Three little eggs

We've had a temperature drop this last week and I've been hoping that it will help to get Faith and Fabio spawning.
This morning I found three infertile eggs stuck on the egg screen.....
There's a new moon just over a week away......
Fingers are crossed......

Im sorry for the lack of news. It's been over a month with no new posts because nothing "fun" is currently going on. I'm mainly on the dreaded computer putting together the info from the eight P. venusta larval trials and the G. personatus trial.

I have been seeing spawning behavior in three tanks, (the G. personatus, the interruptas (Faith and Fabio), and the P. venusta) but there have not been any fertile eggs produced.

With the seasonal drop in temperatures getting closer I'm planning on using the rest of the "Girlfriend for Fabio" funds to bring in another pair of C. interrupta so that we can get that project going.

In the mean time I'll continue the nightly check for eggs and when we get a fertile batch we'll get back to the fun stuff!  :)

G. personatus tails

We are seeing the first black tail bar develop in our juvenile personatus. Some fish have already left the nest to other homes and I have heard of at least one of those that is also developing it's black bar.

Here's a link to a video showing the black bar developing on a 189 day old G. personatus. The video was taken several days ago and the black bar started coming in as a light grey bar two weeks ago.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6QAXK1n9l4

We also have a tailless fish who is now known as "Hula"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4925sw9QXk

P. venusta update

The P. venusta from Trial 8 which was fed only cultured foods throughout the larval period are now at day 69.  They have been hesitant to switch over to non living foods. They will look carefully at the foods and puff at them but will not yet consume them so I have added a few young ocellaris clownfish to each venusta grow out tank. I'm hoping for the "monkey see monkey do" response as the venusta watch the ocellaris consume flakes, pellets and frozen foods.

Here is a video link of the P. venusta (about 1/2 inch size) and ocellaris clowns (1/4 inch size). This video was taken yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFP3YNElpqY

I also took a couple of videos of the G. personatus yesterday and will get them up here in the next couple of days. (It just takes a while to upload them to youtube. Slow connection in my neighborhood!)

Genicanthus personatus :)

Hey Everyone

Over ten years ago while I was working at the Waikiki Aquarium I had the amazing opportunity to spend some time over a couple of years to do larval rearing work with the Masked Angelfish, Genicanthus paersonatus.  We succeeded in raising one fish "Geni Babe".

Since then one of my life goals has been to work with G. personatus again. It was a goal that I believed might not ever happen but I kept it swimming around in my head as a dream. This last spring that dream came true with an unbelievable opportunity given to me by rebreather diver Rufus Kimura. The information was to be kept under wraps until it could be announced at MACNA in Colorado this weekend. So now I am free to share the information with you.

The following video footage and photos were taken by me and if you've visited this site before you know that I am not a good photographer. A friend of mine, Leighton Lum has taken some lovely photos of the adults and juveniles as well as other fish from the Faith and Fabio Project. You can visit his site at http://www.photographybyleighton.com

So here's how it went down.

Rufus went down, deep. He collected a pair of masked angelfish.
The male was the largest I've ever seen and became known as Jumbo.
The female is lovely and is known as Hina.
Here is a photo of each. The photos do not do them justice!

The pair was collected in the winter and spawned on March 2. I was busy with the Paracentropyge venusta of the Rising Tide Conservation project and had to fit the G. personatus into my free time. The following two months were the most hectic, exciting, stressful and fun months as I made the journey through the most successful larval rearing run I've had to date.

Here are a couple of photos of the juveniles taken yesterday at six months of age.

The following are video links to You Tube so that you can see how the larvae progressed starting with the most recent.

Here they are at day 91 feasting on Herbivore  Frenzy provided by Larry's Reef Services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ig1yl66Klo&feature=em-upload_owner-smbtn


Here is day 57. G. personatus juveniles casually swimming around their grow out tank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DalZuT1HHCc&feature=em-upload_owner-smbtn


Day 49 playing peek a boo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6YxO3li6H0&feature=em-upload_owner-smbtn


Here we are at day 40 when the first laval personatus settled out to it's juvenile form.
A very exciting day!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51l9cUX-jYw&feature=em-upload_owner-smbtn


Day 36 when I transferred some of the larvae to a bare tank which had my "magic rock" in it. This is the rock most of my clownfish have started spawning on and the rock that Geni Babe settle on over ten years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0pfqTwuwk&feature=em-upload_owner-smbtn


Day 30 of the larval rearing run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqi_Tefs14&feature=em-upload_owner-smbtn


This larval run was done using wild collected plankton and I think it's interesting to note that this was my best ever larval run and has been a year of amazing reef fish recruitment in Hawaii.

Rufus requested a video giving my perspective on this "G. personatus Project".
I would like to leave you with the video and a message that I wrote to a friend regarding the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_uWZXaxEk&feature=youtu.be


I think that video may come back to haunt me.

I'm not good at being in front of the camera and I'd never done a video with the computer. My husband set me up with photo booth on the lap top and went to bed. I tried four times and on the fifth I thought, that one wasn't as bad. I must have thought that out loud because my husband says from the bed "I heard you say UM at least ten times". So I tried several more times and finally felt OK with it. The sound wasn't very good but I had the volume all the way up so I stuck with it and sent it to Rufus.

The next morning I played it back and it looks freaky with the lighting. I look like a cabbage patch doll! My contact lens had been bothering me and my eye looks swollen. I said to my husband "you have to watch this and tell me how bad it looks". I push play for him and he starts laughing uncontrollably. He says "It looks like you're missing teeth". And sure enough it does! Now I start laughing and he says "I think these people are going to start an Indigogo campaign for you to get your teeth fixed!"

Oh the sacrifices I make for this hobby!

Day 55 for the P. venusta

Just a quick update at day 55 for the P. venusta in trial 8.
I took some video this morning and the larvae continue to develop juvenile coloration. We can now see more blue on the dorsal compared to just two days ago.

http://youtu.be/Gjs_Enh5NpE

I'm very happy with this group since their larval phase has been quite a bit shorter than our previous successful trial and this batch has been reared on only cultured foods, (no wild plankton). They are still on living foods, currently being fed Artemia as we slowly introduce non living foods.

Day 53 for P. venusta trial 8

We're at day 53 and seeing some signs of pre settlement in the P. venusta larvae.
Here's a video showing what the larvae look like today. This larva seems to be the furthest along in development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvRWkFBaxDM