The Bluespot Club

[cstamper]

The resolution on the photos are great on my PC. I can't seem to get the quality to transfer to the thread. Any suggestions with better uploading?

 

[Craig Manoukian]

Lookin' way healthy cstamper!

 

[bluespotjawfish]

He's a keeper!

In regards to pics, I use microsoft photo editer. I resize it to 2", then save as a lower resolution. In options you can change the resolution to whatever you want. You want to keep the resolution as high as you can without going over the max size. Eventhough I resize the photos to 2" it always shows up as larger than that on my screen.

 

[cstamper]

Great.
I'll try that with the image editor.
thanks for suggestion.

 

[freddyk]

Thanks for the welcome cstamper!

I have been reading this thread and have come to the conclusion that my little digger needs some rubble. It keeps busy with sand but I think I am going to break up some small bits of spare live rock and let him have at it.

I knew he needed it when he kept moving a live snail to the front of his door as well as a conch! You should have seen that conch high tail it out of there.

Freddyk

P.S. I started a thread about the tank that my blue spot calls home on my local reef keeper club site here in the Northwest. Check it out.
Freddyk's 140 Gallon Reef Aquarium - PNWMAS

 

[Dentoid]

I knew he needed it when he kept moving a live snail to the front of his door as well as a conch! You should have seen that conch high tail it out of there.

:laughroll: They are comical characters! My BS, Spotty, will grab a passing Hermit crab and then continue to pull it back as fast as it walks away! Can you image your front door walking away!


No doubt they need rubble for building. Their natural habitats are rubble flats on the reef fringe.

 

[BarbMazz]

Hi, Scott! Hi, Lorraine! Hi, Basser1! Hi, new members! Everyone's blues are looking great.

Bam Bam is still doing really well... he just moved house this past weekend after his longest stay in a burrow yet. He was front and center in the tank, but I could tell he was bored or something was up as he was out and about and checking out the real estate lately.

He's back in the left front corner of the tank; moved all of the topmost rubble from his center burrow over during the night Saturday. He's against the glass so I can see inside again. He used a frag of pipe organ for a wall. It's a supporting wall and it's buried. I'm not going to rip it away from him. The whole palace would collapse!

He still appears to be healthy and happy. Eating great and he's obviously grown and is nice and chubby. Nice bright yellow and vibrant blue.

I'll try to get some new shots up here soon; I'm having a lot of company arriving tonight for the holidays, though, so try not to expect too much.

I wanted to stop by and say HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

[bluespotjawfish]

Good to see you visiting Barb! Glad to hear the great report!

The Misses is in the back right corner of my tank. She comes out sometimes during the day and hovers around the old house and BJ a bit. BJ is acting like he has never seen her before. His head can get huge! So far he hasn't gone after her, and she doesn't react to him. But, he has never acted like this to her EVER.

 

[bluespotjawfish]

I should have looked before I replied. She is now under the mushroom rock that is like 6" away from BJ! I hope she burrows the opposite direction or they will have a connecting cave. Maybe that is her plan?

 

[cstamper]

Thanks for the welcome cstamper!

I have been reading this thread and have come to the conclusion that my little digger needs some rubble. It keeps busy with sand but I think I am going to break up some small bits of spare live rock and let him have at it.

I knew he needed it when he kept moving a live snail to the front of his door as well as a conch! You should have seen that conch high tail it out of there.

Freddyk

P.S. I started a thread about the tank that my blue spot calls home on my local reef keeper club site here in the Northwest. Check it out.
Freddyk's 140 Gallon Reef Aquarium - PNWMAS

Freddyk-

Your tank is awesome. One day I hope to have one that nice!
I recently smashed up a chuck of live rock(about a large handful) into about .25" rubble.
It was gone in less than an hour. The fish seemed to love it.
Take care-

 

[BarbMazz]

Whenever I add new rubble it disappears in an amazingly short amount of time. The substrate is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. Then everytime he moves he leaves a bunch behind, so I add more....... pretty soon I'll have 20" deep substrate and 4" of water!

Lorraine, too funny that BJ doesn't recognize the Mrs! Huh. Such funny fish. Hopefully she'll burrow in closer up front. When I first added Bam Bam he was in the back corner of the tank. It's way more fun when they're up front!

 

[Basser1]

Barb...... I know what you are talkin' about the rubble! I put in 2 handfuls of live rubble a couple of days ago, and Digger used every one!

cstamper and freddyk..... If you haven't found out by now, our bluespots love live rock rubble! And the more you give them, the better they like it!


Lorraine....... Keeping my fingers crossed for you that the Mr. and Misses find their "love nest"! Hey, since it's Christmas, how about putting some mistletoe over the tank??

Scott.... Too funny about the hermit crab/rock walking away! That's one of the many reasons I like these comical fish!

Everyone...... Have a Merry & Safe Christmas!!

 

[bluespotjawfish]

Hey, since it's Christmas, how about putting some mistletoe over the tank??

:apimp:

 

[freddyk]

Thanks cstamper!

 

[bluespotjawfish]

I hope everyone's Bluespots are getting spoiled for Christmas!

:bluenod: :hug1: :bluenod: :hug1: :bluenod:

 

[Basser1]

I think Santa is bringing Digger some live rock rubble in his stocking!

 

[SeahorseBT]

Hi everyone! My bluespot has been great. He swims around like a blenny most of the time. His only tank mates are Doni's clowns so he isn't scared.
Here are some pics with my new camera!

 

[bluespotjawfish]

Welcome to Salt Lakers who are visiting this thread! Hope you join us!

As we have had several of these available locally, I'm referring some folks to this thread. Hopefully some of them will say hello, post a pic, and join us!

