Damselfish Eggs

[kaybee]

I came home from grocery shopping today and noticed some peculiar behavior among my two azure damsels in my reef tank.

It appeared that the were going through spawning motions, similar to what my african cichlids do on horizontal rocks, however the damsels were displaying the activity along the vertical corners of my fish tank. The activity was in progress when I arrived home and continued for about 20min.

Initially I thought it was some sort of damsel territorial behavior but then I noticed what looked to be the female's egg tube and observed all of these sugar-grain sized objects adhered on the glass in the particular area that the damsels were displaying their activity.

One of them seemed to protect the area for a while and then moved on.

Azure Damsel


The eggs (very hard to see as they were attached to the glass where the silicone meets and also has coraline algae growth):


I'm noticing that there are less of them now then there were earlier this afternoon so I don't expect them to last long or develop into fry.

[sheamurai]

Even if they don't last, its still cool, and showing that your tank is in great shape.

[kaybee]

Well the eggs didn't last long, they were nearly all gone by the time I came home from work today.

I was thinking maybe the eggs weren't sufficiently stuck to the glass or maybe the fish ate them...then hours later by chance I saw one of my hermit crabs positioned right where the eggs were. I find it amazing that this crab could scale sheer glass 12"-14" above the sandbed by climbing up the corner of the tank (I'm sure the coralline algae assisted with its footing).

The hermit crab finished the last 4 or 5 eggs that I saw and may have contributed to the disappearance of most of them.

[hockeyhead019]

yea those little guys are crazy haha and i think it's definitely either the coralline algae or the imperfections in the silicon that help them...

Regardless, sorry to hear about the loss of the eggs but it's definitely a great thing to show for the health of your tank!

[kaybee]

My azure damsel produced eggs again. This time there was more drama involved. No pics this time.

Not too long ago (maybe a month) I re-positioned a small neon green trumpet coral piece from the upper rear left corner of my tank to the bottom rear right corner of my tank and one of my damsels took an immediate possession of it (digging and manipulating the sand around it and things like that). I didn't think nothing of it.

Well yesterday I noticed my maroon serpent star wrapped twined all around this coral and acting 'excited' for lack of a better word; very odd behavior because it only remotely behaves like this if there's food involved an normally it only shows itself at night.

I then noticed one my azure damsels pecking and harassing the serpent star (which the serpent star completely shrugged off).

I looked closer and there were a bunch of eggs that were affixed to the trumpet coral branches presumeably by the damsel moments earlier and the serpent star was having a feast. The tube feet under each of its tentacles were operating like a damsel egg conveyor belt leading egg upon egg straight to its maw.

30min later after stripping the coral branches clean of all damsel eggs, the serpent star slinked away leaving the frustrated damsel.

I wonder how many times this has happened in my tank. If not for the holiday yesterday I would have been at work and would have missed the entire scenario.

[sheamurai]

wow, how cool is that!