Eggs?

[schneijt]

Yep, the link works. Some nice photos uploaded there!

-Joe

[dvfaas]

Thank you for nice complement Joe. I will have to put all of my pictures from my old tank in there now.

Well all of the eggs are gone as of tonight. That was quick. I don't think they hatched, I think the male or something else ate them. I still have a problem with the water temp changing anywhere from three to five degrees every day. It still gets to warm in the room during the day. I might think about getting a chiller. I don't know if this much of a temp change could have killed the eggs. Oh well, two of the smaller fish look really fat with eggs, so maybe they will keep laying them.

[Jrmass]

I know I had to be patient... But, I ended up getting a BRAND NEW Drop In Chiller 1/5 HP for $370 shipped to my house (ebay). Typical price for a brand new one is around $900 so if you are willing to search I'm sure you'd be able to find something that would fit your needs either on ebay or RC if you are willing to get a used one.

Sorry about the eggs though. I'm sure that it'll happen. I know that some fish have issues getting their eggs to take off the first few times (happens with clowns a LOT) but, after a few attempts they begin to get it right. Who knows, but it definately can't hurt to keep trying.
Jas

[dvfaas]

How high do you keep your lights from the surface of the water? Mine are 13 1/2 " from water. Although I do keep my T-5's on my sump pretty close to the water, around three to four inches. I could try to raise those first, maybe that would help. The temp in the room during the day at this time of the year stays around 80 near the ceiling where the fan is. I suppose if I did get one it wouldn't run to much, but I would have to have it in the same room which would be counter productive. I have to think of something before summer gets here, as I pull most of my cool air in from outside.

[Jrmass]

Originally Posted by dvfaas

How high do you keep your lights from the surface of the water? Mine are 13 1/2 " from water. Although I do keep my T-5's on my sump pretty close to the water, around three to four inches. I could try to raise those first, maybe that would help. The temp in the room during the day at this time of the year stays around 80 near the ceiling where the fan is. I suppose if I did get one it wouldn't run to much, but I would have to have it in the same room which would be counter productive. I have to think of something before summer gets here, as I pull most of my cool air in from outside.

Well, my MH is on legs so I would think the bulbs are probably no more than 6"-8" above the water but, there are fans on the top of the fixture moving some of the heated air (Coralife Aqualight Pro 72" fixture). As for my T-5's they are about 8" from the water surface.

I know the feeling about having the chiller in the same room as the air it is pulling as this is what I had all last year (due to lack of options). This year I put the chiller outside my fish room just close enough to still be able to put the drop-in wand into the sump so at least my fish room will not be over 120 degrees when the door is closed again. (I always leave the door open during the summer just to get some of the heat out and leave it closed in the winter to keep the heat in).

Jason

[dvfaas]

I haven't tried this yet, but I might try a fan blowing over the top of the tank. I don't know why I didn't think of this before! The room has a therm, and humidity controler in it so if the fan creates to much humidity from blowing over the water, the ceiling fan will take that out! I would assume the fan should take the heat down one or two degrees, and that would solve my problem without buying and running an expensive chiller. Thanks for getting me thinking about this, it should work really well, I hope

[hansmatt]

Direct fan blowing on the tank should give you a few degrees of evaporative cooling, however running a fan 24/7 is not cheap either. Best bet is to put it on a temp controller so when it gets above 81 it goes on. You'll also lose another gallon or so of water to evap, but that's better than a $$ chiller too!

[dvfaas]

I had a fan on the old tank with a timer that would turn it on when the main lights came on, and turned off after the lights went off. I have a 25-gallon all-glass tank that I made, that has an auto-topoff controler in it. This will last over a week before needing to be filled. This should not be a problem and I think it will keep the temp in the tank more stable. On some days I had a swing of over six degrees, not good.

[Jrmass]

Originally Posted by dvfaas

On some days I had a swing of over six degrees, not good.

The first summer that Jen and I lived here (before we invested in Central Air) I was having issues with my tank being 82-86ish at all times... That's the reason that I needed to get a chiller. I did try a DIY chiller using air-line tubing filled with the tank water through a small refridge/freezer. It did an o.k. job, but the tank is just too big for that small of a temp change to matter thus the investment of the chiller was needed in my case. Now that we have central air though my chiller does not really run all that often. The one thing that will help with this is that this summer I will be installing a vent in the fish room to help remove excess heat. I was also trying to think of a way that I would be able to vent the heat from the chiller but, have yet to come up with a way.

As long as you are not having the big temp swings I think that you may be able to get by with the fan technique. If not you can always invest in a chiller at a later date.

Jason

[dvfaas]

Well, I did the fan thing and on the first day it worked perfectly! It kept the tank between 78.5 and 79.3. This should work great.
Oh, by the way the Damsels layed eggs again. It was on Thursday. The other eggs must have been pretty old because they were darker in color. These are almost transparent. It will be cool to document how long it takes for these to hatch or how long they are there until they are eaten.

[hansmatt]

glad the fan is working Dave

[Jrmass]

There probably is no way to get a good clear pic of the eggs is there Dave? Yes it would be something that would be worth-while to document on how long it would take for the eggs to hatch if they can make it that long w/out being eaten.

I'm having a hard time finding an exact length of time for a Damselfish's Gestation... But, from the sounds of it care is the same as it would be for a clownfish (although not quite as difficult to keep alive after hatching as that of a clownfish). It sounds like a typical gestation is between 15-21 days (that's the best I've been able to find so far). I was able to find one site that had some interesting info that might be helpful in the care for the fry (sounds like they will feed on plankton though)
http://www.tropicalfishexpert.co.uk/DamselFish.html

Short but, maybe you'll get a little bit of use out of it.

HIH.

Jason