Clown Gobi Fry

[paul b]

For the third week in a row my clown gobi pair laid eggs and frankly, I didn't believe it.  The first time I was all excited, the second week I saw eggs again and I was starting to doubt it as they look like bubbles.  Now today I see those "bubbles" again and I was sure they are bubbles as I didn't think a small fish such as a clown gobi could lay so many eggs.  So I tried to collect some of those "bubbles"  I stuck a device like a baster next to the Bubbles but they would not come off.  So I scraped some off and sucked them up.  I had a couple of them in a container and they looked like dust.
(I have old eyes)  So I sucked one dust particle up and put it under my 100 year old vintage microscope.
The dam thing is a living gobi.  It is breathing and moving his eyes around.  I could swear it winked at me so I assume it is a female.  I don't have one of those cool camera's that connect to a microscope so this is the best you get.

The eggs are here in between the two clownfish.

[flooddc]

That's very cool!

[Origami]

Cool picture, Paul! Thanks for sharing it. That's pretty darned amazing.

[JR-Tanked150]

I like the picture, it's cool seeing it.

[Orion]

That's cool!

Aside from asking the fish, how can you tell a male from a female clown goby?

[paul b]

The females smell better.

These fry have beautiful blue eyes, the picture doesn't do it justice but I am trying to hold a camera over a vintage microscope.

 

I may design some kind of device to suck up the babies as they are born and place them in a separate compartment in my reef but it is a long shot as they are so small I would need something like a coffee filter to contain them.  They have been spawning almost every week and the eggs seem to hatch in 2 days.  If I can't design something right away, maybe I will be able to do it for the next spawning.

I believe this is directly related to their daily feeding of live worms

You can see that microscope here on my workbench to the left of the yellow drill.

Edited November 13, 2013 by paul b

[paul b]

The tube is on the eggs attached to that acropora.  There are bubbles coming up the tube which pushes water into the container.  There is a coffee filter in the container covering the holes so the fry don't escape.  This should collect a large portion of the fry as they hatch.  I am not sure I will be able to see them but like everything else I do, it is an experiment.  For food there is a sponge filter on the intake of my UG filter that I have not removed to clean in a month or so.   It is teeming with life.  That is what I will put in with the fry for new food.  If they don't like to eat that, they will get leftovers from my dinner so I hope they like linguini and clams

[Origami]

Let us know if the fry survive the trip up the uplift, Paul. Also if you get them to survive much more than a week or so on sponge filter stuff. Great experiment. Take lots of pictures!

[paul b]

Tom, I doubt they will survive a week but it is an experiment like everything else I do.  I am not geared up to raise fry and don't have rotifers on hand.  But if I get any, I will try to get some pictures.

[gmerek2]

Cool fish! Do clown goby hide a lot or all over? They probably laid blackworm eggs with how much live food they eat lol. Good luck sir!

[paul b]

Clown gobies don't really hide, (unless they are really homely)  but they stay in a coral branch.

 

I feed them live worms at least once a day

[londonloco]

Dam Paul, amazing......

[paul b]

I didn't do anything, the fish do it all by themselves.  But they think they are amazing.  They have an ego problem.

[paul b]

My device did manage to collect some Clown gobi fry.  They are a little smaller than a copepod so they are hard to tell apart.  I have a sponge filter on my UG filter that I squeezed into a container so I could look at what lives on it under a microscope.  It is teeming with tiny worms and other creatures that are much smaller than a copepod.  That is what I am feeding them at the moment.  I doubt any of them will survive very long but it is interesting none the less.

[Origami]

Thanks for the update!

 

Sent from my Rezound on Tachyon using Tapatalk

 

 

[paul b]

Eggs, Eggs. More clown Gobi eggs. How do these little fish lay eggs every few days? And they don't lay one or two, there are about 100 eggs. My acropora is really suffering, but it is what it is.

I re designed the gobi egg collector a little

[JR-Tanked150]

How hard would they to be able to raise?

[paul b]

First you would have to be able to find them. They are about half the size of this ------> . < ---------

[Hilary]

And to think that friends wonder why we find this hobby so fascinating!  

[dave w]

Paul, you may want to put some aged salt water in a separate container along with some grunge from the bottom of your filter or with squeezings from a sponge.  Then add a little fruit juice (very little) or V-8 juice.  You should get a bloom of ciliates in a few days or a week and you can see if your gobie babies will survive on that.  Probably not for long, but it's better than watching them starve.  If you're near the water in NY, you could also go collect some mud or fine sand on the shore.  Put it in warm water and you should have rotifers and copepods soon enough.

 

Finally, fish babies usually hatch after lights out because in a reef environment night is the safest time.  You could put a skimming container in your tank after dark, and put a slow moving pump in the bottom of the container so there is always a positive flow skimming off the water surface.  This might get you a lot of new hatch larvae.  If you want to buy one that is already built and fine tuned, look up "larval snagger" on the web.  I think the guy who makes them is from Minnesota, but my memory is not the best.

 

Good luck and let us know of the progress.

[Origami]

Paul, you may want to put some aged salt water in a separate container along with some grunge from the bottom of your filter or with squeezings from a sponge.  Then add a little fruit juice (very little) or V-8 juice.  You should get a bloom of ciliates in a few days or a week and you can see if your gobie babies will survive on that.  Probably not for long, but it's better than watching them starve.  If you're near the water in NY, you could also go collect some mud or fine sand on the shore.  Put it in warm water and you should have rotifers and copepods soon enough.

 

Finally, fish babies usually hatch after lights out because in a reef environment night is the safest time.  You could put a skimming container in your tank after dark, and put a slow moving pump in the bottom of the container so there is always a positive flow skimming off the water surface.  This might get you a lot of new hatch larvae.  If you want to buy one that is already built and fine tuned, look up "larval snagger" on the web.  I think the guy who makes them is from Minnesota, but my memory is not the best.

 

Good luck and let us know of the progress.

Well, look who's here! Welcome back.

[paul b]

 

 If you're near the water in NY, you could also go collect some mud or fine sand on the shore.  Put it in warm water and you should have rotifers and copepods soon enough.

Hello there Dave.  I actually add mud from the sea to my reef all the time.  It is one of the reasons it has lasted so long.  I do have some fry food and I will see if I can raise some of these.  I used to raise fish all the time, but I don't generally do that any more as it is time consuming.  All of my fish are spawning including my mandarins and I am not really geared up now to raise anything.  If I get time I will order some rotifers. 

Or as you said, buy some V8.

Have a great day.

[dave w]

Well, look who's here! Welcome back.

Tom, I haven't gone anywhere, I've just been busy working on my tank.  Now that I've read some of Paul B's other posts I see that he's an expert (at least he's more of an expert than I am), and thus he probably didn't need my advice above.  But when I wrote the post I thought PaulB was just another aquarium dude who didn't know of the larval snaggers out there.