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!

Fred and Wilma

My first saltwater fish was this yellow watchman goby.  It took me a few years to find a mate from a fellow reefer, but they paired up and started spawning in the DT.   They are now over in the fishroom, so let's hope they get back in the mood soon.

another anemonefish

You might already know this, but I was surprised the first time I saw a Bangaii Cardinalfish all up in a sea anemone.  I was afraid it would be eaten until I realized they too are anemonefish.

Magnificent

One of the coolest fish you will never have, the Magnificent Fan Shrimp Goby.

Eye-brow Perc

Several of the clowns will have variations in the head-stripe.  My Maroons used to produce a part in the head-stripe like a comb-over.  The Darwins had a few missing the top of the stripe.  We called those the Orcas.  And now I'm seeing a few Perculas with an interesting head-stripe sort of like bushy eye-brows.

Hybrids

Etta is a Sanjay's Half-Black Photon.  Her man Miles is a Black Ocellaris.  So this little fella is 3/4 Black Ocellaris and 1/4 Onyx Percula.

It will be fun to see how dark it gets and how the color differs.

Misbars

It used to be that a misbarred fish would be culled and never make it to market.  Now it seems the misbars are the most popular fish.  All these new designer fish are basically just color variations of the common fish.  For me, the Perculas have always produced the most misbars.  Some look a lot better than others and some are the Picassos.  It's been interesting to observe the development of the fish as they color up and grow into their markings. With the Picassos, you never know what you'll get.  Here's a shot of that same Percula I've been following.  At 2 months he looks like the Platinum variety.