Goby Breeding Tips (Greissinger Gobies)

[livinlifeinBKK]

Ok, I decided to take a serious approach to attempting to breed Greissinger Gobies. I have a shop thats going to order 2 or 3 from the supplier for me which is great because it means Ill be able to get them as soon as they arrive in good health.
The breeding tank will be 20 gallons and equupment will include a Noopsyche K7 Mini with wifi light, Bubble Magus skimmer, and an IceCap ATO. I have a chiller I can use but that probably wont be necessary.
Im going to use all live rock harvested from the ocean but dry sand since the bacteria on the rock should colonize the sandbed quickly. Since the rock will be ocean harvested, it'll be teeming with microfaunal prey such as copepods and amphipods to give the Greissinger Gobies a good start with a natural diet but Ill also supplement it with live Grindal worms.
I could have the gobies by next week but since ill be in the Philippines for the first week of September, will wait to order them until I get back.

I understand that one of the most difficult parts of breeding is supplying food to the larvae and young fish before maturity. Does anyone have experience breeding a similar species? If so, what did you feed the larvae and offspring when young?

Honestly, there doesnt seem to be a reason they havent been captive bred before aside from the availability and cost to buy multiple fish. I worked out a great deal with the shop owner so I want to take advantage of this opportunity.

Any tips?

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

@i cant think what would you feed the larvae?

 

[Paul B]

I don't know about Gressinger Gobies but these yellow clown gobies spawn constantly which is one reason I don't have any more acropora. Their eggs, which you can see over her here cover the corals and kill them. The next batch is on another living part of the coral, they don't lay eggs on the dead parts.



I developed a way to collect the babies as soon as they hatch but they can hardly be seen with the naked eye as they are little bigger than a copepod so grindal worms and everything else I can think of are to big. Rotifers may be the correct size but even those may be to large.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I don't know about Gressinger Gobies but these yellow clown gobies spawn constantly which is one reason I don't have any more acropora. Their eggs, which you can see over her here cover the corals and kill them. The next batch is on another living part of the coral, they don't lay eggs on the dead parts.



I developed a way to collect the babies as soon as they hatch but they can hardly be seen with the naked eye as they are little bigger than a copepod so grindal worms and everything else I can think of are to big. Rotifers may be the correct size but even those may be to large.

The gobies will be the only inhabitants so im hoping that nothing will eat them and giving them adequate food will help them grow in the tank...does that sound plausible.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I also plan to collect some natural seawater from the islands for the bacteria

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I understand that one of the most difficult parts of breeding is supplying food to the larvae and young fish before maturity. Does anyone have experience breeding a similar species? If so, what did you feed the larvae and offspring when young?

Any tips?

As you know, I've got no hands-on experience here, but aquaculture is a particular interest of mine, so I do have a lot of tips and suggestions for what to feed (see below).

The gobies will be the only inhabitants so im hoping that nothing will eat them and giving them adequate food will help them grow in the tank...does that sound plausible.

It's always a risk trying to rear the young in the tank with the parents, as the parents may eat them; if the broodstock do eat the larvae, then you'd need a larval rearing tank (you can literally use a 1 gallon jug with nothing but an airline in it as long as you can keep nutrients in check; sponge filters are commonly used for this).

If the eggs are demersal rather than pelagic, you may be able to use something like a flower pot or piece of PVC for them to lay the eggs on and just transfer the eggs immediately before hatching into their own tank, then replace the flower pot/PVC in the broodstock tank with an identical one to prevent potentially disrupting their spawning.

Anyway, the tips:

______________________________________________________________________________________
Species specific info:

Since these haven't been reared successfully before, they likely need tiny and/or hard to culture feeds - Parvocalanus crassirostris would be my go-to for trying this here in the States; I'm not sure what all you have access to in Thailand though (Oithona, Bestiolina, or Gladioferens species may be good options if you can find any of those).

S-Strain Rotifers (Brachionus rotundiformis) would be a good one try, but since rotifers have been one of the go-to larval feeders for decades, I expect it will have been tried (unsuccessfully) before.

