It's in the eyes

Discussion in 'Breeding Tropical Fish' started by Arc Katana, Dec 7, 2010.

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  1. 2in10

    2in10 Super Moderator

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    WOW that is a very large spawn, hope some survive.
     
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  3. Arc Katana

    Arc Katana Fire Worm

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    Last shot for the night, they should hatch this evening (well some will - they lay the eggs over the course of a few days).

    [​IMG]


    The funny thing is they laid these here because I took their flowerpot away when hatching the other batch. I need to get them into their own tank and let em go to work!
     
  4. Arc Katana

    Arc Katana Fire Worm

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    Rough guess is about 1500-2000 or so eggs. If I can get 1% through Meta (metamorphosis ) thats still 75 or so that make it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2011
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  5. Steve34

    Steve34 Feather Star

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    Wonderful threat, thanks for the updates. I look forward to seeing what's next for you.
     
  6. BoBo65

    BoBo65 Torch Coral

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    that is awesome!!!! cant wait for more pics of the hatched babies :D
     
  7. Corailline

    Corailline Super Moderator

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    It is a dry heat, yeah right !
    Thank you for the update. Good luck with the hatch. ;D
     
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  9. Arc Katana

    Arc Katana Fire Worm

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    So its been a weird couple of days - the first set of eggs have hatched - the other ones finally did yesterday. So what I'm learning from these guys is that they might lay eggs over the course of two or three (or more!) days in the same nest. Having then laying eggs every seven or eight days leads me to a couple of conclusions.

    First, because they are laying so many eggs so quickly, even with proper food (which I certainly don't have, the pods are too big it seems) I'll likely never get LOTS of them - maybe 10-15%. Even that would be a HUGE number - considering on average a week would be 2000+ eggs - thats 104000 eggs a year. Raising just 10% over a year would give me 10,400 babies... 15% 15,000! Thats an enormous amount of damsels! In the wild its probably closer to .01% that make it - still 100+ babies survive a year.

    While I'll never make money with these guys (stores can get damsels for a buck or so), the fact they are so small means I'll be able to find the foods that can work for them - and some other species, like Flaming prawn gobies, Yasha gobies, Basslets, generally anything small that needs a tiny first food. This experience alone makes it worthwhile :)
     
  10. BoBo65

    BoBo65 Torch Coral

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    awesome man Ive been following along with this for the past month and today I looked in my tank and saw one of my 3 striped damsels biting the spines off my black spined sea urchin after been amazed at how aggressive he was I realized he was protecting his nest!!!!! there a ton of eggs on one of my rocks haha the guy I got em from told me they were a breeding pair but this is the first time Ive seen it :D yay!!!!
     
  11. ezz1r

    ezz1r Feather Star

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    Octo-Mom has got nothing on you...... lol congrats

    E
     
  12. Arc Katana

    Arc Katana Fire Worm

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    Lol thanks Ezz1r! Thats just the early nest - the ones now are nearly double or triple that in size. I interrupted the damsels laying the other day by pulling their nest out early, but the female is getting huge again. I wouldn't doubt if the next nest is nearly 3,000 eggs.


    Raising the babies is on hold till the move at the end of the month, then I'll try to get 'em up and running with a new first food for the babies.