday. (Day 3)



He seems really willing to stash the eggs in his tunnel, and come out to feed or just display, spit sand, adjust rocks, chase other fish away - whatever. He'll take eggs back in his mouth once every couple of minutes, but he's really not locked into holding them 24/7 if he'd rather do something else.

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Unread 02/15/2017, 12:23 PM   #14
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So cool. So what are you going to do with the fry?


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Unread 02/15/2017, 08:32 PM   #15
RIP Sebastian
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Smile

Quote:
Originally Posted by taricha View Post
Thanks. Here's one more from yesterday. (Day 3)



He seems really willing to stash the eggs in his tunnel, and come out to feed or just display, spit sand, adjust rocks, chase other fish away - whatever. He'll take eggs back in his mouth once every couple of minutes, but he's really not locked into holding them 24/7 if he'd rather do something else.

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Thanks for sharing! He looks like he took too big of a bite of mashed potatoes.


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Unread 02/15/2017, 08:32 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taricha View Post
Thanks. Here's one more from yesterday. (Day 3)



He seems really willing to stash the eggs in his tunnel, and come out to feed or just display, spit sand, adjust rocks, chase other fish away - whatever. He'll take eggs back in his mouth once every couple of minutes, but he's really not locked into holding them 24/7 if he'd rather do something else.

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Mine does that stash -eat-reclaim thing too.


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Unread 02/15/2017, 10:38 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taricha View Post
Thanks. Here's one more from yesterday. (Day 3)



He seems really willing to stash the eggs in his tunnel, and come out to feed or just display, spit sand, adjust rocks, chase other fish away - whatever. He'll take eggs back in his mouth once every couple of minutes, but he's really not locked into holding them 24/7 if he'd rather do something else.

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That's absolutely fantastic. You should try to raise a clutch just for the fun of it and see how it goes.


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Unread 02/15/2017, 10:54 PM   #18
taricha
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So cool. So what are you going to do with the fry?

Primarily, I'm going to feed parvocalanus, themselves raised on a culture of isochrysis.
I'll also offer euplotes ciliates and rotifers in small amounts cultured on a mix of Iso and nanno. No evidence the fry take anything other than the parvocalanus nauplii but maybe the other items will serve a small enrichment purpose.
I got all the cultures in the mail today except rotifers haven't come yet, all looked good under the scope.

Here's a pic of eyes looking back at me from inside a fish's mouth.




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Unread 02/16/2017, 01:21 PM   #19
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Such cute tiny eyes. Is the rotifer cultivation setup pretty intense? Raising jawfish has interested me for quite some time but the setup seems daunting.


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Unread 02/17/2017, 07:41 AM   #20
taricha
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Such cute tiny eyes. Is the rotifer cultivation setup pretty intense? Raising jawfish has interested me for quite some time but the setup seems daunting.


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I think the rotifer culture will not matter much. From what I can tell, success will depend entirely on the ability to culture parvocalanus copepods. (I killed my first culture split)
The fish seem only to accept their live nauplii, and the pods inturn only eat live algae - T-iso being considered the best.

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Unread 02/18/2017, 12:59 PM   #21
taricha
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I've been planning to order for them as well. Hopefully they get another pair. I just missed the last one in stock! I've read that a 14H photoperiod helps them spawn

I can confirm that my lights were on 14hr day.


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Unread 02/18/2017, 03:32 PM   #22
taricha
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From what I read, I thought they were supposed to hatch at dawn?
Well at dawn of day 7 (counting day 1 is day the eggs first appeared) nothing. But at 2:30pm, a few individuals started to be spit out like once a minute. I grabbed what I could before I had to leave. This morning the rest were gone before dawn, so the tank got thoroughly fed. Sun Corals were really happy.

I only collected 3 fully healthy fry from this batch, but that's probably for the best - my parvocalanus pod culture is starting to gain traction, but it's so immature: really hard to find nauplii in there. So I'll be surprised if any of the 3 fry survive to see their siblings in the next clutch.



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Unread 02/18/2017, 07:13 PM   #23
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Awesome! Hopefully they don't starve


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Unread 02/18/2017, 10:38 PM   #24
taricha
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Awesome! Hopefully they don't starve
Thanks. We'll see. They seem right now to hunt more along the bottom of the tank. So I took a sample from the bottom - euplotes ciliates and a few pod nauplii. Would be very interesting if the fish are actually eating ciliates too.
I don't think I'll put a healthy one under microscope to see what it's been eating since there's only 3. Maybe next batch.

Temperature
I had heater set at 80 on one side of tank and thermometer on other side reading 78, and the fish hung out close to the heater all day, so I upped the heater temp to 82.


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Unread 02/19/2017, 08:14 AM   #25
taricha
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Lost all 3 fry within 48hrs. So many things not ideal it's hard to say what got them. Temp overshot so thermometer on far side of tank from heater read 84. Food availability and water quality also suspect.

But female is fat with eggs again so we'll see how it goes.

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