This is the only thing I can find with any info on sexing/breeding them (assuming they wouldn't go for rotifers, they would need Parvocalanus nauplii or similar tiny feed):

Discordipinna Griessingeri (Flaming Prawn Goby) Breeding Experiments

Almost two months ago I posted about seeing possible goby larvae. I now know that I have a breeding pair of gobies. I had no activity for a while but by using typical fish breeding techniques I have gotten my gobies to spawn again. Using a crude flashlight lens and my phone I was able to get some...

www.nano-reef.com

So, if you can get a male and female (which it sounds like there may or may not be a reliable way to determine the sex of each, and they might be sequential hermaphrodites), then they can breed, but there will likely be some minor to moderate aggression between them (it sounds like it's involved with the breeding).

______________________________________________________________________________________
Some kind of miscellaneous info:

If you don't have access to any feeders that might work, you can take a fine mesh (I'd suggest 40-45 microns; definitely not larger than ~50 microns), get a sample of sea water, a microscope, a pipette, a couple small containers, and try to hand-pick same-species pods from the sea water to start cultures from - you want to use the mesh to ensure you're picking pods that have small enough nauplii that the larvae will be able to feed on them.

Making sure the pods are actually the same species could be quite difficult, so it may be simpler to just collect samples, feed them, and see what pods takeover the culture (then try to ID them).

Also, when introducing the fish/trying to form pairs, just plopping them in together is the least likely to succeed - you want to enable the fish to see/"smell" each other in the water without being able to interact directly; a breeder box or similar is great for this.

______________________________________________________________________________________
General Summary:

Anyway, that's my species specific advice for this, now here's my general advice.


A quick summary:

-Setup a little, simple tank.
(The larval rearing tank).

-Add the larvae.

-Add the larval food and enough phytoplankton to tint the water green.
(The phytoplankton helps dim the lighting so it's not too bright for sensitive larvae, it makes it easier for the larvae to see the feeders, and it gut-loads the feeders so they're more nutritious when eaten).

-Adjust feeding as needed as the larvae grow; you typically should start feeding regular fish food in addition to the larval food around settlement.


Now the details - sorry, it's still a bit disorderly (I'm working on it).
______________________________________________________________________________________
Larval Rearing Tank:

The larval rearing tank should be setup prior to the eggs hatching if possible, and you should be prepared to move the eggs/larvae into it. Ideally, you'd be able to move the eggs into the larval rearing tank immediately before they hatch, but - if you don't know exactly when they'll hatch or if they've already hatched - you can also collect the larvae after they hatch and move them into the larval rearing tank (sorry, I haven't written up about larval collection methods yet - I'll probably get around to it eventually).

Anyway, for a simple larval rearing tank, all you need is:

-A small tank filled with saltwater (kreisel tanks are ideal, but not necessary)

-An airline/air stone/gentle sponge filter (for flow/oxygenation)


Depending on individual circumstances, you may also need:

-A heater (or chiller, though these would rarely be needed for anything other than temperate/coldwater species; these should be sectioned off from the larvae - such as with a 40 micron or smaller mesh - to prevent injuries to the larvae and to keep the feeders where the larvae can get to them)

-Light(s)*


You don't want standard tank filters, skimmers, uncovered pumps/powerheads etc. - those are not pelagic larvae safe.

The size of the larval rearing tank may vary depending of the species you're working with, but, generally speaking, you want it to be pretty small so you can easily keep the proper densities of feeders and phytoplankton.

For an example of a simple larval rearing setup:

Breeding Palaemon Elegans (Mediterrane Rock Pool Shrimp) Guide

Hi, Im going to post a breeding guide of palaemon elegans shrimps here. Two females are preparing for spawning so if you are interested you may want to stick with me. This breeding guide will be interchangable for every kind of shrimps but i stick elegans because: - With cleaner shrimp we are...

www.reef2reef.com

*A quick note on lighting for the larval rearing tank:
Some species require lighting, others don't; running a light that's bright enough to ensure the larvae can clearly see the feeders in the tank without being overly bright is generally a safe option. A 12 light:12 dark or 14 light:10 dark lighting schedule is generally suggested; some people also run dim "night lights" in the room away from the tank for the larvae.

