Aquarium Spawning of Apogon margaritiphora

[mwp]

HOLY JUMPIN' GEE CARDINALFISH! Finally, it happened!

 

I have some vid...the darn fish literally did it behind my back...stopped paying attention for 15 minutes and missed the actual spawning...but caught courtship on VID and immediate post-spawn, the male with a HUGE mouthful!

 

So, here's how it went down. First, I have to point out that while I had been eyeing these cardinals for WEEKS in the dealer's tanks, what spurred me to make the purchase was when I noticed that one of them was holding a mouthful. While that first mouthful didn't make it through transport, for all intents and purposes I started out with a "proven" breeding group. "Cheating"? Perhaps Anyway, I can now comfortably say I have 2 males and 1 female in this group. The only sexual dimorphic characteristics I've observed in this species are as follows. 1. The males have a "longer" head...more boatlike jawline, whereas the females mouth is a bit "shorter". Also, when "arroused", the ventral fins on the males intensify greatly from transparent to a bright orange/red. There are some subtle color pattern differences, but they don't seem "consistent" enough between the two males vs. the female to warrant them as anything other than random differences in patterning.

 

The reverse trio was placed in our aquarium 10-23-05, the male dropping his mouthful at the last possible moment - literally in the net being transfered to the aquarium. So, the fish had last spawned somewhere between 7 and 14 days prior by my guestimate. It's been 35 days since their introduction to our 24 gallon Nano Cube, and 35 days since the male dropped his last batch.

 

Intially, their tankmates consisted of 5 juvenile tank-raised Pterapogon kaudernii (Bangaii's). Since then, the Bangaii's paired off...the remaining 3 were returned. A pair of Firefish (N. magnifica) was added (seems to be a mated pair, and at the moment one of the two is remaining hidden in the bolt-hole, suggestive of another breeding event, but that all remains to be seen). In the last 24 hours 4 Apogon leptacanthus were added. Upon making this intruduction I wondered if "polyculture" of Cardinalfish would work in such a confined environment. Well, I didn't have to wait long for the answer! Oh, and yes, there are 11 fish in this tank, at least 10 Tridacnas, several coral frags, 2 species of Lettuce Nudibranch and at least a half dozen different macroalgae species growing in the tank. Water conditions - temps in the upper 70's...generally between 77 and 80F. pH usually around 8.1-8.2, organics basically all 0 (nitrates < 1 ppm), Total Alkalinity generally 3.5 or so (was at 4.25 at my last test) and I've been fighting calcium levels trying to bring them up, 425 ppm or so at my last test (up from the mid 300's a week or so prior).

 

Back the the Lattice Cardinals. By the 26th, only three days after their introduction, I first observed what I suspected to be courtship behavior...at the very least behavior indicative of male/female interactions...flared fins, increased intensity in coloration of the males etc..

 

By November 3rd, these interactions between the female and males seemed to have died down. Perhaps the heirarchy amoung the three was simply reestablished?

 

I didn't note any changes until the 18th, when we had a near-wipe out of the tank due to the surface skimmer being blocked...a slick developed on the surface and I suspect it hindered gas exchange. The result was my awakeing in the morning to find two of the three Lattice Cardinals gasping at the surface. Fixing the skimmer and performing a partial water change brought everything back to normal within a few hours, although for the next couple days the fish did not feed as heavily.

 

That's "it" for my log notes. As I literally just posted an hour or two ago on another ongoing thread, I noticed what I suspected was breeding behavior in ernest. Here they are to recap:

 

The BIG news? The Lattice Cardinals are courting up a storm. I shot some video this evening and am keeping an eye on the tank...hoping to catch spawning in action. The known male (carrying eggs when purchased) is "yawning" extensively and appears to have actually dislocated his lower jaw to make room for the impending mass of eggs he'll be carrying...at least that's the best I can come up with at this time. The suspected female in the group is giving him a workout. Both the known male and suspected female are chasing the third (another suspected MALE) away, although this 2nd male is trying to get in on the action and ALSO appears to have distended his buccal cavity a bit while intensifying his coloration. Bottom line - both males "LOOK" like they're carrying a mouthful of eggs at this time, but neither actually is. Haven't seen the female drop an ovipositor or anything yet, so I suspect this is going to go on for at least a couple hours (lights out is generally 2-3 hours from now).

