Yellow Tailed Damsel Babies!

[shawnts106]

SO! bout' 12am I just happened to looking into the tank before heading off to dreamland and right in front of me are hundreds of these baby fish larva!!! RIGHT THERE! I now they were my pair of YT Damsels babies because they have been going at it for months!
so here I am trying to save the poor little babies from a horible impeller death by trying to collect them using a cup and a pipette and a mason jar... finnally I just give up because there are soooo many, I must have had about 100 in the JAR! so I stuck a small air stone just at the top of the water to try and give the little guys a chance, well I stuck some DTS phyto and chromo in there with some baby brine... I dont think they ate it!!! well today I came home they were of course all dead!
I wish that I could save these little bugurs! but I need to do more research on this topic, has anyone ever had this happen to them?
I love damsels, they are one of my favorite fish, I guess because they are small, for the most part, dont produce a huge bioload and are very nice to look at!
I feel in love with damsels, thats why im in this hobby!... now I love these damsels even more, of course my tank is not full of them, although at times I wish it was! HAHA
I have 2 YT's, a Flame Angel, a Coral Beauty, a Ocellarius Clown, and a yellow tang in my 75 reef...
I have a refugium for part filtration, I do NOT skim, and since I have stoped have had WAY more sucess than before!!!!
I have coral-wise ( I know that "...-wise is not a true word for those english experts LOL)
A MASSIVE TOADSTOOL LEATHER!
6 dinner plate sized Hairys
several Blue Shrooms
a Blasto
Bubble
Pagoda (yellow, purple and green polyped)
2 alveoporas
1 red goni
3 cabbage leathers
a WELSO brain
a Red/blue and white Lobo
several MISC palathoa polyps
some supper green, pink centered and yellow eyed zoos
2 baby toadstools
a large personally aquacultured pipeorgan from a single polyp!!!
a Hydnophora
red Digitata
orange Digitata
a red and green tent table acro
super pink birdsnest frag (2 inch)
quarter sized frag of blue and purple/pink waving hand polyps (anthalia?spelling?)
a Rock Anemone
several "weed" Pulsing Xenias! haha
Yellow tipped Torch
Starpolyp rock
Green Caribean Shrooms
Purple Shrooms
Red Shrooms
Bluelipped Derasa
8 Polyp frag of RARE Green and pink Solomon Island Clove Polyps (Clavaria? spelling?)
and some naturally growing orange ball, yellow, and black sponge
as far as inverts go I have several misc hermits
a Fromia star (red... um, not monillis but the other M one... )
a pink Cucumber
small queen Conch
I think only 2 snails left, a astrea and a margartita snail! .. dumb hermits!!
I think that is all the inverts!
so anyway, does anyone have any experience on rearing these fry?

 

[55gsw]

Congratulations on the spawn!! I love damsels myself so I know how you feel!! Not too many people raise damsels but it has to be pretty much like they raise clownfish. First, you will need a dedicated tank for them, a 10g is good. The tank should be placed in a fairly dark room, a basement is ideal. You need to darken the sides of the tank. You can either paint the sides black, or put black construction paper on there or some other dark material. Then you hang a single light above the tank. The reason you do this is so the larvae (which is what they are at this point) will congregate in the center of the tank so they don't crush themselves on the glass sides. They are attracted to the light so that's where they will stay. Use a sponge filter in the corner of the tank but have it running kinda slow so you don't have a lot of turbulence on the surface. It must be enough to disturb the surface and break the surface tension but not enough to throw the larvae about. You must have a culture of rotifiers to feed them with. Check on the net, there are places that will sell you a starter culture and instructions on how to care for it. Good luck if you decide to do this!!

 

[shawnts106]

Thanks for the info!!!

 

[caz]

did they survive?

 

[shawnts106]

Unfortunatly no, I will be prepared better next time, which I think will be soon, the females belly is getting FAT again already!.... so I think it will be soon, I also need to build the hatchery!