Blenny mating?

[dbaulch83]

So these scooters and about 2 weeks in my tank. Definitely male and female (deliberately). Didn’t think this would happen so soon. Been seeing the male getting a little aggressive, chasing the female and showing his fins. Anyone with experience know if this actually is mating and what happens next?? Is this common or am I lucky?
Thanks

 

[dbaulch83]

Didn’t want to get too close so sorry for video quality

 

[dedragon]

show of dominance or maybe trying to pair, but definitely not mating

(from your desciption, video isnt working for me)

 

[dbaulch83]

Had to trim it so much too

 

[dbaulch83]

show of dominance or maybe trying to pair, but definitely not mating

(from your desciption, video isnt working for me)

Was hoping the video would upload but having issues. They swim up in tandem then rush down. It’s evening time in the tank. They’ve been at it for about an hour

 

[dedragon]

now the video came through, that is their mating dance. Cool that they are doing it so fast

 

[dbaulch83]

Any idea what happens next? Eggs? Can I do anything to help?

 

[sabeypets]

That is the pre-spawning/spawning accent. At some point near the top of the accent they will release eggs/sperm and dart back to the bottom. The eggs will need to be collected, hatched and the larvae raised in another system.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Was hoping the video would upload but having issues. They swim up in tandem then rush down. It’s evening time in the tank. They’ve been at it for about an hour

based on personal experience and what I see in video- They are courting - Wow

 

[dbaulch83]

That is the pre-spawning/spawning accent. At some point near the top of the accent they will release eggs/sperm and dart back to the bottom. The eggs will need to be collected, hatched and the larvae raised in another system.

Thank you. I read the eggs float until they hatch. I’ve probably missed them this time but hoping this will be regular?? Luckily the LFS had them on a frozen diet which I continue by spot feeding. What am I looking for with the eggs? Are they obvious and at the surface?

 

[dbaulch83]

They’re at it again. Lovely to see. Really wanna get some of those eggs! Clowns are too interested

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Forgive me for asking, but what species of scooter blenny do you have here? I can't tell from the pic/vids.

 

[dbaulch83]

I’ve seen it called red wine/scarlet or flame scooter

 

[sabeypets]

Thank you. I read the eggs float until they hatch. I’ve probably missed them this time but hoping this will be regular?? Luckily the LFS had them on a frozen diet which I continue by spot feeding. What am I looking for with the eggs? Are they obvious and at the surface?

They will continue nightly during spawning season. The eggs look like a thin white string, yes they float (if there is not strong water flow), not super noticeable.

 

[dbaulch83]

They will continue nightly during spawning season. The eggs look like a thin white string, yes they float (if there is not strong water flow), not super noticeable.

Nice thanks! Do they stick to the glass as noticed something like that this morning. Hope I can collect some! How long is spawning season so I know how much time I have. Or will it be random as in an aquarium? Thanks

 

[dbaulch83]

Is this an egg?

 

[dbaulch83]

Ok. Day 3 and I’m getting a little smarter. Flow off, indeed the eggs are ejected in a long thin transparent string. I was armed with a pipette and I’ve managed to collect some. Stuck now tho. I have them in a container (with no flow) in the tank to keep temp but closed off. Brewing some brine shrimp too if I get lucky.
Any advice? I don’t have a separate tank yet but I will. Water changes? Frequency and amount? Air stone or not? Newly hatched brine shrimp a sensible choice?
Or should I give up now until I have the right gear? TIA

 

[sabeypets]

You will need to culture Parvocalanus crassirostris a pleagic Copepod and feed the nauplii as first food to the

Ok. Day 3 and I’m getting a little smarter. Flow off, indeed the eggs are ejected in a long thin transparent string. I was armed with a pipette and I’ve managed to collect some. Stuck now tho. I have them in a container (with no flow) in the tank to keep temp but closed off. Brewing some brine shrimp too if I get lucky.
Any advice? I don’t have a separate tank yet but I will. Water changes? Frequency and amount? Air stone or not? Newly hatched brine shrimp a sensible choice?
Or should I give up now until I have the right gear? TIA

You will need to culture Parvocalanus crassirostris a pleagic Copepod and feed the nauplii as first food to the blenny larvae. Newly hatched brine shrimp will not work.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I’ve seen it called red wine/scarlet or flame scooter

For clarification, is it Synchiropus moyeri or Synchiropus sycorax?

Regardless, as mentioned, you'll most likely need Parovcalanus crassirostris nauplii to raise the young (and P. crassirostris needs Isochrysis galbana - A.K.A. T-Iso).

Water changes? Frequency and amount? Air stone or not?

Yes to the air stone, and yes to daily water changes (though I'm not sure how much to change each time - they're mostly used to clean the larval rearing tank and maintain good water quality for the fry).

Any advice?

Yes - some for Synchiropus spp. specifically first, then a bunch of general aquaculture advice.