 

I'm glad my digital camera (used to shoot vids) time stamps stuff. I shot my first vid upon noticing courtship behavior at 8:38 central time this evening. (Lights go off around 11:30 PM - 12:00 AM) Today was a bit unusual in that I turned the lights off EARLY the night before (around 10:30 PM) and turned them on EARLY today (6:30 AM today)...perhaps this shift in lighting was what kicked them into spawning today?

 

Anyway, back to the spawning. At 10:23 PM, the Cardinals were still courting but no spawning. The 2nd male would jump in the fray and get chased out by the dominant male and, to a greater extent, the female. While the males may initiate courtship with their constant displays and general gentle harrasment of the female, once the actual spawning sequence has begun, the female DEFINITELY is in charge!

 

I was getting tired, took a break and figured I'd check in on them a bit later. I checked occasionally...hoping to catch the females "ovipositor" dropped or something that would clue me into the fact that spawning was iminent. As the evening progressed, I kinda figured that spawning would occur AFTER lights out.

 

Then it happened. Somewhere between my last check and 11:15 PM, probaby a 15 minute window, the fish spawned. The males already distended jaw is now COMPLETELY bulged out. It's so remeniscent of the African Cichlids I used to raise (Yeah, figures I'd choose mouthbrooders as my first Saltwater Breeding Attempt). DARNIT I missed it...I told myself that I noticed these guys were going to spawn I'd sit there as long as it took to get it on vid. Oh well, I know what to watch for next time.

 

Now, raising these guys is going to be an entirely different story...we'll see how that goes. I DEFINITELY welcome ANY advice, especially from folks who've successfully raised Bangaiis or, even better, other cardinalfish (I've seen a species similar to this being offered as tank-raised...going to have to relocate that online vendor and see if they'll help me track down the source, which will hopefully give me helpful tips). Questions I have yet to answer is how large these will be when compared to other Cardinalfish fry...from the look I got at the first batch the male dropped, there are going to be at least 50-100 eggs in that mass.

 

Here's the REALLY cool part. While I didn't get the spawning, I have several short videos to share immediately prior and immediately AFTER the spawn.

 

I'll be posting them on the next message in this thread...have to get them compressed and posted to a webserver first!

 

Wish us luck!

 

MP

[mwp]

Ok, I went through all the video (about 20-30 minutes worth in total) and selected a few good ones. These are compressed, reduced frame rate (15 fps) and delivered in FLASH (sorry, I couldn't find anything quick to get the Quicktimes into a better format for web-delivery). Each file is about 13 mb and 1 minute long. I am uploading these as I type this (1:00 AM) so some links may not work right away. I'll check them all as soon as the upload is complete and fix any broken ones!

 

Pre-Spawn #1 - The first real courtship activity I noticed this evening, dominated by the female.

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/pre_spawn_1.html

 

Pre-Spawn #2 - Notice how the male yawns...part of the "dead give-away" of unsual behavior that set up flags that something was different about the pairs interactions vs. their daily routine of the males dancing in front of the lone female in the tank.

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/pre_spawn_2.html

 

Pre-Spawn #3 - Really highlights a couple things - first, it pretty much proves that my unknown fish is a 2nd male. 2nd, it's interesting how both of the pair fend off this intruder, although the female still takes a dominant role. 3rd, it should demonstrate that even though the male'c buccal cavities were ALREADY distended, the male in the pair still had an empty mouth. It seems that the "yawning" behavior helps "dislocate" a portion of the jaw (again, note the unusual lump on the chin...both males are displaying this as if each is anticipating a "load").

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/pre_spawn_3.html

 

Post Spawn #1 - note how much thinner the female is and how much BIGGER the male's MOUTH is!

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/post_spawn_1.html

 

Wish me luck!

 

MP

[Caesar777]

Crazy. Nice vids, too...Instant loading.

[mwp]

I can't believe it, but there it is, right in front of me this morning. Sometime between Dec 2 and the early morning of December 5, our female Lattice Cardinal has spawned with the 2nd male in the tank, only 6-9 days after our first spawning! I've been out of town - what a plesant surprise to come back to! Both males are now holding! If I can get some pics of both males together today, I will post 'em up!

