Surprise! Masked goby eggs found when cleaning tank - any tips?

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Any updates here?

 

[ackshee]

Unfortunately, this is one of those species that has been cultured successfully, but much of the culture info is likely a trade secret (and the info on their original culture in the 90's is now unavailable to the public on it's original site, though you might be able to dig it up somewhere - the link I list below is a good starting point though). So, these are my best guesses/suggestions to try and help (sorry if they're bad/wrong).

I did a bit of digging and I managed to find Todd Gardner's original article, "Breeding Coryphopterus personatus in Aquaria," through archive.org.


"Trials 2-6 were treated exactly as trial 1 except that rotifers were replaced with a variety of unidentified ciliate species, ranging in size from 25m to 80 m. The ciliates were obtained from contaminated rotifer cultures by passing culture water through 2 consecutive Nitex‘ sieves of 80m and 25m , respectively. This procedure was repeated each morning. Ciliate concentrations in the larval rearing tanks were counted twice each day under a dissecting microscope, and averaged 20 organisms/ml, one hour after feeding, and 3/ml immediately before the next feeding, 24 hours later.
...
Beginning on day 22, 5-10 million rotifers (depending on availability) were added, daily to replace those lost to water exchange and increased fish predation.

At day 40, a large number of fish larvae were still seen in the tank. One fish was removed and measured at 8mm. A small number of one-day-old Artemia nauplii were introduced into the tank and were rapidly consumed. Beginning on day 40 three feedings of approximately 250,000 Artemia nauplii would be administered each day. All Artemia were enriched for at least 12 hours with Protein Selco‘ prior to feeding. Rotifer additions to the larval rearing tank were discontinued after day 45.

On day 58, several fish were found to have taken on the pale, silvery-orange, characteristic of adult C. personatus. Approximately 90% of the fish had undergone the change at day 65, and by day 68, metamorphosis appeared to be complete. Between days 58 and 70, 14 dead larvae and juveniles were found and removed from the tank. These were the only mortalities observed in trial 7. Gradually, over the next 3 weeks the water flow rate was increased to 200 Gallons per hour and the juvenile gobies were weaned onto a diet of commercial dry food."

 

[DaJMasta]

While I don't expect to be having a go with masked gobies again in the immediate future, I appreciate the info - I've been sort of toying with getting some sort of smaller food source and it does seem like something in the rotifer range of size would be appropriate to get (but man, I don't want to deal with rotifer contamination in my relatively closely housed culture vessels...)

 

[ackshee]

While I don't expect to be having a go with masked gobies again in the immediate future, I appreciate the info - I've been sort of toying with getting some sort of smaller food source and it does seem like something in the rotifer range of size would be appropriate to get (but man, I don't want to deal with rotifer contamination in my relatively closely housed culture vessels...)

What current cultures are you working with that you're trying to avoid contaminating with rotifers?

 

[DaJMasta]

I've got three kinds of phyto, four kinds of copepods, and artemia hatching. While I can get some nauplii that will fit through a 100 micron screen, I don't get much volume, and I haven't had much long term luck with parvocalanus which should be able to offer a good quantity of smaller nauplii. Part of the problem is that they're basically all housed in one spot with one set of equipment, which would almost guarantee rotifer contamination if there was a batch among them.

 

[ackshee]

I've got three kinds of phyto, four kinds of copepods, and artemia hatching. While I can get some nauplii that will fit through a 100 micron screen, I don't get much volume, and I haven't had much long term luck with parvocalanus which should be able to offer a good quantity of smaller nauplii. Part of the problem is that they're basically all housed in one spot with one set of equipment, which would almost guarantee rotifer contamination if there was a batch among them.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Contamination is definitely an issue, even in professional microbiology labs. Best thing you could do is get a dedicated set of "rotifer equipment" and sterilize it between uses. And make sure to thoroughly wash your hands after you handle the rotifers.

Pro-tip: pressure cookers such as "Instant Pots" can be used for sterilization. They only reach ~12 psi compared to the 15 psi of a proper autoclave, so you need to increase sterilization times. I usually multiply by 1.5... 60 minutes at 15 psi = 90 minutes at 12 psi.