Andrew Berry, The True Superhero: Typesetter By Day, Marine Breeder By Night

As you all are aware by now, we here at Fragd.it are always on the prowl to find fascinating ideas, theories and people. Its through constant pursuance of improvement of this great hobby that we can find to conserve and save the species from decimation. So when I stumbled across Andrew Barry, the man wowed me in so many ways.  It was only natural for us to put together an interview that you all would enjoy. Andrew has been very successful in mating many species of fish in his system. From the common Bangaii cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni), to more demanding Harlequin filefish (Oxymonacanthus longirostris). It takes a lot of guts and patience (sometimes even money) to pursue a daunting task to breed marine fish. Something that Andrew has plenty of.

How long have you been doing this?
I’ve been wet for about four-and-a-half years now, but I took about a year doing research and building my first system. We recently did a large remodel and the current system resulting from that is about five months old.

Can you describe your system?
The display tank is roughly 480 gals. in a long, thin L shape. That is plumbed to a basement fish room with two 120 gal. tanks, six 90 gal. tanks, a 40 XL tank where the filefish live, a 55 gal. drum where the sixline wrasses live and a 180 gal. sump. In the works are larval rearing tanks and an area for culturing zooplankton for larval foods.

So how did you get your fish to mate in your tank? Did you do something special?
Not particularly. I do feed them a lot of food, as in 3-4-5 times/day.

Did you feed them certain food?
Not really other than the filefish. My main staple is a homemade mush of food. Mainly shrimp but also whatever I’m able to find at the fish counter plus lots of macroalgae for the herbivores. The latest batch has lots of swordfish in it because the fish guy was trimming swordfish steaks when I got there and when I told him what I was doing he just gave me all of his off-cuts.

But I also toss in lots of different frozen foods for variety and convenience’s sake. I’m sure to get the filefish some Nutramar Ova every day, though it’s much less now than when I was training them onto frozen foods. I’m not sure they really need it any more, but while it’s available I’ll give it to them.

And how did you know to get one male and one female fish, especially filefish?
In the harlequin’s case, the male and female look different. Matt Pedersen has done a good job documenting that elsewhere, but there are some very distinct differences in the ventral flap area between male and female fish. So they’re easy.

The sixline wrasses are protogynous hermaphrodites, so pairing them was a matter of getting one large fish to be the male and getting a tiny juvenile that will grow up to become female.

The dottybacks were similar.

The cleaner wrasses were in adjacent cubicles at the LFS with a holed partition between them. They would swim off to clean the other fish but each one would return to the partition to be near each other with no sign of aggression.

The royal grammas are just in a group of five and they sort themselves out.

It looks like I just got lucky with the starry blennies.

With the Banggais, it’s a matter of getting a known male (I’ve seen him hold eggs) and letting him tell me if another fish is male or female. If it’s a female, he tries to court her. If it’s a male, he tries to kill him.

The clownfish are like the wrasses and dottys except the big one becomes the female.

Finally, the citron gobies have the possibility to change to either sex at any point in their lives. So pairing them is merely a matter of putting any two together and keeping them from killing each other until they sort things out.

Do you have a particular regimen (routine)?
Get up in the morning. Feed the fish. Top off the sump. Make sure everything’s working. Clean the skimmers when I need to. Go and do some work. Feed the fish. Work some more. Pick up the kid from school. Feed the fish. Work some more. Put the kid to bed. Feed the fish. Place the egg collector on the wrasse tank. Top off the sump. Spend some time with my lovely bride. Grab the egg collector.

I try to do water changes every week to ten days, but lately I’ve had a lot of algae dying off throughout the system, so I’m doing 5-15 gals. per day with the ol’ siphon and bucket. Sigh. I hate the siphon and bucket.

Are you planning on doing more with other fish?
I plan on trying to breed every fish that I can keep that can be kept in pairs or groups.

Are you going to rear any current ones?
I’m sure going to try. I’m still pretty new at the breeding thing and I can’t seem to get clowns to breed to save my life, so I’m pretty much stepping into the deep end. But, if climate change continues at the pace it’s going and/or regulations ever get passed that cut off wild collection, this hobby will be in some serious trouble. People need to start trying to breed these animals and publicly documenting their attempts now so that we will be ready if and when the supply of animals from the wild gets cut off.

Plus, I really feel like I owe it to the animals. It’s my fault that they’ve been dragged out of their homes and shipped halfway across the world. It’s my responsibility to give them the best home I can while they’re in my care. I also feel like it’s my job to at least try to raise any larvae that they give me so that maybe a few less of the fish have to be taken out of the ocean.

Do you have a favorite pair?
I have to admit that I think the harlequin filefish are my favorite pair. But the cleaner wrasses give them a run for their money. The cleaner wrasse courtship dance is a beautiful thing to see. Very graceful. I don’t know that the real beauty of it comes across on the video.

Have you tried any invertebrates?
That’s a lot of animals. I have had Tubastreas breed and settle successfully in my last system. I’m also very interested in the sexual behavior of the various Euphyllias and hope to do more with them in this new system. I’m a member of the Reef Stewardship Foundation (RSF) and have worked to breed and raise the various snails and other cleanup crew members available through them. I have an article out for review that I’m hoping will get published soon on raising the RSF Collumbelid snail.

I’m actually surprised that more people don’t try to keep the cleanup crews available through the RSF. Oftentimes, animals sold to the hobby as cleanup crew members are not even tropical species. The heat of our tanks shortens their life spans, sometimes by decades. And constantly replacing cleanup crew members gets really expensive over time. The animals available through the RSF network are all animals that are captive bred so they are coming out of another hobbyist’s tank–not the ocean–and are proven to be able to complete their life cycles in captivity. Most of them require very little knowledge of breeding other than how to acclimate an invertebrate. And, when they breed in your tank, their population size will grow to the size of your algae problem. So, it’s an inexpensive initial investment because you can buy less of them because their population should grow over time. And when you have enough of them you can sell or trade the extras to other hobbyists or fish stores. Why _wouldn’t_ you want to get in on this?

Comments on @home breeding (fish/invert/coral) and the future of the hobby:
What would happen to the hobby if the supply of fish and corals were suddenly cut off? One day, no new shipments? Think it can’t happen? That’s exactly what happened to the tropical bird hobby. So, every bird you see in a pet store now has been captive bred.

Well, what about the saltwater hobby? Are we ready if that day were today. Not likely. Actually, the coral side could probably manage to hold on. Frag farmers could probably keep the coral coming. What about fish? At the current state of commercial production, the tanks of this future might contain clownfish, maybe fang blennies, orchid dottybacks, neon gobies, and seahorses. That’s pretty much what’s in commercial production.

There are lots of fish that could be cultured that aren’t because the cost/return analysis for the large culture firms tells them that they won’t make money on the deal. Hobbyists who are motivated by interest first and profit second can figure these out. There are lots of other fish that no one–no one–knows how to culture. Hobbyists can make a huge impact now by working out culture protocols. If we ever do lose marine imports, it’s going to be really, really important.

How ’bout inverts? Even fewer of those species are ever cultured. Cleaner shrimp are possible, but they are very, very hard and culture protocols could really use a lot of people working with them.

And all that is in addition to the ethical obligations that I mentioned before that I feel for my fish. That’s pretty much what drives me into this part of the hobby.

What kind of interview on marine breeding if we didn’t have videos of Andrew’s pairs in action:

Mandarins

Cleaner Wrasses

Harlequin Filefish

Six Line Wrasses

Six Line Prolarva

His tank adventures and amazing photography (and video) can be followed on his Reef Central’s thread. Andy, from the both of us here at Fragd.it, keep up the amazing work!