 

MwP

 

I have to add in this crucial detail - before leaving I shifted the photoperiod to start about 3-4 hours earlier. You may note that I changed the photoperiod the night before the spawning occured the first time too...I'm starting to think that a shift in photoperiod might be the stimulus that kicks this species of Cardinalfish into a breeding frezny? I think I'll know in a year or two with more haphazard experiments!

 

MwP

[mwp]

Well, the yesterday I noticed that our 2nd male to spawn (was the first spawning for him as I know of) has eaten or dropped his eggs after only a few days (3-5?) of holding them. This morning, our first male (on his 2nd known spawning event) held them for roughly 11 days (give or take some hours) and now he is no longer holding as well. GRR...at least I have baby brine and rotifers out the wazoo.

 

It sounds like (as with most mouthbrooders) that Cardinals don't always successfully hold their first couple batches....anyone else have any experience with this? I'll keep scouring the tank on the odd chance that he did actually RELEASE viable fry - I tried contacting ORA as they are raising a similar species...was hoping for info on feeding, "gestation" etc...no response as of yet.

 

Will keep this thread going as more news develops!

 

MP

[Six]

awesome! congrats on the great husbandry! keep detailed records like your doing, it will really help the hobby!

 

GL!

[mwp]

Alrighty, sometime yesterday (December 13th) I *think* we had another spawning. I was NOT in my home office yesterday so I was unable to observe (or notice anything) - heck when I left the tank lights were still off!

 

I returned yesterday evening to find the "2nd" male EXTREMELY FAT and uninterested in food. At first this set off alarms - "dropsy" like symptoms? Some sort of internal infection?

 

Well, the other observation was that our female was VERY skinny. HMM.

 

A day later, the "fat" male (#2) is back on feed and not quite sooo fat. The female is starting to regain a little girth with my usual "feed till they stop eating" method of feeding (usually 4-5 times per day). Hey...you might think I'm overfeeding here but Nitrates are still down around 1 ppm and I'm trying to condition fish here!

 

So, while I definitely can't verify it, the circumstances lead me to believe that another spawning had occured and that male #2 consumed the spawn anywhere from immediately to 10 hours later. Keep in mind this particular male didn't hold very long the first time...only a few days, before his brood disappeared.

 

This would FURTHER make some sense as our 1st and 2nd in-tank spawnings were somewher between 6 and 9 days apart. That would put this 3rd "possible" spawning event at somewhere between 7 and 11 days since our 2nd (since we don't know when spawn #2 occured, only the window of time from when we left town to returning). Again, not 100% sure that we had a spawn yesterday, but if so, it looks like our female will be at it again in another week or so I

 

n the meantime I'm gonna keep fattening all our cardinals up...I'm starting to notice some vague "courtship" type behavior between two of our Apogon leptacanthus, and it happens to be the two I'd safely say were a male / female...our 3rd...well..he/she could be either at the moment.

 

Thoughts? Anyone?

 

MP

[mwp]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...2&dopt=Abstract - apparently these scientists have noticed that "buccal structure" of the male cardinalfish is "flexible" and can expand during the breeding season. I bet they'd like to see that vid with the male "warming up"...right there in front of us, expanding his buccal cavity...

 

Hmm...they're getting ready again...only a few days and I bet we get another brood!

 

MP

[mwp]

SWEET. It's December 18th...7 central time. Over the last couple days we've had the lights off the timers. Yesterday, we went out of town overnight, returning just moments ago. Not all that surprisingly, we've returned to find male #2 holding another clutch...sometime within the last 26 hours or so. So, if that was a spawning event back on the 13th, well, 5 days later she did it again. If not, well, the distance is a bit longer in total since our 2nd OFFICIALLY confirmed spawning, so either 5 days since her last spawn or somewhere between 12 and 15 days. I wish they'd stop doing it on days when we're not around!!!!

 

Wish us improved luck, although neither of our males have yet held a brood to term. Still hoping someone out there knows how long he *should* hold them...the longest we've had to date is 11 days....

 

MP

[mwp]

!@#!@#!!!@#!@$%^% - Male #2 has once again consumed his brood as of 1:30 PM Central Time, December 20th. He's gone from having a fat throat to a FAT, BULGING belly and no appetite. I believe this is the THIRD batch of eggs he has consumed, and this time it appears to have only taken around 48 hours...like he's getting shorter and shorter on his holding times!

