Monday Update

January 26, 2009  

It’s been a few days without any updates… Let’s see where to begin. How about a short update on almost everything.

Friday night the pajama cardinal released a few larvae. The female stayed immediately downstream of him gobbling them up. Wonderful. How’s that for gratitude for carrying her babies?!? He released the rest of them Saturday night after lights out.

All of the fish have been eating well. The flameback angels have really taken to frozen foods (especially spirulina gut-loaded brine shrimp; the mysis seem to be a bit too large). Alvy is getting much more confident and capable of pulling food out of the water column.

The new frags seem to be acclimating well to their new environment. The urchin (whom we’ve renamed “junkyard”) knocked over the teal stag tonight, despite my having epoxied it in place. I superglued it to the epoxy… hopefully that is effective. Once it encrusts the epoxy there should be no more problems.

I had to relocate the Acropora carolinas. The anemone seems happy in its new location but it was dangerously close to stinging the acro. I moved it to the other side of the overflow. It is in a very slightly shadier spot, and less direct current… it’s showing polyp extension but I’ll still keep an eye on it.

Seeing great growth out of a few other corals, real growth spurts lately. I think this is due to the finally stable alk & ca, and temps. Two in particular are surprising me. The green/yellow “ORA millepora” has started shooting branches in a few directions, really came out of no where. Up until 2 weeks ago or so it was a big colorful lump of coral. Also seeing great encrusting growth from the rainbow montipora. I think that a red millepora is about to take off too. It was a tan/brown color for a while, but I’ve recently noticed better polyp extension, deepening red color, and a light green growth ring around the base. Very cool.

Last night I did a double-water change, about 10 gallons. For no particular reason, just felt like I may have been feeding heavily lately. I forgot to dose the Prodibio BioDigest, but I did that tonight at lights out. It’s about time to purchase some more. I haven’t dosed VSV for about a week… for no good reason. I may pick it back up again, just not sure.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Monday Update”

  1. hon
    on August 19th, 2009 12:45 pm

    Hi MY male Pj hold the egg for over a week but I never notice the larvae.Two days later same thing .What am i doing wrong?Should i catch the female away.Please help thanks

  2. unrulymck
    on August 19th, 2009 3:12 pm

    If they’re breeding that regularly, I would say you are doing nothing wrong!! :) It takes a happy fish to breed.

    Our male tends to release the larvae after all the lights are out on the tank. Sometimes he releases within a few minutes, and other times it’s several hours or even the next morning. The larvae are only a few millimeters long so if you aren’t looking into the tank with a flashlight, they can be tough to see in the dark.

    Not many people have had success raising the larvae past a couple days. I have been told by one successful breeder that they require a very small strain of rotifers as first food (SS-strain). If you want to catch the larvae and try raising them, you can try setting up a larvae trap in the tank, or staying up late at night with a flashlight and a siphon tube or collecting cup. Otherwise, I think the corals and other fish enjoy getting a midnight snack. :)

    Check out http://www.marinebreeder.org for more information on larvae snaggers and breeding.

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