If you see larvae headbutting the wall of the tank, that's a sign the light is reflecting off the tank wall and attracting the larvae, causing "head-butting syndrome" where the larvae ram into the wall often until they die - if you see this, you'll need to blackout the tank, but I haven't seen this be a big issue for most people, especially not when they're using the "green-water" method and tinting the larval rearing tank's water green with phytoplankton.
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Feeding:

Much like human babies need special foods, larval fish also need special foods to survive. For larval fish, those foods (which I'll refer to generally as "feeders" after this) are things like live rotifers, Artemia (Brine Shrimp), and copepods, but each species of fish has specific food needs. Most larval fish need their feeders to move in specific ways in order to entice them to eat, so live food is typically a must.

As a note, some larval fish hatch with a yolk sac that they feed off of, but the yolk usually only lasts about two days - after those two days, the larvae need feeders or they'll starve.


Anyway, for a feeder to be useful in the rearing of larval fish, they need to:

-Be the right size for the fish to eat

-Be enticing to the fish

-Meet the larvae's nutritional needs at the time they're offered to them

-Be offered in the right quantity and density (for example, when rearing Ocellaris Clownfish using rotifers, the ideal density of rotifers for rearing the larvae is ~10 rotifers per mL, but you can't just put the larvae in a 1 mL tube and expect it to have enough food to eat; you need a reasonable density in a reasonably sized tank - also, some species [such as some cuttlefish, which are actually invertebrates rather than fish] may not eat if the feeder density is too high; so too low of quantity/density, and the fish starve, but also too high of density and they may starve)


In addition to these requirements, you (the aquarist attempting to rear the larvae) must be able to supply enough of the required feeders consistently throughout the duration for which they may be needed - this typically means that you will need to be culturing the feeders (and the phytoplankton needed to culture them) yourself to ensure that you always have enough of them on hand.

A lot of people run into feeder issues their first few times breeding, so having a backup plan in place to ensure that you can quickly obtain more of the right feeders (or their needed phytoplankton) quickly in an emergency is also a good idea.

Typically, feeders are best when gut-loaded (i.e. fed something - typically phytoplankton - immediately before they're offered to/eaten by the larvae) - the green-water rearing method (i.e. where the water in the larval rearing tank is tinted green with phytoplankton) is generally a useful, easy way to gut-load the feeders.

Now, to discuss more about the points above.


The right size feeders:
-Larval fish can typically only eat feeders that are approximately 20% of the size of their gape; this means that the smaller the larval fish are, the smaller their feeders need to be. To say it another way, if the feeder is too big, the fish can't eat it.

-Some feeders are the right size at specific life stages, but not at others, so you may frequently need to sieve the feeders to ensure you're offering the fish the right size of feeders.


An example to help explain sieving:

Adult Parvocalanus crassirostris copepods get up to 400 microns, whereas stage 1 Parvocalanus nauplii are about 40 microns. This means that the Parvocalanus nauplii should be ~1/10 the size of the adult pods - the stage 1 nauplii are a good size for a lot of small fish larvae, but the adults are too big.

So, to make sure you're only offering the stage 1 nauplii, you could take a 45 micron sieve and pour the Parvocalanus culture into it - the stage 1 nauplii at 40 microns are small enough that they would fall through the sieve's 45 micron holes, but the other stages (including the adults) would be too large to fall through. This lets you collect only the stage 1 nauplii to offer to the larval fish.

Similarly, as the larval fish grow, they can begin eating larger feeders (say, 120 microns, for example), so you can use larger sieves (say 130 microns, for example) to ensure that you keep offering only the feeders which are small enough for the fish to eat (the sieve's size is the maximum size the feeders could be when you offer them to the fish).

Now, while I used copepods for the example above, sieving is useful/needed for things like Artemia nauplii [A.K.A. Baby Brine Shrimp/BBS] as well, since adult brine shrimp are much larger than baby brine shrimp. Again, it's all about controlling what size of feeder you are offering to the larvae.

Typically, when the larvae are ready to settle they're also ready to start being weaned onto "normal" aquarium feeds like frozen foods and pellets, but these also need to be offered in appropriate sizes (Otohime and TDO Chroma Boost pellets, for examples, are available in a wide range of sizes, including sizes that are appropriate for most newly settled fish).


