Tank Journal Archive

[VietEric]

While I'm waiting to move all my fish into there new homes everything is learning and trial and error, I have just been forming pairs and trying to get them laying.
I now have 4 regually laying Cardinal pairs and the best ones only hold the eggs for a week before eating them. So after reading through magic j Cardinal posts I have made a home made DIY egg tumbler.
My first tumbler has had a few issues with suction cups not holding properly still I took the eggs at 5days from the male and at day8 all the eggs developed eyes to my surprise.
One egg at day10 turned white and died but was a little away from the rest of them so left it till next filter change. Went to check next morning to find it gathered with the others and 70% of the eggs also gone.
Now I had a few issues with this as almost all the eggs are bound together not floating seperately this made it very difficult to remove the dead eggs. Any tips on how to remove the dead eggs? Also how often do people change/clean the foam filter.

 

[Darkspartan]

Watching with interest.

I could never get the cardinals to pair! hahaha.

 

[VietEric]

I had a few that didn't want to pair and swapped them around and it worked.
I started with a large group in a single tank and as they make natural pair the pair will claim the tank and push the rest into a corner. You net the pair and they group spreads back out, the next pair forms and so on.
They ended up not forming anymore so I started sexing and making my own pairs as I do with my harliquin shrimp. Just keep a eye on them for fighting and seperate if need be. Get 2 fighting pair and swap the females or males around see if they take.

 

[VietEric]

As for a update I'm down to 2 eggs, not as bad as could be for a first attempt I guess. The eggs are forming little tails behind the eyes.
I'm changing the sponge daily to keep things as clean as possible.

 

[VietEric]

So today is day14 I have one egg left which has a very clear fish on top of the egg sack. It is also interesting that at day14 they can also kick and move about the tumbler

 

[MagicJ]

Thanks for the updates - I have been away with work for a few days and missed what has been happening...

The foam needs to be changed almost every day or it begins to block, which then results in the eggs resting on the foam. I found that removing/cleaning the foam resulted in a major disturbance of the eggs - which was not positive. This was the major reason why I stopped using the DIY tumbler.

As you may have read in my journal, I also had trouble with some of the eggs seperating and some of them dieing. I tried putting the eggs under a microscope and cutting out the good ones, but only with limited success - I don't think there is an easy solution - you just have to do the best you can.

I would strongly recommend getting one of these if you can.

 

[VietEric]

thanks magicJ i have been looking at getting some proper tumblers, i tried copying one from eBay but the draw through was not enough to suspend the eggs properly, I'm currently using a 390ml coke bottle as we don't have 600ml here in vietnam.
i made a short video of the single fry moving about in the tumbler also but it won't seem to upload.
I'm hoping i can find some proper tumblers for sale in thailand fish markets as there hasn't been anything i can't find there yet. off there tomorrow to look for some supply and pick up a new pair of fish..

 

[VietEric]

Well I went away to Thailand for 4 days to collect some new brood stock and left my single fry to its own fate.. I come back to my surprise to a little black and white fry with almost no egg sack left.. Me racing to hatch bbs now for the little guy before the sack runs out. Feeling very proud for my very first attempt with these guys sorry he is a little small in the photo

 

[MagicJ]

Feeling very proud for my very first attempt with these guys ...

I know the feeling :)

Congratulations.

 

[VietEric]

Thanks. Hope I can get him eating some bbs.
The fish market had everything you could imagine except egg tumblers so will have to get some sent to my dad back in Adelaide he can bring them in August:) will persist with the DIY till then

 

[VietEric]

@MagicJ at what stage did you move the fry from the tumbler to a breeder box or raising tank to feed them? Or did you add bbs to the tumbler for a while first?

 

[MagicJ]

I added NHBBS to the tumbler for a few weeks - this keeps a high density of food items within close reach of the fry. I used that time to also wean them onto artificial foods - if you don't do it at that stage, you may never manage to get them to eat anything but live foods.

 

[VietEric]

Ok thanks. Will add to the tumbler and make a new one as the fish are due to lay more eggs this week.
All my cardinals barely eat frozen and only one pair eats pellets it's quite a pain actually.

 

[MagicJ]

All my cardinals barely eat frozen and only one pair eats pellets it's quite a pain actually.

It is important to get them converted early - I know of a breeder who would let young fish die rather than keep feeding live foods.

 

[VietEric]

All my broodstock are wild caught I have I have just 1 pair out of 5 on pellets the rest get a mix of frozen brine shrimp and blood worms and I mix in some flake trying to get them over onto it some will occasionally take it others won't even look at it. All fry will go to flakes

 

[VietEric]

My bbs took some time to hatch and I have been crushing up flake feed and adding to the tumbler it seems to have been getting eaten very Slowely but finally today my bbs hatched and I have added the first live feed and the fry is actively eating the bbs so I'm pretty happy with the success so far.
My females are getting big stomachs again so I expect more eggs to come over the next week which means time to start building more tumblers.
I have found that the filter sponge in the activated carbon canisters for a rodi unit the exact right size for a coke bottle and the cheap cartridges are $2 each and contain 2 sponge this simplifys things quite a lot and the pvc pipe size here is a perfect size to squeeze into a bottle lid with a small amount of thread tape it makes the build rather fast. The only thing I don't like about the Coke bottle is the shape and the fact the sides are printed so you don't have a clear view for photos or videos.

 

[VietEric]

It's with sadness the fry died.. I think the amount of bbs dieing in the tumbler fouled the water and I wasn't able to get much water flow in there as with the air on it would pull the bbs into the top sponge. I have a few very small breeder boxes so will try some different types of mesh to see if I can keep the bbs in them still allowing water movement.

 

[MagicJ]

Sad to hear, but breeding marine fish is a lot about taking one step forward and then two steps back - each time you will learn something new and get a little further down the track.

Once the banggai's hatch they are probably large enough to go into some type of breeding box - providing you can contain most of the NHBBS you should be good.

In the wild they are not protected in a nice little bottle with sponges on each end :D

 

[VietEric]

Totally agree, my work breeding harliquin shrimp is a lot of trial and error also was more like 1step forward 5 steps back when I got them to 34days post hatch, they died along with the female shrimps.. Had some big tank issues..
Having one fry and it pass is a learning curve.
I found my breeder box keeps most of the bbs in they Slowely escape through the bottom slots so maybe sealing the bottom slots and leaving the side ones or fitting some stocking on the bottom even. I left it over night with bbs in it so will see when I go in if any stayed in overnight or all escaped. But with the slow escape rate I think adding feed a few times a day would suffice already to keep density up.
As I have 3 breeding pairs I'm thinking to try combat the problem of removing bad eggs, when I removed them from the dad at 5days most were still clumped together and held by little strings so to say. I will use a magnifying glass and small sharp scissors and see while the eggs still are undeveloped if i can seperate them. Will try with one pair and see if it works without damaging the eggs.

 

[VietEric]

feeling rather terrible with this update, one of the good breeding pairs i have i netted the male to get the eggs from him and he sort of flipped out in the net and got injured now he is having a lot of difficulty swimming. felt terrible. then went to transfer another pair to the new tanks as i didn't think they had eggs and had never layed before, when i got them to the new tank i noticed the male had the eggs half hanging out his mouth he didn't try getting them back in so i decided i would take extra care trying to collect the eggs from him also... my over cautious hesitation saw him jump trying to get away from me and fall 1.5M to the floor. he is now on his side on the bottom of his new tank :( a very sad day indeed. must find a better and safer way to collect the eggs in future. hoping they recover but they are not looking very well.