 

HELP! Anyone?!

 

MP

[mwp]

Man it's one of those "when it rains, it pours" kinda days. So here's the FULL rundown. First, in the last 24 hours 3 clams have kicked the bucket. A "new" T. maxima, a "new" Electric Flame Scallop, and a relatively long-term T. squamosa.

 

So, being that there is no immediate connection between these three, as well as all the other clams, sps, fish etc are doing OK, I did a water test this afternoon. Here's a full rundown.

 

temp - averaging 79F (digital)

pH - 8.0 (AqPharm & Seachem)

SG - 1.022 / 1.023 (hydro, refract)

Salinity - 31 (refract)

Alkalinity - 4.5 meq/L (seachem)

Free Ammonia - 0.0 (AqPharm & Seachem)

Total Ammonia - 0.1 (Seachem)

Nitrite - 0.0 (AqPharm & Seachem)

Nitrate- 2.0 OR 80.00 (Seachem and AqPharm) - um, anyone want to tell me which one is right?! - seems that the AqPharm test consistently reads at least 20 times higher than any result I get on the Seachem, and I've DONE the seachem reference test!)

Calcium - 420

Phosphate - 0.2

Silicate - 0.0

Iodide - 0.02

Iron - 0.0

 

Well, I'm stumped on the recent rash of clam death. What futher compounds my frustration is that it's one big cardinalfish ORGY this evening. The Apogon margaritophorus, including the one who consumed his batch this AM, well they're all over the female and she's instigating (thankfully, this time with the somewhat more reliable Male #1). I doubt she's actually ready to spawn again...but perhaps in a couple more days. As usual, all the ventral fins have become orange on all the Lattice Cardinals, and the coloration has intensified.

 

Then there's the Apogon leptacanthus - this is the 2nd time I've caught what appears to be courtship activity. The first time was just a couple days ago, and it really kicked into "high" gear on the same night the Lattice Cardinals spawned....nothing came from the Threadfins though.

 

From what I can gather, my A. leptacanthus group has turned out to be 2m/1f as the smallest, shortest finned fish spends most of it's time with the largest, longest finned fish and is displaying to him, but I've also caught her displaying to the "middle" fish...aha - another male...at least that's how it seems. Like their coloration, it appears their courtship behavior is a bit more subdued than the other cardinalfish in the tank. The female will come out in front of the male, display her flank and puff out her throat. Then she'll circle around and come back to the males side. Once in a while she'll nudge him (just like the Lattice Cardinals), occasionally he'll give her a nip around her "butt" as well. Of special note, the females fins have become tipped in blue this evening, and in general the amount and intesity of the blue coloration has risen in ALL THREE of the A. leptacanthus.

 

So let's not leave those guys out either - my pair of Pterapogon kaudernii are stirring up the mix too. The smaller fish (by all accounts it would be a female) is interupting the Threadfin Cardinals periodically. In the last few hours the pair in general has ventured away from the lower levels of the tank, spending more time above the ledge with all the clams and macroalgae. Every so often she'll go over to the male, position herself in front, close her fins and wriggle in front of him. I haven't gotten any video of her yet as she's too unpredictable and I have Christmas present duties to finish this evening! I think these guys are a bit young yet (I probably haven't mentioned in this thread, but these are tank-raised Bangaiis and I've only had them in the tank for 2 months...they paired around a month ago).

 

So all three species of cardinals are doing the dance of love this evening. It's literally a freakin' orgy....I wonder if any mouthfuls will show up overnight! I'm taking bets - if anything happens tonight it'll be the Threadfins!

 

It's strange, something must "be in the water"...they're all in the mood!

 

FWIW,

 

MP

[mwp]

Alrighty, I've gone through and selected about 4 minutes worth of video of the Courtship/Pair Bonding activity of the Apogon leptacanthus this past evening. If you haven't looked at the A. margaritophorus vids yet, watch those first, and then watch these. The similarities are unmistakeable! Flash video as before - average file size 12 mb.

 

(they're going up to the server now...the links should work by morning).