Larval nutritional needs and changes (Bottlenecks):

As mentioned, larval fish have special food needs. Some species need rotifers, others copepods, others Artemia, etc.

For some species, though, those needs change at different points of their larval development. This means that a feeder (such as rotifers) that meets their nutritional needs at one point in their development (such as immediately after hatching) may not meet their nutritional needs at another (such as 15 days after hatching). So, you may need to switch what is being fed (such as switching from rotifers to Artemia nauplii) to the fish at or slightly before that point in order to meet their new/changing nutritional needs.

We refer to these points as "bottlenecks," as the number of larvae that survive beyond these points without a change of feeders is typically very low or zero.

We typically find out about these bottlenecks by - unfortunately - watching them happen. This can be incredibly disheartening, but the good news is that once we have identified a bottleneck (days 2 and 3 post hatch are common bottleneck days, and there's often another bottleneck after about 2-3 weeks), we know to adjust something (typically the feeding) to account for it with the next batch and try to get larvae surviving through it.

Remember, every attempt gets us one step closer to successfully rearing the species - don't give up!
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Settlement:

Some species need sand, rock, dark areas, specific colors, specific chemical cues, or other oddly specific things to settle on/in (from what I've seen, inverts are usually a lot more picky with this), so it may help to have a ledge or cave (PVC should be fine for this, if it's even needed, which I honestly kind of doubt) and a little sand in the larval rearing tank just in case the fish need it.
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Final notes:

Since marine aquaculture is still a developing field, any information you can gather is helpful for both you and others.

With that in mind:

-Watch for developmental bottlenecks and issues with your rearing methods - some species may require fine-tuning things like the lighting, flow, broodstock (parental) diet, etc. Fine-tune your larval rearing process, and if you can't get past a certain bottleneck, you may need to start looking at things other than the larval foods.

-Observe and note information about the larvae (things like how big the eggs are, how big the larvae are, when the larvae settle, when coloration comes in, etc.) and the larval behaviors (stuff like if they are attracted to light, how they react to light, if they are attracted to certain colors, what feeders they eat and what what sizes of feeders they eat at what days post hatch, what kind of substrate they prefer to settle on, are they cannibalistic, etc.).

Any information you get can bring us closer to success.


Finally, this last link gives a bunch of info on rearing difficult species and some ideas about trying to troubleshoot problems with the rearing:

Has anyone successfully raised Sunshine Chromis from fry?

Hey all, So I have a breeding pair of sunshine chromis in my reef tank. They have laid 3 batches of eggs that I’ve seen so far, and by the third day, all the eggs are gone (I’m guessing the snails knock them off or my purple tang eats them). I managed to collect and hatch a handful from the...

www.reef2reef.com

If you have any questions, please ask - I'll help when I can.

I hope this helps - good luck, and keep us updated!

I have specific info for a variety of different goby species I can link below, but I'm not sure how relevant the info would be to this species.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

As you know, I've got no hands-on experience here, but aquaculture is a particular interest of mine, so I do have a lot of tips and suggestions for what to feed (see below).

It's always a risk trying to rear the young in the tank with the parents, as the parents may eat them; if the broodstock do eat the larvae, then you'd need a larval rearing tank (you can literally use a 1 gallon jug with nothing but an airline in it as long as you can keep nutrients in check; sponge filters are commonly used for this).

If the eggs are demersal rather than pelagic, you may be able to use something like a flower pot or piece of PVC for them to lay the eggs on and just transfer the eggs immediately before hatching into their own tank, then replace the flower pot/PVC in the broodstock tank with an identical one to prevent potentially disrupting their spawning.

Anyway, the tips:

______________________________________________________________________________________
Species specific info:

Since these haven't been reared successfully before, they likely need tiny and/or hard to culture feeds - Parvocalanus crassirostris would be my go-to for trying this here in the States; I'm not sure what all you have access to in Thailand though (Oithona, Bestiolina, or Gladioferens species may be good options if you can find any of those).

S-Strain Rotifers (Brachionus rotundiformis) would be a good one try, but since rotifers have been one of the go-to larval feeders for decades, I expect it will have been tried (unsuccessfully) before.

