Enneacanthus chaetodon fry

I went on a road trip to view the flood waters in southern New England [heart breaking!], check some snake dens [struck out], and search my indian site for errosion gifts [score!].

Home late and beat but not sleepy, I was up photographing rocks at 2:30 AM when movement in the black banded tank caught my eye. The small fat one, the one I believe is my only female, was chasing something much faster that the daphnia and cyclops that lurk in the tank. The bigger male has been digging major pits in the sand while the smaller male doesn't dig but is persistently faithful to one little nook behind the driftwood. I did notice when the female looked depleted but searching the heavily planted tank as gently as possible, I never saw eggs or slivers. The 3 adults went almost wild when breeding started and I have to hide to even view them. It's been tough to know what was happening but I didn't expect swimups yet.
Closer examination revealed slivers already swum up and dispersed. I was up till four netting then back at it at 7:00.
Set up in bare 2.5 gallon, all the micro-verts I could muster added. Gonna need lots n lots more. Got at least 20 of various size and robust-ness. I'm sure more still in the tank where they have lots of cover but feed may not be adequate.
Tank is 15 gal heavily planted, air driven corner box filter, in a northern window with influence from west facing windows, tank light often left on till I go to bed ~ 11:00PM. Temp this morning was 68 F, last pH was 6.8 a week ago, has been as high as 7.2 depending on time of day.
Adults get frozen brine and blood worms and wide variety of wild collected critters.
Forgive me the gratuitous digital enlargment, I have macro-envy.



This guy is stalking and eating little critters sticking to the glass. The smoot is on the outside but helped the stupid autofocus.



How frustrating to have those be small. Too tired to mess with 'em now.

Edited by mikez, 04 April 2010 - 09:43 AM.

They may be small but look morphologically advanced. They still have yolk as well and yet are feeding. Can you make a developmental series of photographs?

wow thats awesome!!! what Indian artifacts did you find?

They may be small but look morphologically advanced. They still have yolk as well and yet are feeding. Can you make a developmental series of photographs?

They're quite active and their mouths are bigger than I thought. They like the tiny stuff which seems to stick to the glass so I've been getting a good show with a loup. Trying to get pics through that.
I'll keep shooting and posting as long as they do well. I'm woefully under supplied with small enough inverts. My efforts are bringing back too many copepods too big for them. Many have egg sacks so I'm hopeful but don't want competition.
Gotta get my hands on some brine eggs, they should take sifted brine soon if I can get 'em that far.

Once I up load artifact pics I'll post a link here for interested folks.

Mike,

Have you ever squeezed your biofilter media into another container? I think you can get more than enough critters out of it to feed your larvae for at least a couple days. The critters squeezed out can be nutritionaly enhanced by feeding them green water or some sort liquid larval feed.

Mike,

Have you ever squeezed your biofilter media into another container? I think you can get more than enough critters out of it to feed your larvae for at least a couple days. The critters squeezed out can be nutritionaly enhanced by feeding them green water or some sort liquid larval feed.

Yes that is one method I've been using to seed various containers, even dropping a used foam block into the porch pond instead of tossing [now totally encrusted w/java moss and lively ]

My two problems are; 1. I never started a large container for microvert. The smaller ones are lively with big and small swimmers, rotifers and cilliates visable w/loup but larger daphnia cyclop etc are predominant. They look plentiful until you try using them for food and they go quick.

2. There is no filter in the fry tank so I have to be vigilent about adding too much mulm. Makes the sifting of critters tough because the most life is in the dregs and fines which I hate to dump in direct.

Good news is season is just underway and my adults show every sign of good things to come. This batch is my learning curve.
Have been adding critters to the adult tank for any fry hiding in the jungle. There is a decent population of daphnia and cyclops that have been surviving in the dense growth.

Mike - Get the smallest grade Artemia eggs you can find, if growing enough natural zooplanton is gonna be impractical. San Francisco Bay CA eggs are smaller (and supposedly HUFA-richer) than GSL Utah ones. Also get a few bottles of Philodina rotifer culture going. I can send a starter if you need (if mine are still alive; havent checked recently).

Ok so I've got a system, I've got 3 nets to sort with.I'm getting food into them. They have big mouths but a dainty preference for smaller stuff. I should be able to keep this rate going until they reach baby brine size. If I can find it.
Rotifers would be good. I'll Pm.


Those bellies are full. I hope the food is nutritious enough.






I was pleased with this shot. The color is real. They light up when they chase prey.

Edited by mikez, 05 April 2010 - 03:47 PM.

Facebook has uploaded them avatar size. I'll try and fix it there are reupload to photobucket. That last shot is worth it.

Facebook has uploaded them avatar size. I'll try and fix it there are reupload to photobucket. That last shot is worth it.

Hey mikeZ, I tried sending you a pm but it says you cant receive anymore.

Another 24 hours and things still going well. The fry are eating bigger and bigger food. Seems to me size was not as much an issue as I thought. It looks like it's skill at catching prey that makes them prefer smaller slower critters. Their mouths are quite large and their heads are wide. As they get more confident they are attacking much bigger prey and missing less often. I accidently dumped a net of unsifted copepods in and the bigger fry were chasing stuff at least baby brine size if not bigger. I may start skipping the last sifting which is the slowest.
Gotta get some brine eggs.
Been having some luck fooling my nemesis the Demon Autofocus I find something light colored that autofocus Does see and hold the button down and use it as fixed focus. [The fry are invisible to autofocus.] Still requires chit luck because my eyes ain't good enough for that tiny screen. Hopefully I keep up with 24 hour or at least 48 hour updates. I'd like to put the fry pics in a progression so you can view 'em all at once.
Plenty food in the belly.

Here's a view showing the wide head.

The eye is colored now.