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/a_le..._pair_vid1.html

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/a_le..._pair_vid2.html

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/a_le..._pair_vid3.html

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/a_le..._pair_vid4.html

 

FWIW,

 

MP

[mwp]

Dec. 22nd, 4:15 PM, I walk into the room where the tanks are and notice that our cardinals have spawned.

 

It's the BANGAII'S! So much for my thinking they weren't old enough yet! I had almost no inkling that this was going to happen; the only big change in the Bangaii behavior was the female's increased aggressiveness towards the other cardinal species in the tank.

 

HOLY CARDINALFISH - he can barely close his mouth there's so many BIG eggs (at least 75% larger than the eggs of A. margaritophora). I'd say maybe the male is 1.5" standard length (body only).

 

I got a couple pictures and one short vid immediately post spawn..won't get them up for a few days.

 

So far 2/3 on spawnings in my 3 cardinalfish species but 0/3 on any success! Darnit if I didn't have to leave town for XMAS. Well, we got our first Xmas give right in time to NOT enjoy it! Hopefully our male Pterapogon kaudernii will be a better father than his A. margaritophora counterparts!

 

Happy Holidays!

 

MP

[mwp]

We're back from our 4 days away...our male Bangaii has dropped his first brood. WHAT GIVES! Come on already...someone has to hold some to term!??!?

 

I'll post those vids and pics soon...they're still locked up in the camera right now!

 

On another sour note, apparently we're experiencing a Tridacna Clam plague in the tank....we've lost almost half our collection now. Posted to Barry's site...maybe he'll have some ideas.

 

MP

[mwp]

Well, this evening it appears that the Bangaii male may be preparing for another spawn...he was yawning a lot this evening (similar behavior noticed prespawn in our Lattice Cardinals). The vids...well I reviewed them and don't think they're worth posting. I have two pics of our first spawning of Pterapogon kauderni that are worth sharing, so here they are, within a couple hours post-spawn.

 

 

 

Unfortunately I've been busy dealing with our "clam wipeout" (see threads posted in other forums). We're down to 4 tridacnas and 2 hippopus....something like a 60% crash in our bivalves in the last 7-8 days and it doesn't look like it's stopping. Oh well, all evening ALL the cardinals were dancing for each other...there will be another spawn soon, no doubt, but I think the 4 day fast (over the holiday weekend) will set them back a bit...we'll see how long.

 

FWIW,

 

MP

[Regal Tang]

good job for all those mating fishies...they are happyyyyyy!

[mwp]

Thanks Regal Tang!

 

So here's the update. Last night I watch the Cardinals all go hot & heavy again. The Apogon leptacanthus were courting in their "subdued" way but did not spawn. The A. margaritophorus were ready and willing to spawn; both males yawning and again distending their lower jaws. I watched them for 4 hours straight last night...caught on video what I suspect where a few "dry runs" at the actual spawning manuever. Basically, the male and female would get side-by-side, hover & quiver, then the male would turn around and dash "down current", then come back along side the female.

 

However, male #2 (our infamous egg eater) would not leave the pair alone as things got "hotter and heavier", kinda like he wanted to sneak in and fertilize the spawn since he apparently did not win the courtship competition this time around. His presence kept the pair away from an actual spawn...they spent the last 2 hours chasing him around the tank, only to get right back to their side-by-side positioning and he'd come all the way back from the other side of the tank and settle in with them again. It was obvious that male #1 was PO'd, but he never went psycho on #2 (as I hoped he would).

 

I have't turned the lights on yet, so I don't know if a spawn occured overnight. We'll find out soon enough.

 

I'll post a couple vids when I get time today or tomorrow. Got a different angle on 'em this time around...should make for more interesting viewing.

 

Matt

[mwp]

"Good" news...the Lattice Cardinals did not spawn overnight, so I *hope* that they'll pick up the torch and try again today. Renewed hopes of catching it on video! Granted, with all the activity last night, I'm saddened to see it didn't come to fruition.

 

MP

[mwp]

OK, so this literally just happened. I'm out of the room with the tanks for about 2 hours. I walk in, and there's the female lattice cardinal, all thin. There's the male, #1, all bulging mouth etc.

 

I turn back around and look again...now male #1 is FAT AS A COW and doesn't appear to be holding. WTF?! First I'm PO'd at them for spawning tonight instead of last night when I sat for four hours waiting to catch it on tape, and now I'm PO'd 'cause Male #1 has gone from holding 11 days to eating a brood within hours or possibly MINUTES of taking them on.

