Little Nemo Diary

[-Nemo-]

Just a teeny tiny update.

Everyone doing well, starting to get the breeding tanks set-up downstairs. Setting up new friend's tank first so he can be in peace away from the little devils. Will have pics if anyone's interested. New friend is 1 of 2 of my future breeding bangaii pair. The other half is currently with my manager and will be coming home soon.

I would also like to note that the cleaner shrimp have not been forgotten about, they are just more difficult. Previously I could never time their births correctly enough they were always early and then the next morning would have a whole new clutch of green eggs. With the larval snagger now, I can just toss it in and see. So that's back on the radar now.

 

[Haych]

i like pics

and congrats!

 

[seffieuk]

Will have pics if anyone's interested.

Of course we are - looking forward to them

Seffie x

 

[Pampy]

inspiring

Pampy

 

[-Nemo-]

Ok so I started on setting up the Bangaiis tank yesterday. It's a 20g long. All cardinals are mouth brooders, meaning they carry their eggs in their mouths until the eggs hatch. What happens is the male fertalizes the eggs, the female releases them and the male quickly picks them up in his mouth. He (usually) holds the eggs until they are ready to hatch and as they hatch he literally spits the babies out. The babies do not have a larval stage so they are born as miniature adults. While he is holding the eggs, the male does NOT eat anything. This means he does not eat for 3-4 weeks.

Because of all of this, I added a removable divider to the tank made from school paper report plastic edges, and really thin and flexible egg crate-ish type stuff (I forget what it's actually suppose to be used for...). While the male is holding the eggs, the two will be together, when it is time for the eggs to hatch he will be gently persuaded to separate her, and the divider will be added to separate them so that the mother does not try and eat the babies... The dad should be fine with the babies for a while. Once all have hatched, they will be removed and put in a baby tank. The father will then stay separated from the mother for at least a week so that he can freely eat and fatten up until they spawn again. Sometimes the mothers are very hasty and almost immediately release more eggs after a hatch, giving the father no time to eat which inevitably leads to the father eating the eggs.



So here's the tank with divider in, front view:

Side view:

And close-up of the divider in place:

Today or tomorrow I'll be rinsing some sand off and adding that, and then removing 5G of water from my DT and adding that. I also have the filter media sitting in my sump. For now they are just getting a HOB filter and maybe a couple pieces of live rock from my DT. Eventually I'll have a closed loop system with multiple tanks all connected together with a sump.



In other news...
I tried adding the two little ones to the big boy tank, I added them and watched carefully and the littlest one was getting picked on and new friend tried to eat him so I put him back in his baby tank. The other one didn't seem to be bothered by anyone, being quite a bit bigger, and so I left him in there. He was the same size as the smallest ones in there, but he's since gone missing... Suspected eating from new friend... I should call him new enemy Another reason why his tank is getting set-up sooner... He doesn't bother any of the others, however.


Here's another picture of their sleeping ball, I counted and all 15 are present:

Also, Clutch 9 was laid last night at around 7:30, took her nearly 2 hours to complete, so everyone went to bed late. Temperature was quite a bit cooler, around 74F. Eggs still don't look very orange... So hoping my delivery gets here soon. Should be coming on Monday. I forgot to pick up krill last week at my LFS, so I'll be getting some tomorrow. I think I will increase their feeding to three times a day and have the following schedule for them:


Morning: Mysis/Brine Shrimp Plus/Formula 2 Mixture
Afternoon: Flake food enhanced with NatuRose
Night: Frozen Krill

 

[aly_starh]

ahh, those baby clown fish are adorable....

Tank looks good, that grid thing is for Tapestry and Cross-stitching

 

[Lokemer]

This thread is so cool, i have always like clownfish.

 

[-Nemo-]

Got my delivery today!

So I made some fish food, here's the recipe, inspired by some fellow breeders.

5 grams of omega one flake food
50 milligrams of Naturose (it comes as a powder)
2 grams of fish oil.

Mixed it all together and bwam. Orange coloring fish food! I could see the naturose clearly sticking to the food and as i fed to the DT, it stayed on the food, so i'm happy. Improvement is usually seen in 1-2 weeks, so hopefully the next bunch of eggs will be noticeably oranger!

I also ordered some spirulina powder which I will be using in a similar way and the company threw in a free vial of dried arctic copepods those won't go to waste!




Haven't gotten the chance to set-up the cardinal tank yet, but maybe tomorrow? Regardless, new friend and the big boys seem to be "happier" with each other now, and no more instances of anyone being eaten!

 

[iverhoob]

Dude, This thread is simply fantastic! Your attention to detail is amazing and your thirst for information is incredible! Thanks for sharing this amazing journey with us all!

Massively inspriring!

 

[GAB99]

umm. dont you mean dudett?


thats really cool btw nemo, do you know te mating process for the bangaii cardinals? i bet every one here would love to hear that. and are you getting a true pair? cuz you said they are hard to sex.

 

[-Nemo-]

I apologize for lack of updates.

Here's the run down...
Everyone's doing well. Clutch 9 did not go very well, I did not really expect to. Although I did have a significant rotifer crash which left me with very little rotifers to feed them. I've pretty much recovered from that crash now though, and rotifer population is going back up.

Clutch 9 did, however, present me with a new idea. Whilest in the larval catcher the little ones are always so active, and then once put into the larval tank, they just seem to sit around alot of times. I think the constant supply of freshwater running through the catcher, has to do with it. I will be trying to whip something up (just not quite too sure yet) to try and emulate that effect.



So at the moment, mommy and daddy clown are laying clutch 10. Not too too many eggs laid yet, but WOW that nutaRose... miracle worker! Nice orange eggs! My optimism is back up! I'll try and take a picture tomorrow as to not disturb them for now.

In other news... One of the big boys is getting a new home this week! He's the first to leave the nest! But he's going to the home of my co-worker and he will have a nice, bigger clown friend there. I'll be able to get updates and picture of him as he grows

Dude, This thread is simply fantastic! Your attention to detail is amazing and your thirst for information is incredible! Thanks for sharing this amazing journey with us all!

Massively inspriring!

Thank you! Thanks for taking the time to read! I very much enjoy sharing my experiences with everyone else.

umm. dont you mean dudett?


thats really cool btw nemo, do you know te mating process for the bangaii cardinals? i bet every one here would love to hear that. and are you getting a true pair? cuz you said they are hard to sex.

What about the mating process? Behavior.. or what so you mean? My pair will not be a "true" pair in that sense. While they are hard to sex, I will be trying my best since i've already acquired new friend. He's still quite young so as he matures it should be easier to sex him. Most commonly used physical characteristic is their jaw shape. Males will to have more prominent, square jaws. Their second dorsal fin is also supposed to indicate sex (A longer fin meaning a male fish), however there is dispute among that theory. Of course the sure fire way is to just put two together and see if they get along or not.

As for me, I'm hoping to do my best at guess-estimating new friend's sex and then adding another who's sex has also been guessed at and then seeing what happens.

 

[onebto]

I apologize for lack of updates.

I should think so to ! Do you know how disappointed I get when I log on and there is no update? I'm gutted

Seriously good work

Regards onebto.

 

[-Nemo-]

Here's a patch of eggs:

Compared to some from a previous clutch:

 

[Haych]

wow I shoulda worn me sunglasses with that one - they're bright orange!

 

[onebto]

WoW big difference it will be interesting to see the difference when they hatch and grow.