______________________________________________________________________________________
Some kind of miscellaneous info:

If you don't have access to any feeders that might work, you can take a fine mesh (I'd suggest 40-45 microns; definitely not larger than ~50 microns), get a sample of sea water, a microscope, a pipette, a couple small containers, and try to hand-pick same-species pods from the sea water to start cultures from - you want to use the mesh to ensure you're picking pods that have small enough nauplii that the larvae will be able to feed on them.

Making sure the pods are actually the same species could be quite difficult, so it may be simpler to just collect samples, feed them, and see what pods takeover the culture (then try to ID them).

Also, when introducing the fish/trying to form pairs, just plopping them in together is the least likely to succeed - you want to enable the fish to see/"smell" each other in the water without being able to interact directly; a breeder box or similar is great for this.


I have specific info for a variety of different goby species I can link below, but I'm not sure how relevant the info would be to this species.

I was just looking through some journal articles detailing the feeding of larvae. I umderstand thst its best to remove them but since Greissinger Gobies are benthic dwelling species and would have plenty of food, I was thinking it would be less likely that theyd eat the eggs or offspring but im not sure.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I do have sieves btw and 40 micron seems to be useful for most species. I was thinking that I could also culture the natural pods (which would include nauplii) from small pieces of the fresh ocean harvested live rock in glass cyclinders by adding phytoplankton on a daily basis and then either using a sieve or simply pouring a portion of the water into the tank with the larvae or young offspring

 

[i cant think]

The gobies will be the only inhabitants so im hoping that nothing will eat them and giving them adequate food will help them grow in the tank...does that sound plausible.

The griessingeris may take advantage of free swimming larvae, separate them and don’t leave them together.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

The griessingeris may take advantage of free swimming larvae, separate them and don’t leave them together.

I have 3 other tanks I can transfer them to and will regularly add natural sea water from the islands to the tanks...perhaps thatll help to some extent

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I do have sieves btw and 40 micron seems to be useful for most species. I was thinking that I could also culture the natural pods (which would include nauplii) from small pieces of the fresh ocean harvested live rock in glass cyclinders by adding phytoplankton on a daily basis and then either using a sieve or simply pouring a portion of the water into the tank with the larvae or young offspring

Yeah, the hard part is just making sure you maintain the right amount of pods of the right size per mL for the larvae - dedicated cultures can help ensure ensure that.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Yeah, the hard part is just making sure you maintain the right amount of pods of the right size per mL for the larvae - dedicated cultures can help ensure ensure that.

Since theyre native to locations near here I would assume (but not know for sure) that at least some copepods they naturally prey on are found in the Gulf of Thailand

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I think Ill start adding the live ocean rock, dry sand, artificial and natural seawater mixture, carbon dosing, and dosing phytoplankton ASAP so when I return fron the Philippines and am ready to order the fish I can introduce them to a more mature tank full of their natural food source. Ill also begjn culturing grindal worms to supplement their diet this week.

 

[MDAquatics]

Loving this thread. One of my favorite fish. I can't wait to see more.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Loving this thread. One of my favorite fish. I can't wait to see more.

Im planning everything out as precisely as possible and plan am consulting a couple ichthyologists to get their feedback as well. It definitely wont be easy even to try but I love these fish and can get multiple individuals at an affordable price so if there is any time to try, its now.

 

[Paul B]

The gobies will be the only inhabitants so im hoping that nothing will eat them and giving them adequate food will help them grow in the tank...does that sound plausible.

Yes, if you can find a lot of tiny food that they will eat. Rotifers may be to big

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Since theyre native to locations near here I would assume (but not know for sure) that at least some copepods they naturally prey on are found in the Gulf of Thailand

Yeah, I'd assume there are pods that would work - finding them may be tough, but it's definitely worth a shot.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Ill buy some of this rock to use fkr setting up the tank! The pieces are small but very inexpensive and since im using dry sand having rock harvested from the ocean will be really helpful for establishing a healthy microbiome.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Would there be much of a benefit to mixing in a scoopful of sand collected from the ocean to the sterile sand after adding it to the tank? I have a feeling this would help the bacteria spread throughout the sterile sand far quicker and prevent algae growth from being as initially prevalent as it othrrwise would be.

 

[Paul B]

I do and would add whatever I could from the sea.