Pregnant Six Line Wrasse

Rather than repost the entire thread I posted a link to this thread. If there is interest then I can go back to that forum to answer. One thing I did learn is that Cleaner Wrasse hatch in 24 hours. I am assuming the Six Line might be similar.

We are definitely interested in at least trying the first time around. We raised exotic birds for more than 30 years.

 

They hatched!!! I had to use a 10X head magnifier to see them in a water glass. I scooped about 10 oz from the bucket and there are perhaps a dozen, extremely small, white fish. Now, what to do about feeding and when does this need to start happening?

For the record, the hatch took about 24 hours.

 

thats awsome dude!!!!! do you have a rotifer culture going or anything?? might be like clownfish, i bet they are going to be hungry little buggers. i bet im not the only one that wants to see a picture , btw Congrats!! i dont think ive ever heard of six lines mating in captivity.

 

first you might best get the ball rolling by documenting what your doing. document behavior, any differences that may determine gender, aggression, or any other details.

this way those who are better equipped can take on the challenge of raising the larvae. to my knowlege, nothing is known about the first food to raise the larvae. if they are anything like angelfish, the fish food may be newborn copepods. to produce enough copepods on your own to raise any larvae, it'd cost a lot of money. you'd need lots of live T-iso, and A. Tonza (palegic copepod that is suitable for many small fish larvae.).

another option would be to live close to the ocean. buy a plankton seive and collect your own wild plankton (within a certain size). this i believe is currently the way mandarins and dwarf angels have been raised so far.

read on MOFIB and you'll learn more than you need to know about raising fish. its a delicate and unknown process for many of these fish, but not impossible.

 

its worth a try, but i assume even S strain rotifers may be to big for the larvae to eat.

btw, you might have people in your area that'd be willing to take eggs and try raising them. you live in CA right? keep your eye on the mofib forum and maybe you'll get an offer.

 

Thank you for your suggestions, they are greatly appreciated particularly from a lucky beginner.

The marine breeder group has contacted me and we have a live thread going. They also suggested the Copepod and Rotifer, neither of which I am familiar but will learn more. Your suggestion about wild Plankton is very interesting. I live about 3 minutes from the beach. I am currently separating out containers with larvae in each (they did hatch). I will get some local sea water and put into one of the containers. There is a concern about pollution but I guess not much I can do about that.

Just for more documentation, I was wrong about how many there are. In the 10 oz glass tumbler sample I took from the 5 gallon buck there are probably 100 larvae, all swimming around. I am currently using a 10X head magnifier to observe them. They are perhaps 1/2 mm in length. It is hard to tell the head from the tail until they move.

 

If you are interested here is a pre spawn video of the pair. I left the room and missed the final. We have observed them spawning 7 times over the last 8 days. We were gone one day so assume they probably spawned that day.

The larvae are now slightly larger and there are a lot of them. The first observance they were about 1/2 mm long, now there are many about 1 mm. They do not look anything like a fish. We have been putting in Phytoplankton so hopefully that is what they are eating.

YouTube - Six Line Wrasse spawning

 

clownfish breeders have to also raise rotifers for the babies to eat.they need several tanks for this process.reef hobbiest magazine has a step by step on how to do this cheap.they have an online magazine and you can look at the past issues on there and see how its done but their forums not so good.i like this forum best.

 

This is really cool, glad to here you are taking the appropriate steps, keep up the good work

 

I think we are losing this battle. There were very few larvae left when I checked this morning. It appears the larger ones are dying off but will keep trying different things in different containers. The next time we will better prepared. This event was totally out of our control.

The MOFIB provided an interesting web site that shows larvae of different species at different days. Here it is if you are not familiar with it.

Labroides dimidiatus

A couple of questions:

1. When does a larvae start to become a fry or is there a stage in between?
2. Do fish act like birds when hatching by sucking up a yolk to enhance changes during the first days?