 

WTF!@#!@#?!!!

 

OK, so I've dropped some Cyclopeze in the tank..#1 is NOT eating. He does look a bit "full" in BOTH the mouth and stomach, so *maybe* he's eaten a PORTION of the spawn, and is holding the remainder? Stranger things have happened - we'll keep ya posted!

 

MP

[mwp]

It's January 4th, 11:23 PM central time. We had just "turned in" a couple hours ago to watch "Adaptation"....there was some courtship occuring but after our last round, I figured it wasn't going to happen soon..things just didn't look "serious" enough.

 

BOY WAS I WRONG! Somewhere in the 2-hour timespan between 9:20 and 11:20 PM the Lattice Cardinals spawned once again. The worst part...I was lying in bed next to the tank, oblivious to the actual spawning event! The "lucky" stud, male #1. Let's see if he can hold a brood for more than 2 HOURS this time!

 

@#$@!#$!!!! - I've been TRYING to catch the actual spawning on video. I guess I should try a DV camera instead of the 60 second little quicktimes that my digital camera takes!

 

Oh well, it was only 4 days since her last spawn with the same male. Let's hope they get it right this time!

 

Matt

[mwp]

Oh well...I've come to expect this. By 4:00 PM on Jan 6th male #1 had again consumed a brood...that's less than 48 hours, an improvement over his prior spawn a few days back but I know #1 has gone a LOT longer before bailing.

 

I've started enriching the diets with Selcon-soaking all feeds, but at this point I'm ready to implement plan b, which is to separate the brooding male into a net breeder. HMM...

 

MP

[mwp]

It's 11:10 pm central time - the Lattice Cardinals have again spawned. This time, male #2 (our extremely poor track record male) was the lucky bachelor. We missed the spawning within a 30 second window of taking our eyes off the tank while looking at another. I had said to Renee, "the cardinals are gonna spawn". We looked at our pair of porcelain crabs, she turned back and there's the male with a massive orange mass of eggs - he looks like he's CHOKING...spitting them halfway out then taking them back in.

 

Within roughly 5 minutes, we watched him eat the ENTIRE BATCH!

 

I'm starting to think that we're gonna have to shade the sides of the tank, or maybe even the WHOLE THING, when we notice spawning activity - I'm somewhat convinced that this immediate egg-eating was a direct result of all the immediate attention placed on the spawning pair....otherwise man, what a horrible breeder we have in male #2!

 

On the upside, I have video within 1 minute post-spawn. It even shows him starting to consume the mass AND shows eggs fluttering about in the tank current. I ALSO got vid and pics of the TINY eggs from these guys...I'd say 1mm??

 

Well, after writing all this I've turned around and given male #2 a closer look..it appears that he's still holding a small amount of eggs in his mouth...his throat is still distended even though there are clearly not enough eggs to be causing the enlargement. It looked as though they made a few more "dry passes" over a horizontal flat rock...I opted to turn out the lights ASAP in the hopes that maybe he still has some and maybe he'll hold on them!

 

I'll post pics and vids as soon as I can!

 

Matt

[mwp]

Alrighty, vids and pics of the Post Spawn Apogon margaritophorus but first a couple observations.

 

I'm sad to report that male #2 has failed us again...he's eating as of this morning (the 11th).

 

So, we missed the spawning within roughly a 30 second window of not looking at the tank...although it doesn't confirm my suspicions, it bolsters my hypothesis that the female lays the entire egg mass in one shot...i.e. out comes a lump of eggs, not a series of single eggs. The male likely fertilizes the mass, then picks the whole thing up. This is what I'm trying to catch on video...it'll happen, it has to given enough time.

 

The next interesting observation is that these eggs appear MUCH smaller than those of our Bangaii's..probably on the order of 1/4 to 1/8th the size of the egg of Pterapogon kaudernii. This leads me to two thoughts. First, these babies are gonna be SMALL (glad I started culturing rotifers). Second, I suspect that the incubation period could be considerably shorter than that of Pterapogon kaudernii...perhaps our male who went 11 days actually held them full term?

