Thanks guys, good ideas.  Much appreciated!  Being a fisherman, I have plenty of fishing line and many weights that I could use!

Hey Chazz ( ), I have 14 hermit crabs in my 180gal brackish native tank (~1.005) that have grown quickly over the last yr, from nickle sized shells to 3-4 inch shells.  Thinks are getting a bit crowded!

I would love to trade some brackish hermits, or any of the other fish in my south LA brackish tank, for some of your blenny and or naked goby fry if they make it to young adulthood. 

We native-brackish keepers need to stick together, aint many of us. . .

Keep the threads coming.  Yours are my favorite, near to my heart.

Andy

Thanks Andy.  I'm sure we can work something out!

I caught the skilletfish in the act of spawning yesterday.  Both the male and female were in the shell together for about an hour and a half past the time that I first saw them.  There were eggs on one shell half, so I'm not sure how long it took them to lay them.  Anyway, despite their objection over the lack of privacy, I shot a video.  A striped blenny was curious of the activity as well, looking for a cheap thrill, no doubt.  Enjoy!

Last night, I removed the aluminum hanging strips from my new breeder cage.  Then, I rigged the cage so that it would hang in my tank.  I'm not happy with how it is working, so this weekend, I plan on designing a permanent solution.  But, it is working as it should.  I transferred as many fish fry that I could into the cage, and already, they've lived longer than any fry that I've kept so far.  Now, my problem is that I don't have any live food sources other than what lives in the tank.  Since barnacles and tunicates survive in my tank, then perhaps there is food for the fish too.  I do have some frozen artemia nauplii that I fed them this morning.  I read a blog about raising a similar species of clingfish (assuming these fry are skilletfish), and after four days, they were eating live artemia nauplii.  I have a kit to hatch and start a culture, but I have yet to do so.  I will start that up tonight.  

I suspect that my filters and predation were the main causes of their previous disappearances.  

So, that leaves me with two questions that the future will answer.  First, can I raise these fish?  Second, what species are they? 

Eventually, I want to set up a tank to raise the fish fry.  If I'm successful, I should have plenty to stock my larger tank, and also enough to give to my friends.  I don't know what I'll do with them after that.  Don't worry Andy, I didn't forget you

It's been a while since I posted about this aquarium.  I had one sad set back.  One of my male blennies all of a sudden became blind about three weeks ago.  I discovered that he wasn't swimming out to accept food, and the other blennies were terrorizing him.  And, after observing him for a while, I determined that he was blind.  So, I moved him to my 20g high, away from the other blennies that picked on him and outcompeted him for food.  From that point on, I fed him using a turkey baster, and he was much happier, just blind.  That is, until a couple nights ago, where he acted very sick, swimming near the surface and breathing heavily.  I suspect that some sort of disease overcame him, probably the one that I quarantined him from before, suggesting, perhaps, that his immune system was compromised.  So, I euthanized him.  I didn't feel much like writing about this, because I was pretty emotional about it.  The other fish in my 20g long are all doing well and healthy.  

I don't understand why this happened, and I may never know, but usually, this happens to fish that become malnourished.  I think that the blindness was the result of that, but I have to wonder if an internal parasite may have been the root cause of the malnutrition, especially since, prior to this, the fish ate readily everything that I offered.  I feed them quality food, either fresh or frozen.  I don't feed them flakes or pellets at all, except when I'm on vacation.  However, included in the mix of food were meals of frozen brine shrimp.  I fed them frozen brine shrimp every third meal.  I haven't heard of any studies on this, but some have suggested that, over the long term, fish that eat frozen brine shrimp sometimes become susceptible to blindness.  Has anyone experienced this before?  So, the only change that I've made over the past three weeks was to give up on the brine shrimp.  I feed my fish frozen or fresh sea food now.  The fish love it, but my wallet doesn't, especially with the food purchased at my LFS.  

As far as the tank goes, all three species spawn about every three days to a week, depending on the species.  All seem healthy and eat well.  My attempt with the cage failed, not because of the cage, but probably the fish starved and need live food, not just frozen baby brine shrimp or oyster eggs.  So, I'm going to set up a system to raise these fish soon, once I get some free time.

