yellowhead jawfish babies

[MMoe]

Hi breeder folks, I sort of dropped out of the internet world for awhile. Been busier then a pig in a cornfield. I did get a jawfish spawn through, now at day 23. They started to settle at day 18 and most all are now down but there are, oh, about 15 still in the water column. Most of the little guys, somewhere between 100 and 150, have settled on the bottom, (sand and small pebbles) and are building dens, spitting out sand grains, and even fighting. They settle in the dark head phase first, at about 6 to 9 mm, and then within a day transform into the yellow head phase. They are growing well at this point. I have some good pictures and video. I'll post these pictures as soon as I figure out how to do it, and then get the time to do it. Now I have to concentrate on Diadema culture, made a neat larva culture upwelling system for them. Later, Martin

[Morgman]

Sounds amazing!! Jawfish are amazing fish. Keep us posted on your success. If you need any help posting let us fellow fish breeders know. I am sure someone can get your stuff on the net.

[rbeleno]

Congrats Martin,

Just wondering, were the parents initially just in the Display Tank when you noticed the eggs or are they in their own tank - if so, any details you can share?

Thanks - Ron

[MMoe]

Actually Ron, the topic of the parents is a little embarrassing.... I set up this rather elaborate (elaborate for one person) culture lab to do Diadema breeding work, and a little fish culture on the side. I have these friends, Moe (his nickname, no relation...) and Nancy, and they have a very nice boat. I set up a 150 gallon brood stock tank last spring and we went out and collected 6 jawfish on the reef. (Actually jawfish are found in the sandy, rocky areas between reef formations.) and I set them up in my well appointed brood stock tank. They were collected on Memorial Day last year, and being winter and spring spawners, were just winding up their spawning season. One female produced eggs, went into a burrow with another jawfish, presumably male, and released the eggs. The male appeared a bit later with the eggs in the wrong place, his tummy... Jawfish are also short lived fish, one or two years in the wild, and so I kept my fish for many months and they grew big, very big for jawfish, now about 4 inches long, and never spawned for me. There are a lot of possible reasons for this, but the bottom line is no eggs!

Meanwhile, Nancy set up a 15 gallon tank with a few inches of gravel and a nice rock and she and Moe went out and collected 3 small jawfish about 3 months ago. And of course they spawned almost right away. Those teenagers and their hormones... So even though I didn't get mine to spawn, I did have Nancy's spawn to work with, and were were successful in getting quite a few through now to the juvenile stage in 20 to 23 days. Interestingly, there are still a few that are in the larval stage and have not yet fully settled into benthic life. The male incubated the eggs for 10 days. Sorry for the long post, but you asked.....

Martin

[FishGuttz]

Thanks for the update Martin and congrats, seems like a tough thing to pull off considering you'll need new broodstock every 18-24 months. Yeesh!

[FMarini]

wow martin congrats--
nice to see you around here again.
Hope all is well w/ the diadema project

[aomont]

That´s nice MMoe !
Seems like many will go through now ! Do you have pics ?
Anderson.

[Luis A M]

Great to hear from you,Martin!We had some trouble in this forum lately, and most of the active people flied away So you come at the right time to cheer things up a bit!
Could you tell us more of the rearing set up? Things like photoperiod,algae,rots or pods,water changes,and the like.
Computers are a mistery for me,buy my daughter taught me how to post pics.So if you have them in your desktop,I can tell in plain words how to make it.But you should have photoshop...

[catdoc]

That's amazing! I had a spawning pair when I first set up my tank, just got lucky I guess. The male would hold the eggs to hatching and then I'd never see them again. I was so sad when first the female died, then the male jumped. I'm a bit reassured to hear that they only live 1-2 years b/c I'd had them around 18 mos when I lost them. Would love to get another pair sometime as they are very fun fish to watch.

What do the babies eat? Since they are mouth-brooders, are they comparable to raising banggai or are they much smaller?

[MMoe]

Hi Luis,
I have photoshop and I do work with computer photos, even worked with making short video clips for presentations, but just haven't posted photos on a forum before so I don't know the procedure. I'll have to make time to do that. The little jawfish are now in day 24, and they now take micro grated frozen shrimp, I have videos.... Amazing, these little 8 to 10 mm yellowheads swarm over the bottom like little bees, the bottom is alive at feeding time. I reared them in a 35 gallon tank, using wild plankton (when in doubt, go to the natural source if at all possible!, I tried rots but they did not take them, but then I didn't try very hard.), a 13 hour photoperiod, no micro algae in the tank (I can do easy water changes with from a basically unlimited source of sterile, salinity and temperature adjusted source), and when they started to seek the bottom at about day 17 to 18, I added a bottom substrate of sand and small shells and coral rocks, which they took to right away and began to build burrows. Very cute....

