Spawning Clown Gobies

[paul b]

I like clown gobies because they are a very bright yellow, very peaceful, cheap, and reef safe.  Except when they spawn.  They like to live on and spawn on acropora corals and wherever they lay their eggs, kills that part of the coral.  But luckily for my acropora, this pair only spawns on one specimen of acropora and so far have not laid eggs or bothered any of my others.
These two have been laying eggs about every two weeks like clockwork for over a year and I finally decided to collect some of the fry to see what they looked like.  I am not geared up to raise these little guys as I would need some rotifers and some free time.
I designed a fry collector to collect these and all egg layer fry as long as they lay the eggs on something as opposed to eggs that float.
The collector consists of a container with a tube going into it.  The tube is positioned on the eggs and an airline pushes bubbles up the tube along with the fry as they hatch.  You need a way to exhaust the water from the container while keeping the tiny fry so I used a screen from the inside of a RO membrane.  There are two parts to a RO device.  One is the membrane that only allows water molecules to pass and another very tiny screen that will let water pass but not these tiny fry.
I drilled a 2" hole on the side of the container and placed a piece of the screen on that, then I took another piece of acrylic and drilled the same diameter hole and using a rubber band attached that piece of plastic over the hole in the container sandwiching the screen in between the two pieces of acrylic.
The thing worked flawlessly and collected a bunch of fry that took a week to hatch.
If I wanted to raise these gobies I could leave them in that container for a while as water constantly flows through it or I could transfer them to a rearing tank.

Here is a gobi a few days after emerging, still in it's egg.

This guy is a few hours after hatching.

And a video of the collecting device.

[tomtom2245]

That's awesome! Ever have any trouble with them picking at your SPS polyps? I used to have one and he was one of my favorite fish but had to give him away because he started going after the hard corals. Do you think you will raise some of the fry eventually?

[paul b]

I never had any trouble with them bothering anything unless they spawn.  If I get time I will order some rotifers.  There is no hurry, they spawn all the time.

[paul b]

These guys are amazing, the eggs just hatched two days ago and they laid another large batch in the same spot