 

On to the vids. The first video is perhaps the most interesting to date; shot less than 5 minutes after the spawning, the male is starting to consume the egg mass. you'll notice a "puff" of eggs and catch a very quick glimpse of the egg mass in the vid (it looks like it was captured in just 1 frame, so 1/24th of a second or so).

 

Vid #1 - margaritophorus_1-10-06_immediate_post_spawn.html

 

The 2nd vid is a free-floating egg of Apogon margaritophorus - it came out in his chomping and briefly rested on a frond of Caulerpa.

 

Vid #2 - http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/marg...-10-06_egg.html

 

Finally, a picture with scale of the "Free floating egg" in video #1. My appologies but it was the best I could come up with on such short notice and I didn't want to disturb the tank further. Each increment on the ruler is 1/32"

 

 

Anyone with any helpful suggestions on how to stop the egg-eating behavior, I'm all for it!

 

MP

[mwp]

Alrighty, so in a nutshell, this time our Bangaiis stole the spotlight and spawned behind my back; there was some urgent posting on Reef Central earlier at http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...threadid=750125

 

The other big news, a lot of you will surely flip - I kinda "fell into" a male/female pair of Green Mandarins. They're very happy in their new homes although I'm definitely thinking I'm going to have to ramp up my Copepod cultures. That's right - 14 fish in a 24 gallon cube. It is a fiasco of a tank, that's for sure. Bottom line, I got into this to try to control our flatworm plague - I jokingly mentioned to the LFS that if he could get me a pair, even better. His comment back - since he's opened the shop he hasn't seen a female. Figure he'd find one - considering that Xenia pretty much paid for the pair in trade..well...lets just hope they eat some flatworms considering finding the Blue Velvet Nudibranchs has proven to be more than your average pain.

 

Oh, and lets not forget the other tankmates - the Firefish male is hiding more than normal (left the bolthole ONCE today)...do we have a spawn going there? The Greenbanded Gobies, whom I assumed were both males, I'm not so sure now. Yesterday I caught some interesting behavior between the two on vid. If any of it's worthy I'll post it up with my next round. It was mentioned by a breeder on Reef Central that in his experience he's had "too good of luck" simply pairing two fish for them NOT to be sequential hermaphrodites - so maybe I've got a pair going here too????

 

Back to the bangaiis - To sum it up, I should start out by noting that for the first time in a couple week we ran the tanks at night WITHOUT the "moonlights" on. So far it seems like lighting changes are indeed a positive trigger for spawning amoung the cardinalfish (assuming they're ready to spawn already). While I'm not tracking the lighting schedule at this point, I'm thinking I may need to start tracking it and noting when I change things...in other words try to find a correlation.

 

Around noon I noticed that things had gotten really 'hot and heavy' - the female's aggression level was "sky high" towards the other cardinalfish in the tank. She was coming up alongside the male, parallel, vibrating for 3-5 seconds at a time, pausing for a couple seconds and switching sides, then vibrating / tremoring again. The frequency of her vibration is such that it seems faster than the 24 FPS video can truly capture.

 

I did some posting to the Reef Central Fish Breeding Board as it seems to be by far the most active - did I have minutes, hours, or days to wait before they'd actually spawn? Well, while posting back and forth they did it right behind my back - I guess they don't like an audience! The actual time of spawning is somewhere between 1:46 and 1:51 PM central time (timestamp on the camera, not that it matters all that much). That's the time differential between the last video I shot prior to spawning and the video I shot immediately upon noticing the spawn had occured.

 

So it's now 11:20 PM and he's still holding. I'm going to go through the videos soon and get them up possibly tonight, but more likely sometime MONDAY (yes, I'm out of town for a portion of this weekend again).

 

STAY TUNED - based on my calculations the Margaritophorus should spawn on Monday, maybe Tuesday

 

MP

[mwp]

Alrighty, 2 bangaii vids plus a bonus goby vid!

 

First, about 80 minutes pre-spawn, the female constantly switching sides and vibrating.

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/1-13...vibrations.html

 

Next up, less than 10 minutes post spawn, the female spastically 'attacking' the male (for lack of a better description).

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/1-13...ii_spastic.html

 

And finally, from yesterday, a short video of possible "courtship" behavior amoung what I thought (until this point) were two male Greenbanded Gobies.

 

http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/nanoreef/gobycourtship.html

 

Enjoy!

 

MP