The Synchiropus advice:

Raising Spotted Mandarins ♡

Making this thread to keep track of our new journey of raising mandarins! Our pair laid their first eggs last night, is there a way to tell if they’re fertile or not? Right now the eggs are in a specimen box hanging inside the tank with an air stone and a bit of sand to help with any ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

*As a note for this post, I'm assuming the fish reared by breeder who used rotifers and ciliates for the culture either had relatively low survival rates, or had their larvae deriving most of their nutrition from the ciliates, as survival rates for the Synchiropus spp. that I've looked into are abysmal when fed rotifers, but really good when fed copepods. Here are some supporting references:

The importance of copepods as live feed for larval rearing of the green mandarin fish Synchiropus splendidus

The green mandarin fish, Synchiropus splendidus, is a popular marine aquarium species, but currently sourced largely from the wild. To establish a rel…

www.sciencedirect.com

Survival, growth, ingestion rate and foraging behavior of larval green mandarin fish (Synchiropus splendidus) fed copepods only versus co-fed copepods with rotifers

The importance of copepods as the diet for rearing early larvae of the green mandarin fish Synchiropus splendidus has been demonstrated in our previou…

www.sciencedirect.com

And the general advice:

"Some general advice that might help:
- Have a tank ready to move the larvae into (basically a tank with an air stone, a dim light, and a heater - a kreisel tank is ideal, but not necessary; you don't want a filter, a skimmer, uncovered pumps/powerheads, etc. - it needs to be as pelagic larvae safe as possible).
- Be prepared to catch the young when they hatch (ideally, you'd be able to move the eggs immediately before hatching into the new tank, but I'm assuming you don't know exactly when they'll hatch) - catch them and move them into the larval rearing tank as soon as possible.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
Assuming you have fertile eggs, the advice I would give is this:
- if possible, get some Parvocalanus crassirostris pods too (rotifers are great, and I would expect the larvae to go for them, but some fish larvae are picky and prefer pods over rotifers - having both seems like a good way to ensure you have good, small foods for them... Artemia and other larger pod species would likely be good to have on hand too for the larvae as they grow.

- Get various sizes of very fine sieves so you can control the size of the feeders being offered to the larvae as/if needed.

- Add phyto directly to the larval rearing tank. It’s a good method of ensuring that the feeders are gut-loaded and healthy, and it makes them easier for the fish to see (better feeding/survival rates are typically observed with this method).
- Observe and note information about the larvae (things like how big the eggs are, how big the larvae are, when the larvae settle, when coloration comes in, etc.) and the larval behaviors (stuff like if they are attracted to light, how they react to light, if they are attracted to certain colors, what feeders they eat and what what sizes of feeders they eat at what days post hatch, what kind of substrate they prefer to settle on, are they cannibalistic, etc.).

- Watch for developmental bottlenecks and issues with your rearing methods.

- A lot of people run into feeder issues their first few times breeding, so I’d have a backup plan in place to be able to get some feeders quickly if you find yourself needing some.

With regards to the sieves and feeder sizes:
- You may need to screen the feed initially to only offer Parvocalanus nauplii.
- Observing the larvae eating when/if possible is important for telling if they are accepting/able to eat the food you are offering them.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
Generally the main thing to watch for at this stage is a bottleneck where the young start dying off - these usually happen after a few days (day three post hatch seems to be one of the most common bottleneck days for fish that hatch with a yolk they can feed off of - if the rots and phyto don’t provide the proper nutrition for these guys, you might see a die off sometime around here). Some fish run into multiple bottlenecks, including some that happen around/after 2-3 weeks post hatch, so you really need to keep an eye on how things are going. Bottlenecks typically occur because the food the fry is eating isn’t nutritious enough for them, or they’re not interested in eating the food offered, or the food isn’t the proper size for them to eat.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
if you do run into a bottleneck and lose this batch, don’t get too disappointed by it - this happens frequently in trying to breed a new species (even to the professionals), and every attempt gets one step closer to success.

With regards to the substrate settlement:
- Some species need sand, rock, dark areas, specific colors, or other oddly specific things to settle on/in (from what I've seen, inverts are usually a lot more picky with this), so it may help to have a ledge or cave (PVC should be fine for this, if it's even needed, which I honestly kind of doubt) and a little sand in the larval rearing tank.


That’s all I can think of at the moment - hope it helps!"

And to explain the sieving/screening of nauplii to feed:

Yeah, you'd need to screen the Parvocalanus culture prior to feeding them so that you're only offering the baby Parvocalanus pods (the 1st stage nauplii) to the fish larvae. This is what I was meaning when I brought up sieving the culture if the feeders were too large.

Adult Parvocalanus pods get up to 400 microns, whereas stage 1nauplii are about 40 microns. This means that they should be ~1/10 the size of the adult pods (which looks like it would fit with the ~20% gape rule). So, basically, before offering the feeders to the fish, strain them through a 45 or 50 micron mesh - this ensures that you're only getting the smallest available feeders (those that are small enough to fall through a 45 or 50 micron mesh), which should be more appropriately sized for the larval fish.

 

[dbaulch83]

This is brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.
Was sold as a red wine scooter but I’m not entirely sure how to distinguish.
I’m woefully ill-equipped this time around, but have got an egg tumbler coming today which may help.
I can’t see above approx time to hatch, I have in a plastic container with an air stone inside the tank what I think are viable eggs. Clear, 1mm balls - But not sure. Any idea how long I should keep them? I heard they hatch within 24 hours