To keep this from being a depressing post, I included a video that I shot from a while back, showing my fish doing their thing.  About 2/3 through the video, you'll see that two male blennies will have an encounter.  The blenny that the camera is tracking changes coloration, one that is common after or during aggression with another blenny.  You'll notice that the dorsal half of the fish, from the eyes back, becomes very dark, almost black.  This is an indicator of an aggressive mood in these fish.  I haven't seen anyone document this before, so, there ya go, now it's documented   This was after a feeding session, including a dose of Oyster Feast.  I hope you like it.

Last night, when I went to feed the fish, all of the blennies came out to feed aggressively except one of the males kept hiding in his shell.  This is the blenny that I dubbed, "King", because at one time, he was king of the tank.  He no longer is, as the other males caught up to him in size and can hold their own against him while defending their piece of the rock.  "King", staying hidden and not eating reminded me of the behavior of the one that went blind, so I was quite concerned. 

After I finished dispersing the food, I decided to shine a light in the shell and see if he was OK or if I could find signs of disease.  Just as I picked up the flashlight, he came out to feed, so I shined my light into the shell, and lo and behold, I found eggs.  He was guarding eggs!  This confirms my thoughts on a question that I had, that one female will breed with multiple males.  I've seen two other males hiding out like this, the first was the one that I filmed guarding eggs a couple months ago.  The second male blenny acted the same way, but I couldn't verify if he was guarding eggs or not, because his territory is in the back of the tank.  This blenny was right in front.  How convenient!

So, I went upstairs to grab my phone, brought it down and set it up on my tripod and waited for him to leave his shell and catch a vid of him guarding the eggs and also a good shot of the eggs.  It took about an hour, and he came out to fight off a rival male, and gave me the opportunity to get a shot. 

I have two videos, and I'll post the other one tomorrow.  This is the second video that I shot, but it has a close up of the eggs, so I thought that I'd share it first.  It also features what the other fish in the tank are up to.  Hope you like it.

Very nice.  Nice fall colors.

How have the fry done in your rearing basket?

I tried a couple times and they didn't make it.  So, my guess is that I need to solve the food problem.  Frozen baby brine and oyster eggs didn't work.  I will have to try different cultures to see what they will eat.  I'll start with rotifers.  Then, as they get bigger, baby brine shrimp.  I just need to have some free time to work on it.  I'm happy to have this particular blenny breeding, because he is front and center of the tank, and I can keep an eye on everything.

It's possible that they oyster eggs might work, but the problem is that, using the breeding net, they don't stay in there for long.  I will have to set up a small grow out container and try that before I move on to rotifers.  At least now, I can track whether or not I'm dealing with skilletfish or blenny fry.

Also, I meant to say thanks, Nick.

Here is the other video that I promised.  I didn't have time to finish processing both of these yesterday:

That's still fantastic.  This has turned out to be a great thread on keeping/breeding coastal species.  Keep it up!  Only a matter of time.

Still loving this thread!

Regarding food, a trip to the seafood counter to get some shrimp, whole or filleted fish, squid, or other shellfish is pretty cheap compared to the commercially available frozen foods.  I've had to do it myself, but I go fishing often enough that I usually have enough fresh-caught in the freezer to meet my needs.

If I am running low on my aquarium food supply, the next time I take a bag out of the freezer for my own dinner, I will dice up a filet into very small pieces and freeze it in a Ziploc with a little water.  I break off chunks of the slab and drop them in the tank.

When I cook shrimp, I save the "legs" (pleopods) for fish & turtle food.

Thank you Nick, Andy and Gerald!

The male blenny in the last video that I posted is still guarding the same eggs.  At least, I think that they're the same eggs.  So far, 10 days and they haven't hatched yet.  I expect them to hatch very soon. 

Contrast this with skilletfish, who lay eggs about every four or five days.  Their fry hatch that quickly.  In addition, they will lay eggs even as the male skilletfish guards eggs from the last batch.  I find that amazing.  

Thank you Matt!  Flakes must be the fish food equivalent of Doritos to fish!