Blue eye Apogon with... EGGS!! Pics included!

[Tanu]

Hi all,

I've been keeping 5 A. leptacanthus for a few months, normally, all apogons EAT! Today, I noticed one didn't eat at all.. When I looked a little better, I saw the fish carrying eggs!

Who has any experience breeding these? What should I do?


I made some pics, not very clear, but at least you've got some xxx pics to look at

Sidepic from male: white shimmering through mouth.

<IMG src="http://www.tanu.nl/test/apogoneitjes.jpg">

Male right above: eggs are a little visible
<IMG src="http://www.tanu.nl/test/apogoneitjes2.jpg">

Worst but coolest pic, egg ball clearly visible!
<IMG src="http://www.tanu.nl/test/apogoneitjes3.jpg">


greetings
daddy Tanu

 

[Tanu]

sh*t... In all my exitement I forgot that html is off on this board :-(

So, I'm trying to post the pics again!

Sidepic from male: white shimmering through mouth.

Male right above: eggs are a little visible

Worst but coolest pic, egg ball clearly visible!

 

[danmhippo]

Now, that IS exciting! I have noe prior experiences with them but have moved a egg carrying baggai to the sump before. BE CAREFUL not to shock them too much or the egg will fall straight out (that happened once). I have to use a big acrylic container and herd the fish into it.

The young will have a much better chance of survival if you keep them in the refugium and regularly sprinkle rotifers into the water. I used "golden pearl" from Brine Shrimp Direct in place of the rotifer. Soon the young can feed on its own on the pods in the refugium.

Good luck

 

[Len]

Always loved A.leptacanthus, even though I'm not a big cardinal fan. Yours are gorgeous!

Concerning rearing the fry: no idea

I'd imagine Apogons are very similiar to Pterapogon, so I'd advise you check out information related to the commonly bred Bangaiis.

http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/Articles/v4_i4_marini/marini.htm

http://www.reefcentral.com/library/frank_marini.htm (gasp, a RC endorsement

)

 

[Anonymous]

I love leptacanthus myself; shame they're almost never available.

I don't think you can draw too many parallels between them and banggais in terms of raising the young, though. I don't believe the leptacanthus continues to mouthbrood after hatching, so you'll probably have to be feed fry much smaller then those of a typical banggai clutch.

 

[Len]

I stand corrected. Never question God.

Closet thing I could find:

http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/database/APOCOM01.htm

Their suggested reading list for Apogons:

http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/database/sugread/Apogonidae.sugread.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Closet thing I could find:

Yeah, I remember when Dave Mohr submitted that. I wouldn't think raising the fry would be -too- difficult (probably comparable to pyjama cardinals), just not as easy as banggais.

 

[jamesw]

The report is for A. compresus. Which are we talking about?

I have two of the cardinals in question. I started out w/ 5 but two paired up and kicked the stuffing out of the other three.

Hmm...hopefully mine will breed now. These are gorgeous fish!! They are a bugger to photograph. Good pix Tanu!!!

Cheers
James

 

[FMarini]

Hi:
This is great news.....
I will try to lend some more info here.
Most apogons mouth brood, however ONLY banggais carry the fry an additional week past hatching. I would expect this fish to release its fry around day 8-10. Most apogons release their fry as free swimming planktonic larvae (banggai hold the fry for another week to 10days-this allows the fry to grow in size)
.
This poses an interesting problem, the fry are amazingly small (banggai fry are the size of adult brine shrimp10-15mm, i suspect this fry will be somewhere between 3-8mm), and require very small food. i suspect on the order of rotifers or smaller.
So w/ this in mind. If you want to raise the fry i would somehow get the male into a refugium w/ a established DSB. i would hope the DSB can supply enuf planktonic sized larvae as food. If I recall correctly others have had success getting thse fish to breed(not sure about how well the fry fared. Actually If i recall correctly your should be able to use any information on breeding pyjamas or Orbic cardinals as their fry would be similar in size.

lastly, here are a few link to people i wrote discussing possibly raising orbic/pyjama fry
http://reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=26991&highlight=pyjama+cardinals
http://reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=a3be17a42b0eab16b19295219855dff2&threadid=6642&highlight=orbic

http://reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=a3be17a42b0eab16b19295219855dff2&threadid=33555&highlight=orbic


Leonard--I ressemble that remark
frank

 

[Tanu]

I don't have a refugium.. Didn't have space to build one. Next to that: refugiums weren't ever very popular here in Holland, so no-one ever encouraged me to include one in my setup

So, what should I do? Leave the 'pregnant' male in the tank (I guess the other fish will be very interested in the fry

) or should I catch him, and put him in a 'fry net'? Other possibility is to put the male in the sump, but I think that wouldn't be very wise: only one chamber, many pumps which could suck up the fry..

For now, everything is still fine

Thanx for all your input!!!

Tanu

www.tanu.nl