I must have just missed catching a feeding attack. I suspect it was a miss and the prey darted off screen before the shutter caught it.
I love the back lighting.

A flash shot washes out the eye but shows some body pigment.

Mike - please explain how you find, collect, and sift zooplankton.
How do you pick a good site? net types? etc.

Mike - please explain how you find, collect, and sift zooplankton.
How do you pick a good site? net types? etc.

I select multiple sites and types of water to ensure variety. I can't see exactly what they eat or how nutritious. By giving variety, I hope to include quality with quantity of food. Examples are large rain puddles, vernal pools, swamps and ponds.

I collect 3 gallons at a time [3 5ths of a bucket]. First the water is poured through a standard fish net to get insect larvae and sticks and leaves etc out. If clean healthy green plants are growing, I will scoop up clumps with my net and squeeze them over my bucket to catch what's living there as well.
Next contents are poured through a net I bought at Petco that was supposed to be a brine shrimp net but which mesh allows baby brine shrimp and similar sized critter pass through. Lots of good small stuff makes it through the net while lots of good large copepods are caught which can be saved for breeding or fed to other fish.

Next, if fine particulate has made it through, I will let it settle, then siphon it off and save it. I siphon it so it doesn't pollute the fry tank and doesn't clog my last net. I save the dregs because they are lively.
Once I've got reasonable amount of silt out, I pour through my final net. This is a home made net that I picked up as part of a free by the side of the road 10 gal aqaurium set up. It is made from a standard fish net frame with what appears to be bed sheet material sewn in for a bag. I woulda never made one for myself but I love it. Been using it for years.
The fine cloth catches very small critters while allowing the skanky water to pass through and not pollute the fry tank.

It's alot of work with no guaranty that the food is nutritious and no pathogens get in. Works really well though and, well,...I got time on my hands.

Forgot to add: The fine particulates mixed with critters is dumped into a 2.5 gallon invert tank which is crawling and swimming with every kind of critter. Periodically I set a flash light on top and siphon the cloud of tiny swimmers that are attracted.

Edited by mikez, 09 April 2010 - 01:10 PM.

Obviously not all H2O sources are equal. I use discretion, watch for pollution, sick fish, turbid water etc.
I wouldn't go scooping from any old rain puddle for example. The one I use is on a dirt road and is persistent enough for mosquitos, daphnia and cyclops. I assume the inverts are on an accelerated cycle because the puddle does dry up eventually.

In ponds and swamps etc, I take my water from the warm sun lit weedy shallows, very close to shore. Obviously a bucket of plain pond water taken from the main volume will be low in critters. The same # of gallons taken from six inches of water in a weedy shallow cove next to shore will be hopping with critters.

I've been doing this awhile and have well known "go to" spots that I trust that give good yield. It takes some exploring to find the good spots.

Obviously not all H2O sources are equal. I use discretion, watch for pollution, sick fish, turbid water etc.
I wouldn't go scooping from any old rain puddle for example. The one I use is on a dirt road and is persistent enough for mosquitos, daphnia and cyclops. I assume the inverts are on an accelerated cycle because the puddle does dry up eventually.

I've netted daphnia out of farm field puddles in the spring. Obviously, the puddles are there for a while; usually perched on clay. While a lot of farms do use some pretty heavy chemicals, I've always assumed that if I saw daphnia, the water should be OK, at least as far as collecting inverts for food (seeing as daphica are used in toxicity studies). Hopefully I'm not wrong in this assumption. Those farm fields can have fantastic populations of the critters! Would one be wrong to assume that where there are daphnia, there are likely to be smaller goodies such as those the chaetodon fry would like?

I've netted daphnia out of farm field puddles in the spring. Obviously, the puddles are there for a while; usually perched on clay. While a lot of farms do use some pretty heavy chemicals, I've always assumed that if I saw daphnia, the water should be OK, at least as far as collecting inverts for food (seeing as daphica are used in toxicity studies). Hopefully I'm not wrong in this assumption. Those farm fields can have fantastic populations of the critters! Would one be wrong to assume that where there are daphnia, there are likely to be smaller goodies such as those the chaetodon fry would like?

I agree if healthy oxygen loving critters are living in it, the water can't be too toxic. I discovered the puddle critters when netting mosquito larvae which are obviously much easier to see. They attracted my attention and I discovered the daphnia after dipping puddle water.

Yes, I find many different sizes and colors and shapes of critters. Most are different species of daphnia and cyclops in various sexes and stages of development. There are also rotifers and cilliates which are boardering on hard to see with naked eye and paramicium and similar sized stuff visible with a loup.

The first 48 hours I often could not see the tiny critters the fry were chasing. Now they chase larger, more visible and faster stuff, with better success.

Fry are still doing well. Only lost one that I know of. Noticed yesterday it had nothing in its gut when all others were full. Dead this morning.
I've concluded it's not size as much as ease of capture which makes the difference. Some feed better than others. If nothing but fast moving food like cyclops is offered, I would expect the smaller, weaker feeders to be left behind and/or cannibalized.
I've been shooting pics almost every day but not many come out good. This is a collection over several days. One particular individual is noticably bigger and more advance. Most pics are of him.

Too many lousy pics to sort. Someday I'd like to do a slide show showing the progression. For now, recent glimpses. As usual, this is our precocious fellow, as many as three stages of development ahead of his fellows. He got his stripes the same day I removed 8 new fry from the adults' tank.
I've lost 4 from the first batch. Two failures to thrive essentially starved, one healthy one got stuck under a piece of drift wood [since removed] and another healthy one accidently got stuck in a clump of algae I took out.

Nice pics! Awesome!!

Brian

wow they are coming along awesome. what do you plan on doing with them when they are larger. id like to take a pair off your hands