ART!

We got some new art at CCC.  Jason Thomas and Red Rocket Farm original work made at SUUSI 2012.  Go see more greatness at http://redrocketfarm.com/

Onyx Percula pair

Unlike the Picassos, these Perculas develop very slowly.  This female is almost a year old.

Baby Picassos

I thought you might like to see a batch of month-old Picassos.   This is the largest batch for me, and there are multiples of the Pearly whites.  Unlike my other Perculas,  my Picassos color up and show their markings very early.  It looks like Christmas came early.  I'll move them to the grow-out system tomorrow.

YWG color

Someone on ARC was asking about the color change in yellow watchman gobies.  I can only say for sure what I learn from my personal experiences.  Wilma was the first fish I ever bought.  That was 5 years ago.  She's always been a nice yellow.  Here's a shot from March 2011 when I introduced Fred to the display tank.  Wilma is the larger of the two, on the right and slightly darker.  You can see in the post "Wilma" that she's still pretty much the same color.  This month I've noticed a color change.  Here's a look at Fred and Wilma today.

Now I've seen some washed out looking gobies at stores and always attributed it to stress and possible age.  This isn't that dramatic a change, but a change nonetheless.  So is it age, fertility or something else?   The offspring are that typical bright yellow.

Smoky O video

In this clip you can see the dramatic difference made by crossing back to the Darwin Black Ocellaris.  All these fish are 4-5 months old.  The Onyx Perculas are just starting to bar up, and it will be another year or so before they start to darken up between the bars.  The Smoky Os are fully barred and already dark.

Kablam!

That's a whole bunch of eggs!

Wilma

Wilma is the first saltwater fish I ever bought.  Now just look at her, all preggers :)

Smoky Os

I think these guys are going to turn out lovely. The color just keeps getting richer.

A tavola!

There's a whole lot of eating going on around here.  It seems like I just finish one feeding when I have to start another.  Here's a shot of the evening meal.

little goby

I've moved the YWGs into a reef tank. They are just shy of 4 months old now.

lighten-up

A lot of my larval bowls and tanks are not well lit,  as you can probably tell from my blurry photos! Everyone is spawning so frequently now days,  I'm having to set up new tanks and move the young into them sooner.  A temporary spot light on one of the new tanks shows just how many bbs these little guys are eating.  These 13 day old Ocellaris are about to pop.

spy photo...

It looks like we have another Pearly Picasso on the way.

picasso play time

These little guys love playing in the nem.

new nem

It always surprises me when I hear someone saying that tank-raised fish don't host sea anemones.  That's just not the case here.  All my clowns love the nems.  This newly acquired nem wasn't in the tank for 2 minutes before the little picassos were all over it.

Smoky Os

The new black hybrids are about 5 months old now and really starting to look good.  I think we will call them Smoky Os.

snug as a bug

I've never had a carpet anemone until a friend brought one over to trade.  I had my doubts as to what kind of nem and if any of my clowns would host.  Well my f2 clarki wasted no time in making herself at home.

the new blacks

The hybrids are about 4 months old and looking more like the Onyx Percs than the Black Ocs.

Back in Black

I've been breeding for a few years now, so I've made it to the next generation.   One of the first pair  to spawn was my Bangaii Cardinals.  They definitely mature quickly. I had a pair of the first babies spawning at just 7 months old.  Next was a clown being used as a replacement male at about a year old.  Now I've had a pair of the offspring from my Darwin Blacks spawn.  The female is 21 months old.

YWG 10 weeks

I finally got a shot of the gobies. They've been pigging out and growing faster than the clowns with whom they share a tank.  I'll be moving them to the grow-out system Weds.

foreplay

Patricia and Pepe are definitely the most amorous of my pairs.  They don't spawn often, but work at for several days. What teasers!

YWG 2 months

The little yellow watchman gobies are growing fast now that they have settled and the parents just spawned again.

Pearly picasso

Time to say goodbye to my first and only Pearly Picasso.  What a cool fish!  Almost completely symmetrical markings, too... down to the little dots on the rear.  He's going to join his big brother in a clown featured show-tank.

Some settling may occur

The gobies are 35 days old now and most have settled to the bottom.  I think I'll set up a new tank with a filter so I don't have to vacuum daily.

