Raising Pseudochromis Flavivertex Fry

[howardcu]

I have a pair of Pseudochromis Flavivertex (Sunrise Dottybacks) that are breeding and producing a large batch of fertilized eggs. They just produced their first batch a week ago and afterward I have picked up the book by Moe about breeding and raising orchid dottyback fry. I was wondering if anyone out there has worked with Sunrise Dottybacks and if it is possible to raise them on enriched rotifers and brine shrimp nauplii. I am in Michigan and have no access to live plankton like Moe did. Also any info on how often they breed and what the incubation of the eggs are for this species would be greatly appreciated. The eggs were gone on the 5th morning which would agree with Moe, but I am not sure if they were eaten by the male or hatched and were consumbed by the tank. I work nights and was unable to be there to see it. I think I am going to switch the time the lights go out so they are out a couple of hours before I have to leave for work.

 

[Len]

:welcome:

I'll copy this over to the General Reef Discussion. Sadly, not enough people visit the propagation forum.

 

[dizzy]

After attending one of the lectures at Marine Ornamentals we were able to get a contact that sells copepods that show promise for feeding larvae. I can't remember the exact species, but I'll see if I can dig it out and the contact info as well.
Mitch

 

[howardcu]

Cool copepods would be awesome. I did see some supposed copepod culture at my LFS. It was in a 10 or 12 fluid ounce clear bottle with a little macroalgae tuft in the bottom of it. Are these worth trying to culture to feed to fry and possible other fish and invertabrates? I wish I could remember what company it was that made it. Next time I am there I will make sure to make a note of it.

 

[Anonymous]

Howard, or anyone else looking to obtain specific cultures of copepods, there is an email list on yahoo all about copepods.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/copepods/

It seems to be a mostly academic list, populated by grad students in biology, with few reef hobbiests here and there, but people try and help each other out finding cultures and different strains of copepods and share tips on culturing.

 

[dizzy]

www.seapods.com

 

[howardcu]

Well appareantly that seapods.com place was what I saw at my LFS. Preuss Pets of MI is my LFS of choice and they were listed as a source to buy the seapods from. I may give them a try. I just purchased a dissecting scope from ebay that can go up to 60x so once I have that and have it set up then I may get them so I can actually check on the status of any culture. They did say the copepods were 250 - 1000 microns in size and that doesn't really help me much since rotifers are smaller or at the min range and brince shrimp nauplii are in that range as well. However, a varied diet for the fry may work wonders like it appeared to do in Moe's Orchid Dottyback book when he used wild plankton.