Yellow damsel

[themaxx7]

I have a pair of yellow damsels, male and a female. the female has been laying hundreds of eggs at a time and the male is apparently fertilizing them. during what i think is fertilization, they both develop stinct changes in color and "dance" around the eggs and the male inverts his body to "get close" to the eggs. although everything seems fine, she continues to eat the eggs and redeposits more a few days later.....this has been going on for 2 months now. can anyone help me out. i also have 4 aquacultured perculas that apparently doing the same thing, but i cant quite see where the eggs are being deposted......the setup is a 125gl reef/community tank with various tangs, gobies, corals, anenomes, shrimp and damsels...... excelent water quality....... i just dont know what to do, to ensure succesful breeding. the pic shows the female on bottom and the male on top, the eggs are lining the top and bottom of the horizontal coral in the middle of the frame.

 

[janelle]

its a good sign that your damsels and clowns are breeding. however, the female might be eating her eggs because she may sense that there is something wrong with them. heres an excerpt out of joyce wilkerson's book entitled Clownfishes: (keep in mind that clownfish are in the damsel family so this information likely also applies at least in part to your yellow damsel pair)...
"Vanishing eggs. newly formed clownfish pairs sometimes lay one to four clutches that, instead of developing into larvae, disappear in a couple of days. the eggs were likely infertile....another possible cause of vanishing eggs is the clownfishes are not getting enough protein in their diet and are consuming their newly laid eggs as a food source. improving the breeding pairs diet should remedy this insufficiency."
the other thing you have to keep in mind is that you will probably not get to raise the babies to adulthood. you would have to remove the breeding pairs into their own separate tanks with NO predators (including shrimp or crabs) and set up (more separate) larvae/hatching tanks and be culturing live tiny foods like rotifers. if you want to take on this task, run out and buy the book I referenced above, as it will take you step by step how to do this. hope ive helped!

 

[bdhough]

geez multiple fish breeding in the same tank. lucky you. if you want to get serious breeding fish there are resources out there. you need to set up another tank dedicated to the fry. its quite time consuming to raise them. if you really want to get serious talk to bang guy. he breeds clowns and bangaii cardinals. just put a post up with his name and asking about it. im sure he'll see this and respond as well.

 

[waverider]

nice damsel

 

[themaxx7]

thanks for the complimment!!