Martin

[Luis A M]

Hey Martin,congrats!Jaws are cool,go jaws!
Easy steps for posting a pic,will take you 5 min.
A-photoshop.You open it choosing your pic on the desktop,go to image size and write 600 pixels.The pic will reduce if it was too large.Next you can do any other needed photoshop work,like rotating the image,add pointers or captions,correct contrast,etc.
Then you press "save for web"at the file bar.Done

B-Uploading the pic in RC gallery (or a public gallery like photo bucket,Kodak,etc,if you already have it).The purpose here is to obtain the "img tag" which you need to post a pic in a forum.
This is simple,go to gallery,"uploadphotos"(upper right),browse to find your pic at the desktop,open it and fill all the blanks and upload.Ready.

C-posting.start writing a post as normally.When you want to put the pic go to the "img"block,put "ok"and you will get
[IMG]http://[/IMG]
now go to photo gallery at the bottom right,and then to "my gallery"and your pic.Copy the img tag,less the initial "http://"cause you already have it in your message and you must not duplicate it.Paste it between // and [/IMG] .That´s it
.
Last thing,preview your post before you send it,to check if everything worked OK.

Hope this helps,and it was clear.Ask me otherwise.This is how I make it.There might be better ways...

[MMoe]

OK, I uploaded a couple of photos of the early juvenile jawfish (I think). I'll try to post them here, thanks to Luis's instructions, never could have done it without them....

;;;;;;;

I'm sorry, Luis, I can't find the IMG block?, I have no idea where to go from here. I think the photos are in some "gallery" somewhere. I don't think I can find them.... I can raise fish but I can't work out computer stuff, at least not on a forum. I'll try again later, right now I have to go feed fish and check on the Diadema larvae.

Martin

[Luis A M]

Hi Martin,never mind,it took me ages to find out!
First,did you upload your pic in RC?.If so,go "home","my gallery",click on your pic,and copy the "img tag"

The "IMG" box is over the box where you write your post.Find the phrase:"Use these controls to insert vB code"."IMG"is right over the word "to"

Let me know how this works

[catdoc]

Found the pics in your RC gallery. Here ya go!





Very very cute!!! I'm going to have to find another pair, not sure that I could raise them but they are fun fish to watch.

Here's a pic of my pair:



and of the male with a mouthful:

[Luis A M]

Well,Christy was faster than me(good pics,Christy! )
To post your first pic,you must paste this:reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/1723by-pebble-small.gif
as per earlier instructions.
You can practise with a "fake post"loading the pic,using the "preview"to see if it worked,and then not sending it

[damer]

thats great martin, well done.

how big are the larvae when they hatch and what did you feed them.

damien

[damer]

oops, just found it.

[clownfish75]

You should get some Damien!!!!

When you breed them ill have some babies

Christian

[damer]

Originally posted by clownfish75
You should get some Damien!!!!

When you breed them ill have some babies

Christian

you source me some and ill try.

should have a newly cycled system in a week or two

[Morgman]

Martin,

Great stuff!! How deep is your sand/gravel bed? The pictures of all of the juveniles is impressive. Is this what you are going to talk about at Imac?

[aomont]

Look at all those little yellow heads ! That should be a nice view to have in the morning...
Anderson.

[FMarini]

argggggg-
the wild field plankton again. Awesome-i'm glad that worked, but any idea what sized particle they were feeding on? nauplii of copepods, ciliates, did you happen to look under the scope at what your plankton harvests looked like?
AS you mentioned Rots didn't work- but something did- guesses?
frank

[MMoe]

Frank, I'll give you more details on the rearing later today, got to get some chores done first. An aquarist works from sun to sun, a breeders work is never done. ....

I do plant to go to IMAC if at all possible, I've got to contact Dennis on this, I plan to talk about building a hatchery in the Keys and breeding yellowhead jawfish and Diadema.

Martin

[billsreef]

Very cool indeed

Thanks for sharing with us

[MMoe]

HI Frank,
Yesterday was one of "those" days... and today is not much better so I don't have much time. The yellowhead larvae were smaller than I thought they would be, smaller than I remembered from the rearings in the late 70s. I started them out on wild plankton, dissected a few in the first few days and found only small copepod napulii. I had also fed some rotifers, fairly large ones...., and never found a rotifer in any gut. Which does not mean that none of them ever took a rotifer. Perhaps the only real message here is that they prefer small copepod napulii to rotifers. (Who doesn't?) The mouth size at day 3 or 4 indicates that they could take a rotifer, but in my estimation, that has yet to be determined. If I rear them again I'll try a separate tank with just rotifers from the get go. I got the plankton from the Channel 2 bridge, the current runs through there pretty fast and it's easier to get it there than to take out the boat. Really small copepod napulii and other plankters are taken on the outgoing tide and larger copepods are usually taken (depending on weather) at the top of the incoming tide. It takes me about an hour to leave, make two 15 minute tows, get back and process the catch, not bad.

With this resource I may be able to do some of the small pelagic egg species, such as pygmy angels. We'll see....

Martin