ShannPeach
Community Member
In March of this year I was finally able to pair up my Orchid dottybacks. The male is wild caught and the female is ORA tank bred, and was significantly smaller than the male.
Crappy shot of the pair:
At the end of April I got my first spawn from this pair, but it and the next spawn were eaten.
Egg ball:
By the time of the third spawn, I had to treat the system with copper because I suspected a disease outbreak was imminent due to me, stupidly, putting some snails in the system. The copper would kill the eggs if the male didn't eat them so I decided to start tinkering with tumbling the egg ball. The first "tumbler" was simply a flask clamped in a tank for temperature control with some rigid airline tubing. I got about 40 or so larvae that hatched, but the majority of the eggs died.
The flask:
The egg ball:
One of the little guys:
This first run only lasted about 6 days, IIRC.
The next tumbling attempts were done using an airlift type tumbler:
It was made by using parts from a sponge filter. The airline attaches to the top and then the egg ball just sort of bobs in place, with constant water flowing over it, but no air touching it. Pretty much ideal. Except with this, is was week after week of failure. Then I began to suspect that perhaps this sponge filter had been exposed to copper or some other medication at some point and that was killing the eggs. I didn't have any other filters to take apart, so I essentially let a few egg balls go. This was pretty easy though because my D. lineatus clingfish had started to spawn and I was a bit preoccupied with those.
Then, a couple weeks ago I decided to have a go at tumbling again, this time just using a 2L soda bottle, cut in half, with the top half put upside down into the bottom half (which is used as a base). I drilled a hole in the cap just large enough to squeeze airline tubing through and it barely goes into the tumbler. The air is turned up enough to keep the eggs from settling in the cap next to the air release, but not enough to damage the egg ball. The first time I tried this I accidentally knocked the tumbler off the counter on day 2 and the eggs went SPLAT on the floor. The second time the eggs looked great until the night before the hatch, and the egg ball just broke apart. I left the eggs tumbling though and by 10PM the next night all the good eggs had hatched, and I ended up with about 100 (? No idea really, just a wild guess).
They are in a BRT with a star of white tape on the bottom so I can see at least a little bit how much phyto or rots need to be added. They are currently on Day 4 (hatched the night of the 18th) and seem to be eating. There are rotifers, tigriopus, tisbe, and pseudocyclops in the tank (but mainly just rotifers). The water is tinted using whatever phyto gets harvested that day, but tends to rotate between nanno, cheatoceros (a diatom), and Isochrysis. The lights have been left on 24/7 since they hatched. I will try to get a pic tonight, but its hard since they are essentially transparent and in a black tub.
Crappy shot of the pair:
At the end of April I got my first spawn from this pair, but it and the next spawn were eaten.
Egg ball:
By the time of the third spawn, I had to treat the system with copper because I suspected a disease outbreak was imminent due to me, stupidly, putting some snails in the system. The copper would kill the eggs if the male didn't eat them so I decided to start tinkering with tumbling the egg ball. The first "tumbler" was simply a flask clamped in a tank for temperature control with some rigid airline tubing. I got about 40 or so larvae that hatched, but the majority of the eggs died.
The flask:
The egg ball:
One of the little guys:
This first run only lasted about 6 days, IIRC.
The next tumbling attempts were done using an airlift type tumbler:
It was made by using parts from a sponge filter. The airline attaches to the top and then the egg ball just sort of bobs in place, with constant water flowing over it, but no air touching it. Pretty much ideal. Except with this, is was week after week of failure. Then I began to suspect that perhaps this sponge filter had been exposed to copper or some other medication at some point and that was killing the eggs. I didn't have any other filters to take apart, so I essentially let a few egg balls go. This was pretty easy though because my D. lineatus clingfish had started to spawn and I was a bit preoccupied with those.
Then, a couple weeks ago I decided to have a go at tumbling again, this time just using a 2L soda bottle, cut in half, with the top half put upside down into the bottom half (which is used as a base). I drilled a hole in the cap just large enough to squeeze airline tubing through and it barely goes into the tumbler. The air is turned up enough to keep the eggs from settling in the cap next to the air release, but not enough to damage the egg ball. The first time I tried this I accidentally knocked the tumbler off the counter on day 2 and the eggs went SPLAT on the floor. The second time the eggs looked great until the night before the hatch, and the egg ball just broke apart. I left the eggs tumbling though and by 10PM the next night all the good eggs had hatched, and I ended up with about 100 (? No idea really, just a wild guess).
They are in a BRT with a star of white tape on the bottom so I can see at least a little bit how much phyto or rots need to be added. They are currently on Day 4 (hatched the night of the 18th) and seem to be eating. There are rotifers, tigriopus, tisbe, and pseudocyclops in the tank (but mainly just rotifers). The water is tinted using whatever phyto gets harvested that day, but tends to rotate between nanno, cheatoceros (a diatom), and Isochrysis. The lights have been left on 24/7 since they hatched. I will try to get a pic tonight, but its hard since they are essentially transparent and in a black tub.
