CaptCrash Breeding - Harlequin Shrimp Fry, Blue Tang Eggs

[NewyReefer]

Hey Mate.

Any updates on the Chromies and Dottybacks?

[CaptCrash]

Well it has been a very long time since I last did an update.

After not breeding much for the last year, just the occasional batch I am focusing on bringing the nutrition of my adults up again and have a couple of new rare fish to add into the mix.

Hopefully within a few to six months I can get my new additions to start laying and I can raise some Mccullochi Clownfish (Amphiprion mccullochi), one of the worlds rarest clownfish from my new adult pair.
Given the rarity of these (14 wild caught fish in the aquarium market world wide), my goal is to make them more available to the Australian market.

One of the very interesting things about this pair is how friendly and inquisitive they are. For the last few years they have been in a family room and are quite happy with people being around them.
Almost everything I have read about Mccullochi clowns describes them as aggressive, but this pair is anything but.

If you would like to follow my progress on breeding these rare and unique fish, please follow the progress on the Facebook page I have stated for the project https://www.facebook.com/MccullochiClownfishBreeding.
I will also be keeping this thread up to date with progress along with more specific details in the MBI breeding journal at

[CaptCrash]

Well I suppose its time for another update.

Breeding efforts have been slow but continuous over the last few months.

Whilst I have done a few batches of fish
A. ocellaris, (Ocellaris Clown)
A. melanomas (Fire Clown)
A. ephippium, (Red Saddleback)
A. clarkii (Clarkii clownfish)
P. kauderni (Banggai cardinalfish)

I have also been raising the last of Acro Al's Banggai cardinal fish and juvi clowns. Other than a few clowns, these are all now sold, so that turned out to be a good exercise and paid for some of the years power bills

With the addition of a heap more Banggai adults, Im expecting to be able to produce a regular supply of captive bred Banggais. So far this is going well with about 120 on the go and three males holding eggs at the moment.

Now onto the much more exciting parts

Mccullochi Clownfish - Amphiprion mccullochi

Over the last few months I have been able to get a number of nests from my new Mccullochi pair, but they have not cared for the eggs very well.
So with the last batch I moved the eggs over to another pair who then fostered the eggs, about 1/2 of the eggs were eaten by the foster parents as part of keeping the nest clean and getting rid of bad eggs.
I missed collecting the fry as they hatched earlier than I expected, but this is still a very encouraging result and I will look to try this again asap.

Harlequin Shrimp - Hymenocera picta

I now have an exciting new task of caring for a pair of Harlequin Shrimp with the objective of breeding them.
The pair has previously released fry, so with any luck I can raise some of these very interesting critters.

I have only had them for about 24 hours now, but they are very interesting, I can really see the attraction with keeping them.

Blue Tang - Paracanthurus hepatus
For the last few weeks the replacement Blue Tangs and been going through their courting behaviour between the two larger fish.
I have a group of three, one of which was a survivor of the power failure.
Given the previous experience, Im expecting that they will start to spawn in the next few months as the behaviour is very similar. The large fish chasing both smaller fish, swimming in tighter and tighter cycles, then dashing away from each other.

One odd part of the behaviour is that there has been a change in the gender of the fish doing the chasing.
The largest fish (female, has spawned in the past with the old male), now appears to be taking on the initiator role with the new smaller fish (believed to be male).
Weirdly the largest fish also will occasionally repeat the behaviour with the smallest fish (believed to be female).

I had associated this behaviour with the male initiating spawning, but as I only have one fish to base this on, there is a lot of room of error here.
Another option may be a change of gender for the largest blue tang, but I am not aware of them changing gender.

[Narcosis]

Thanks for the update Captcrash

Harleqin Shrimp and mccullochi clownfish is just awesome

Be fantastic to get more of these out into the market, good luck!

[CaptCrash]

I like this picture


I now have confirmation on the eggs, pictures and video will follow once they all upload.
The following two pictures in the GIF were taken during the same minute and show movement within the eggs.


Video show various movement and what I think is the heart beating, need to view high res and full screen.
[youtube]QnizOKFKVUQ[/youtube]

[CaptCrash]

Summary video including video of fry now that they have hatched.

[youtube]c6QTG1UVaKA[/youtube]

[CaptCrash]

Some macro shots of the fry at 24 hours

[CaptCrash]

The following photos are approx 68 hours post hatch.

Most now have 5 sets of legs, some still with four


Eye stalk development


In terms of length, they are approx 4.5x the length of NHBBS (so 4.5 * 0.5 = 2.25mm long)
This is based on a NHBBS (422um - 517um so just under 0.5mm) photographed at the same magnification and then a rough measurement of this photo in comparison.

In the last 24 hours they have gone through 2 x 10ml serves of NHBBS (approx 50% NHBBS, and 50% water). The number of fry has reduced, I would estimate 75-100 remain.
Cleaning of the screen in the kressel provides many molts, to they are growing quickly and well by the look of it.
They are much easier to spot now, bright yellow in colour.

[Bangalang]

Mate that is super exciting. Well done!

[CaptCrash]

Massive news, I saw by Blue tangs start to spawn again and was able to collect some eggs.
All three were involved in the spawning activity so Im not sure who actually did the deed.

Eggs about 1 hour old


They look good, but I can't tell if they are fertilised as yet.


Even if they are not, I am super excited to now have spawning tangs again