Knight Goby Breeding

[lisa_perry75]

My bfs knight gobies spawned this morning, in a plastic cave. After interest from a hungry moray eel the cave has been moved to a 16x8x8 tank with some gravel (it had eggs on it), a silk plant, a heater at 27C and a sponge filter by penn plax with the carbon. I've never bred egg layers before, HELP!!!!!!!!!
Any information will be gladly recieved. I really hope to have lots of little babies as theres hundreds of eggs

 

[nmonks]

Hello --

Knight gobies spawn relatively rarely in aquaria, so well done!

It has to be said, though, that by egg layer standards, these are difficult fish to raise. The problem is that the fry are very small, and will not be able to take things like powdered flake or Liquifry (which work fine with, for example, many baby cichlids). Even newly hatched brine shrimp may be too large.

You will need tiny live foods, basically things like rotifers or green pond water (fish breeding books and web sites will help here). The eggs hatch within 2 days, and the fry are free swimming soon afterwards, and drift about in the water. That is when you start feeding them. I would remove the eggs at once, and raise them myself, in a tank with a simple, air-powered sponge filter, rather than risk leaving them with the adults.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[lisa_perry75]

Thanks for your speedy reply! The tank is a fluval 800 duo, with fluval 305 running. Tankmates are figure 8 puffers, green spotted puffers, monos, scats, moray eel, tyre track eel and a golden nugget plec. I think specific gravity is 0.05, is that a reasonable amount? I may have got it a factor of ten out... Well as I say they are isolated now in a 16x8x8 tank. If it takes longer than 2 days does it means I wasn't sucessful raising them? I'm thinking I'll go research rotifers and the green pond water...
First there was a male and female, the female died so she was replaced. The new smaller one just got lucky I guess!

 

[lisa_perry75]

Some luck at hatching, no food found yet though... lets hope they like fresh air! lol

 

[nmonks]

The thing to do would be to find a local tropical fish shop that sells marine invertebrates. Go ask them for stuff to feed things like corals and clams. Might be frozen or else some kind of "soup" in a bottle. Either way, see if your baby fish will take some of that.

You could also try and raise some "green water". If you have a pond, that'll do nicely as a starter. Put a few jars of the stuff on a warm window sill, and nature will take its course. Basically what you're after is tiny, tiny animals and plants that the fry can eat. Tricky.

Cheers,

Neale