 

[bluespotjawfish]

Bajabum reports the following in Marine Breeder's forum regarding acclimating the pairing of Bluespots:

This is my third attempt at establishing a breeding colony. I am getting old and have way to much time on my hands. So for those of you that have to go earn a living instead of watching your tanks I have included a link to my web page where I try to document what is important.
BSF Overview
Before you can get eggs, you have to be able to keep a male and female alive in the same tank. Why are they expensive at the retail level? Because they have a high shipping mortality rate. Is that mortality part of the species? I don't think so, I currently believe it is due to lack of knowledge and an inherant problem in the fish trade, lack of success by the hobbiest leads to repeat business.

So if I had to pick the two most important things today, they would be:
1: Protect their slime coat, keep dark, no easy task in transport and holding facilities.
2: They love worms, tend to ignore shrimp. Good canidate for all those extra clown fish and sea horse fry.

Dec 15
Target feeding with tube. They are pigs. Food consumption is much higher with target feeding than drift feeding. I turn circulation pump off to stop current. Mouthfuls of food are dropped vertically until they stop feeding and begin blowing food away.. Any that is missed is retrieved with the tube and moved to the next one.
Two of the group seem to wander at night, two stay put. All have ignored the mirror on the back of the tank, they don't react to their image. So much for using a mirror to sex them.. All initial behaviors have remained consistent between tank moves. Two maintain multiple den sights. One of the two is using a flat rock on the frag rack, 6" below surface as it's observation post, retreating through the grid to a sand pit 8" underneath with several den sites to retreat to. It has maintained this sand pit in spite of me removing all den material from its vicinity.
Dec 9
The 4 have paired off in 120, lone separated male is happy. Peace reigns for now. Everything is consistent with initial observation of 3 males and 2 females.
Dec 8.
All have been transferred. 2 fight with the larger taking the smaller ones borrow, but they are never far apart. Third stays put and the 4 roams and visits the third. Fifth is not in the mix often and has taken up residence in the rock pile in the dark third of the tank. Other 4 keep in the light or at the edge of the light. Tank has a frag rack under 4' T5. Bangahi appear to have decided to spawn having eaten all the black worms while the Jawfish ignore them. Jaw fish only accept food from the baster once a day.

Dec 6:
Transfer began to 120 setup. One fish at a time over next 2 days.

Dec 5 :Bottle feeding training continues.
Most will already sit at their borrow entrance with mouth open waiting to pull food from the end of the turkey baster. Food consumption is up an order of magnitude from drift feeding. Food type is irrelevant with this feeding technique. Waste is almost zero and even the shrimp will not venture into the waiting mouth. Eliminates the need for a deep tank to solicit feeding.

Arrival Procedures:
Dec 3 10:00am arrived at wholesaler
Dec 3 7:30 pm Shipped air freight
Dec 3 11:45 pm Picked up at terminal 1 DOA
Dec 4 3:00 am Bags opened and set in holding system acclimation started 1.017 to 1.022, Temp 69F
Dec 4 5:00 am Acclimation completed, Fish released into holding system, second heater started to raise temp o 74F
Dec 4 9:00 am Fish refuse small mysis
Dec 4 11:45am Some of the fish accepted frozen bloodworms
Dec 4 12:00 pm Most aggressive male moved to larger chamber with 2" sand bed, oyster shell in corner and small rubble
Dec 4 1;30 pm Flow stopped BBS added, Firefish all feed, some BSJ become "feeding alert". Larger mysis target fed, 4 accept, 1 doesn't but it had previously accepted bloodworms.
Dec 4 2:00 pm First female placed in with first male in large chamber. Oyster shell house moved with her and placed in opposite corner from male
Dec 4 3:00 pm. New oyster shell house placed in corner between male and female. Out of 5 I have 3 males and 2 females. The chambered tanks make it easy to move them around and determine sex by their behavior.
Dec 4 5:00 pm Lights turned on and first attempt to train them to be target fed from a turkey baster successful. All 5 passed with an A+
Dec 4 7:00 pm House shell placed between male and female corner house shells. This allows dens to be established within inches of each other. A fifth shell will be placed between the abandoned male corner shell and occupied male corner shell. This process is bring the 2 together with safe dens to retreat back to when aggression occurs. I do not place any structure in the middle of the tank. This preserves opposite corners as safe den sites. Safe travel is restricted to the 2 sides of the tank. The male is moving towards the female. The female has the option to dash across the open center if needed. In the past, The aggressor seems to always focus on the den as long as the subject of aggression has a safe place to bolt to they tend to settle down. Having them establish multiple den sites from the beginning seems to eliminate casualties in boundary disputes.

 

[bluespotjawfish]

And some more info on acclimation from bajabum, note the reference to dark, and the use of PVC instead of nets.

Shipping treatment and acclimation are critical:

Because they have a slime coat special precautions must be taken to insure its integrity is maintained during shipping. The fish has a very low resting metabolism rate when in its den, but goes into hyper drive when removed from confined quarters. Lifespan goes from days to minutes when placed in a well lit shipping bag. Based on my experience, the following is what I would like to see. Each fish is maintained in its own container under dark conditions. Each fish is shipped in a blackout bag. This is easy to do, but I have yet to see it happen. A fish left in light in its bag at either end of the shipping process is not likely to survive long. I open my shipping box under very low light conditions and do my acclimation with as little light as possible. No dips, no low salinity and no contact. I do not use nets. A short piece of PVC and 2 fingers works great. They hide, I pick them and the pipe up by covering the ends with my finger. No contact between individuals is critical in preventing the spread of disease.