Randalls Assessor Breeding

Huskymaniac · Jan 29, 2021

Nice surprise today. Thought I had lost one of my Randall's but caught him deep in the rock work guarding a sack of eggs. Assuming today is day 2. I have no way of getting the egg ball out. Is there a way to catch the fry in the tank like clownfish. Do they hatch at night, etc. Not a lot of info out there.

laverda · Jan 29, 2021

When you think they are going to hatch, after lights out use a small light to attract them. Then gently scoop or siphon them out. They do sell collectors with a single LED to draw fry into a collection container.
Keep your other fish well fed as the day gets close as everything will try to eat the fry. Let us know how it goes. Good luck!

Ryan Doolittle · Apr 3, 2021

Did you have any luck catching the larvae?

Huskymaniac · Apr 3, 2021

Ryan Doolittle said:
Did you have any luck catching the larvae?

Nope.

ThRoewer · Apr 4, 2021

Huskymaniac said:
Nice surprise today. Thought I had lost one of my Randall's but caught him deep in the rock work guarding a sack of eggs. Assuming today is day 2. I have no way of getting the egg ball out. Is there a way to catch the fry in the tank like clownfish. Do they hatch at night, etc. Not a lot of info out there.

Who was guarding the eggs, the larger or the smaller of the pair?
I have a pair of yellow assessors and my suspicion is that the smaller of the two is the male.
As for breeding, they should be fairly easy if you have copepod nauplii (Parvocalanus, Apocyclops,...).
I would also recommend to steal the eggs on the evening of the hatch and have them hatch in the larvae tank.

Huskymaniac · Apr 4, 2021

ThRoewer said:
Who was guarding the eggs, the larger or the smaller of the pair?
I have a pair of yellow assessors and my suspicion is that the smaller of the two is the male.
As for breeding, they should be fairly easy if you have copepod nauplii (Parvocalanus, Apocyclops,...).
I would also recommend to steal the eggs on the evening of the hatch and have them hatch in the larvae tank.

The smaller one was guarding the egg ball.

ThRoewer · Apr 4, 2021

Huskymaniac said:
The smaller one was guarding the egg ball.

That confirms my observations:
Males are the smaller ones.
It also suggests that they may not change sex (kind of also confirmed by my 2 larger randalli not being a pair but most likely 2 females)

Huskymaniac · Apr 10, 2021

ThRoewer said:
That confirms my observations:
Males are the smaller ones.
It also suggests that they may not change sex (kind of also confirmed by my 2 larger randalli not being a pair but most likely 2 females)

Some other behaviors I noticed. I have both pairs of yellows and Randall's in separate tanks. Maybe when there are more than two but atleast ime they don't like each other and will fight for territory or there over hang space. At some point they randomly get friendly with each other and move about the tank a bit more together. A few days later the small one goes mia for a bit and than returns later.

ThRoewer · Apr 11, 2021

Huskymaniac said:
Some other behaviors I noticed. I have both pairs of yellows and Randall's in separate tanks. Maybe when there are more than two but atleast ime they don't like each other and will fight for territory or there over hang space. At some point they randomly get friendly with each other and move about the tank a bit more together. A few days later the small one goes mia for a bit and than returns later.

My 2 randalli are together in the same tank for well over a year now and there isn't any sign that they plan to get friendly. My yellow Assessors only did a little chasing in the very beginning and then where mostly friendly - except during feeding.