Neptune's janitor

It seems like all I do is clean and feed and work on pumps and lights all day everyday.  It takes a lot of maintenance to keep all this old used equipment running smoothly, and it takes a lot of cleaning and feeding to keep all these fish in top condition.  Working with larvae and cultures that are too small to see clearly can be a pain.  Today I found a goby in the water I was about to dump.  No telling how many babies get tossed out with the bath water.

YWG day 25

They are starting to look like fish, or I can finally see them. :)  I would guess meta to happen soon and for them to settle out of the water column next week.
People always ask me how to sex the cardinals. It's really easy.  The male is the one with the mouth full of eggs and the female is the one with eggs hanging off her midsection:)

The New Blacks

Here's a first peak at the offspring from Etta and Miles.  You can see a few on top of the Ocellaris fish ball.  At 2 months they aren't really black or orange.  I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Spit 'em out!

I love Bangaii day.  He's been holding for 22 days.  I catch the male in a collection cup and encourage him to release the babies.  They pop out like perfect copies and are ready to eat live food.  Jazz is also a mouth brooder. They just spawned this morning and he has a mouth-full.

I hatched the Onyx Percs last night.

And here's a shot of the Gobies at day 19.  Still much smaller than the hours old clownfish.

Pearly Picasso

That solitary picasso is now 3 months old. Mostly white, like the Platinums, I'm calling this variety Pearly Picasso.

Ocellaris day 1

These are offspring from my first clownfish Opie and Alice.

These guys hatched last night and you can see they are probably 4 times the size of the gobies.

I can quickly see if they have full bellies or not.

Of all my cardinal pairs, this is the only male that has held eggs in a year.  They should be ready to hatch soon.

ywg day 10

Day 10 and these guys are still much smaller than newly hatched clownfish.

YWG day 8

This is going to be slow-going. They are just now getting big enough to see. Next week we should get some better shots of the tiny larvae.  Makes me appreciate how big the clowns start.

Day 6

Almost a week old and the yellow watchman goby larvae are still less than half the size of a newly hatched clownfish.  I have to clean these bowls everyday, and it's hard not to throw the babies out with the bath-water!

Day 5

So the larval bowl is full of rotifers and copepods.  They clear out the algae in a matter of hours.  I'm hoping that the zooplankton is reproducing, giving the fish larvae access to their smaller larval stages.  The specs seen in this shot are copepods on the glass, not rotifers in the water column.

One variety is larger than the fish larvae.

Looks like the gobies are getting ready to spawn again.  Jenny is looking fat and Jazz has been displaying, too.

day 4

Well there are still quite a few larvae kicking about the bowl at day 4, so they must be eating.  They are still too small for me to get a good pic, since I don't have a camera for my microscope.  I hatched out Ocellaris last night and Perculas tonight.   And I've been setting up new tanks and cleaning the old stand alones.  Patricia and Pepe seem to like the new digs. Thanks to Jesse for the generous trade.

YWG day 3

These little guys are really at the limit of my ability to work.  They are so small that I can't really see if they are eating or not.  I bet a very few will be able to eat rotifers as a first food.

Tiny, tiny, tiny

I was able to hatch out a bunch of the gobies, but man, are they small!  About 1/3 the size of clown larvae, so they'll struggle to eat rotifers as a first food.  And Jazz gave up on the eggs at day 5, so once again, no jawfish babies.

New beginnings

So it's been 5 days since my first saltwater fish spawned.  I've never raised any gobies yet, but I will.  The larvae are much smaller than clownfish and much harder to feed.  I tried once with the yellow clown goby and they didn't eat.  I'll pull these eggs tonight and see what pops out.  Who knows?   Maybe Jazz will hold his eggs to term this time too.  He is tending them better at day 4.

Triple play

Spring has sprung here and everything is a blooming outside.  Inside the fishies are spawning.  I have many pairs of fish, so it's not unusual to have multiple spawnings.  This is the first time all 3 pairs in the same tank spawned the same day.   Peg and Al the PNG Onyx Percs.

Wild Bill and Jane the WC Banggai Cardinals.

And Fred and Wilma spawned for the first time in the new tank!