The Lightning Project

I let Jake Adams break the news on ReefBuilders, sending him shots in the late/earlier hours (depends on your frame of mind).  I’m quoting an excerpt from Jake’s great writeup from ReefBuilders here, because he really presents an objective view.

“Even though the maroon lighting maroon clownfish was paired with a related Premnas biaculeatus from Papua New Guinea, we don’t think anyone really expected to see expressions of the lightning pattern in the first generation of the lightning maroon’s offspring. All observers of the lightning maroon project who know anything about mendelian genetics realistically thought that we might see some traces of the lightning pattern in the second, F2 generation of lightning maroon clownfish once they were back-crossed with each other a bit. However, for Matt to observe the lightning pattern in his very first batch of offspring from a half-cross of lightning maroon but full cross of PNG maroons clownfish must be very encouraging…“

Since my last update, I DID opt to start feeding brine shrimp nauplii.  They are being rinsed well.  I’m using 16 month out-of-date decapsulate eggs from SeahorseSource.com / Dan Underwood, and they’re still hatching great (I keep them stored in my fridge).  I’m doing daily water changes, occasionally siphoning the bottom, and I’ve been using nothing but Marine Environment salt by AquaCraft (thanks Mike Del Prete – who contributed enough salt to last me and the Banggai Rescue project years).  I also started offering the APBreed TDO A1, as well as older Otohime A I had on hand from Reed Mariculture.  I cut way back on the RotiGreen Nanno I was adding; basically just 10 drops or so once or twice per day, just to keep the rotifers in there from dying en-masse.  I am currently trying to weed them out.

These photos (and the video at the bottom) were shot after midnight, so technically this morning (7-9-2012, but almost 24 hours ago now).  This puts these larvae/juveniles at 10 days post hatch, and most have gone through settlement. I have included multiple variations / crops / zooms of most photos so you can get a sense of scale and overall view, as well as the maximum zoom I could give you.

MORE TO COME….

I am still owing the world a full post, but in the interest if simply keeping you all relatively updated, here’s some short tidbits.

Based on an egg photo count, there was 310 eggs on the tile and all hatched.  There have been some larval losses, but that is to be expected.  Mike Doty did an excellent job watching the babies in my absence – plenty of live larvae when I returned from Boston this past Sunday, July 1st.

Since returning, larval maintenance has been a study routine of upping the water volume with drips of pre-mixed saltwater (for those who will ask, I am currently using AquaCraft’s Marine Environment – they donated a palette of it for Banggai-Rescue).  The SG is probably running around 1.021.  I am using Reed Maricultures RotiGrow Plus to culture my rotifers, and using their RotiGreen Nanno for greenwater (I may have preferred the Omega variant, but Nanno is what I had on hand).  I’ve been dosing RotiGreen and CloramX (a solution mixed from the powder) at roughly a 2:1 ratio, and averaging 30 drops twice a day now on the BRT. I have been harvesting up to 4 gallons of rotifer cultures daily (2 in the AM, 2 in the PM) to keep rotifer levels up.  As of tonight, we are at basically 6 full days post hatch, so I introduced the larvae to their first taste of APBreed TDO (Top Dressed Otohime), Size A (smaller than the A1 I’m more normally accustomed to using).  All is going well with these larvae, and I look forward to settlement soon.

The Lightning Maroon herself continues to be a problem…the Foureye has been removed for a while now, the Maracyn + Maracyn II treatment was long since done yet low level bacterial problems persist, most recently some very light markings on the male’s face, and then I found what looked like an enlarged light area on the leading spines of the left pelvic fin.  These fish just can’t get a break.  I am continuing to work with Dr. Kizer on some alternate ideas, as we’re really ruling out all the normal causes at this point.  Me, I’m stumped.  Without diagonistics, I think it’s fair to say that Dr. Kizer can’t really offer any other insights either.  We may try yet another antibiotic course, another one dosed through the food, that seems to be where we’re heading.  But I’m also thinking I don’t want to overreact either, so most likely we will try to have the prescription-based feed on hand, ready, should another large-scale problem crop up.