Paracentropyge venusta at day 71

All larvae are doing well and here is a link to a video taken yesterday at day 71.
The golden/blonde larva is at the end of the video. She tends to hang out higher in the water column than the others.

http://youtu.be/x0jY4P8p4JM

The larvae are still only consuming live foods and I have been introducing nonliving foods hoping they will taste something and like it. Recently I received an order of Larry's Reef Services "Reef Frenzy" and "Herbivore Frenzy". The larvae are definite interested in these foods and are obviously looking for something when these foods are added to the larval tank so I'm hoping they'll get the idea and switch over soon. I'd love to take a break from hatching brine shrimp!

Slow and Steady

Today is day 68 for the Paracentropyge venusta larvae and they are doing well.
The five larvae that were moved into a grow out aquarium are growing and seem to enjoy being in the tank. Here is a video taken yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6GhoI69mNs

Since those five are doing well, I've moved the rest of the larvae into a 40 gallon breeder sized tank. This tank is also set up with an under gravel filter, pvc fitting and some dried coral rubble. The larvae have been growing steadily but development to the next phase seems slow.  Two of the larvae in each tank have a slight blue iridescent hue just forward of and below the dark dorsal area. On most of the larvae the first three dorsal spines are now golden in color.

Faith and Fabio continue to spawn and have somewhat of a pattern of three nights spawning then one or two nights off.  Each spawn consists of approximately 100 eggs and the eggs have not yet been fertile. I have my fingers crossed for the next new moon in just over a week.

Lots of cool stuff happening!

First of all the great news is that Faith and Fabio have spawned the last four nights!
These are all relatively small spawns with only a few fertile eggs but the two of them are really going for it with pre spawning behavior lasting hours! Fabio must be feeling terrific as his color has brightened significantly with the purple and blue spots on his face brighter than I have ever seen them!

The Paracentropyge venusta larvae are 58 days old today and we still have 17 larvae! I moved them to a clean tank yesterday putting 12 larvae in the usual larval tank and 5 larvae into a grow out tank. The grow out tank is a regular 20 gallon tank with an under gravel filter. I feel that the larvae have stalled out somewhat in their development and want to see if putting them in a more natural environment with help them to fully metamorphose. Here is a link to the five larvae in their new aquarium.
http://youtu.be/k9roCmou9Fs

For the last month I have noticed that one larva is different than the others and yesterday when moving them I caught that larva with a "normal" larva together in a beaker. Here is a short video comparing the two.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c3ZNuC2gSY
I have been referring to this different larva as the golden larva since she is lacking the darker dorsal pigment that the others have but since there is a Golden Angelfish and we know she is not that species I will refer to her as the "blonde". She is more of a platinum blonde and gorgeous! She is still pelagic in behavior whereas the venusta larvae are much more benthic at this stage. She also has a calm attitude compared to the venusta (and the venusta have a calmer demeanor than the G. watanbei raised last year). I know you are all now wondering what other species of fish are in the brood stock tank and I'm going to keep that to myself for now. I'm not sure which species this blonde larva is but I know which species I hope she is!  :)  It will be a surprise for all of us.

I'm also finding it so interesting to watch the behavior of the venusta larvae at this stage. They are already territorial, and show submissive and dominant interactions and they don't even have their color yet!

Paracentropyge venusta at day 50

Today the P. venusta are 50 days old and I moved them to a clean tank.
I was able to get a good look at each larva as I moved them one by one in a beaker.

Here is a video of the last one moved.
http://youtu.be/HnBI8Ix09Ak

Most of the smaller larvae have died as they have not progressed in size or development over the last couple of weeks. There are now 17 larvae left. One is smaller than the others and has buoyancy problems off and on. The other 16 look great. About half of the larvae have pigment though most of their dorsal spines and fin as you can see in the video. I saw this in the Genicanthus watanabei just before they fully settled with juvenile colors so I'm hopeful that metamorphose will come soon.

day 45 of P. venusta larval run

We're at Day 45 today.
Two smaller larvae have died in the past week and the rest (22 of them) look great.
Two are swimming in and out of the magic rock and here is some really lousy video of them.
The food in the water column is day 1 and day 4 Artemia enriched with Selco.

http://youtu.be/5zP_Y2R4nAY

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Just want to say Happy Holidays to all you larval fish lovers out there!
I hope the holidays are wonderful for you all and that the New Year is filled with fish successes!

The P. venusta larvae are doing well and are 41 days old today on Christmas Day.
There are still 24 left and they haven't changed much in development over the past week but some are really pulling away from the rest in size. I have put my magic rock in the tank in hopes that they will settle in it. It is the rock my first clownfish pair spawned on back in the early eighties and the rock the G. personatus settled on over ten years ago. Last year at this time the G. watanabei were playing in it just after settlement.

The larger larvae are orienting to the sides and bottom of the tank and were so cute a couple of days ago as twelve of them were lined up in a row at the edge where the bottom meets the side of the tank. They all had their tails towards the tank side, facing the middle of the tank with even spacing of  a couple of mm between each larva. I tried to get a photo but there was too much reflection. They looked like tiny synchronized swimmers!

They are consuming amazing amounts of Artemia and I am equally amazed by (and proud of) the amount of feces they are producing! Good quality poop = good quality larvae!

Day 33 of Paracentropyge venusta trial 5

The P. venusta larvae are doing great and eating more food than I can grow! They have pretty much stopped eating food items less than 100 microns in size and have been eating the larger adults of the Parvocalanus copepods. I'm running out of cultured foods so yesterday I started introducing small amounts of newly hatched Artemia and they snapped them up.

I moved them to a clean tank yesterday and we still have 24 larvae. :) I'm very happy with this number at this age. It's a good precent survival and hopefully they'll all make it to settlement...
They are less active now since they can easily catch the Artemia and that makes focusing much easier for the camera.
Here is a video taken this evening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKPXikLzIgI&feature=youtu.be