Molly Miller (scartella cristata) Breeding
 

As most first time surprise spawns seem to go...I have completely failed at raising these! :(

Now...tell me how to do it better!

I grow coral, I'm not a fish breeder... and though our shop stocks all tank bred and captive conditioned fish...oddly enough, in 15 plus years I have never so much as attempted to raise a clownfish clutch. After a mishap with a pump in a 6ft x 2ft stock vat, I noticed the tank FULL of molly miller blenny fry. I can only suppose they have been spawning in there unnoticed for quite some time!

So, that's the backstory...here is what I tried

Day One - notice tank full of fry! Net them all out and transfer to a 10g tank with a sponge filter. (In retrospect, this was probably a mistake...the fry appeared to be able to be sucked right in to the sponge filter!) Try feeding Reef Roids.. they appeared to eat it!

Day Two - realize it can't possibly be that easy, and go on a pod hunt! Score some brine eggs from another local LFS...begin the culture. Unable to find anything better in town that was viable :( Notice at least 1/3 of the numbers have been reduced, despite 3 times a day reef roid feedings...glare at the brine eggs and be irrationally angry they haven't hatched in a few hours!

Day Three - that's today...finally dumped a TON of baby brine in...to a tank with maybe 10 fish fry :(

I am usually the Googling queen...I very rarely have to ask anything on a public media platform. This time, though...coming up with nothin'. I can find pictures of eggs and note that we do indeed already have another nest that is maybe mid way to hatching...can someone help with any tips on larvae rearing??? I have already assumed I likely need rotifers, even new hatched brine may be too big...and no worries there, I can definitely source some. Before I go through the trouble of taking home another batch of fish larvae...someone please point out to me anything I did wrong I may have missed...and any tips for improvement! Thanks, guys, happy reefing to you all! <3https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d13ffac5a3.jpg

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158 views and no one? Kay, well, I will answer myself then...as it turns out, the net was a big mistake, (so odd I even did it, as I don't even net my adult shop fish) and the baby brine also a swing and a miss. I knew better, of course...but was hoping. Have since secured some rotifers from my buddy that owns another local lfs...and have begun designing a bucket fry settling system to be placed right in the spawning tank, circulating the same water.

Going to check for more eggs today! :)

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Here's a link to a breeding journal and it looks like this person got them to settlement and the ones that he hatched and raised started to breed as well http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=88611

Awesome link, unfortunately he didn't fill much of it out, so no new info there. :( It is being done on a commercial scale by a company already...but said company has had terrible quality and shipping issues. :( I now have rotifers and am ready to try again! :)

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I have no idea and have never done this, but my first thought was water quality with the new 10g tank. Was it cycled? My guess is that your sponge filter came from an established tank to help with that. Other than that, maybe you were correct that the food supply was too large. I think that once that 10g tank gets more established, especially if you stock live rotifers, etc., then perhaps you'll have a sustaining population of them and your success will go up. But, like I said, I'm not qualified in any way. However, I'll be following your progress and learning from your experience here as I'd like to eventually breed and raise juvenile striped blennies. Good luck with your next brood!

I have a bit of breeding experience with dwarf seahorses, neon gobies, peppermint shrimp, and pipefish. I may be able to help you out some.

First off the larvae will need rotifers then newly hatched brine shrimp. I hate to say it but there’s no way that the larvae were taking any non living foods within the first few days of hatching.

What many of us do with our newly hatched larvae is use tank water from the parents tank. The water for most fish species has to be tinted with phytoplankton, living or paste. The larvae drift in the water column and will bounce off the sides of their container if the water isn’t tinted, this usually ends up in higher mortality.

At some point you will be able to feed them newly hatched brine, then enriched brine shrimp, and eventually frozen food. Prepared food will be the last though for them to take.

Something else worth watching is the larvae tank temperature. Make sure the heater keeps the temp at the same temperature as the parents tank.

You may want to look into using black round tubs instead of an actual glass aquarium. The round tubs do a better job at keeping the larvae from hitting the walls.


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Puffyluv, have you had any luck raising your molly miller fry?