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Clownfish Nursery - Save The Babies

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Topic: Clownfish Nursery - Save The Babies
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Subject: Clownfish Nursery - Save The Babies
Date Posted: April 15 2011 at 6:03pm
(Updated in posts on 2nd page with description and pics of success. Smile)

Well, most of you may have seen my thread about the Clownfish Nursery. We really want to save the babies but so far our attempts have all been futile. Last night was the latest. We had a rock of Ocellaris eggs that hatched and also picked up a 5gal bucket of 100's of Maroon larvae from davser(thanks David). Today only a few survive.

As I explained to visitors on the Reef Tour, we're trying figure out how to do this in large volumes. We're not just trying to save a few babies, we want to save them all...from everyone. Big smile
We need your help.

Here's a little background. A month ago we moved Nicks batch of baby Clownfish over to the 30 gal Refugium under the 80 gal frag tank. The flow through this Refugium is about 1100 gph. Their growth rate doubled in that high flow environment. They averaged 3/8" and are now over 1/2" long.

Working on this premise, considering that larvae survive in the ocean where the water is turbulant, we set up a natural filtration system and separated the larvae from the filtration. Filtration is a Refugium where water is pumped over to the larvae tank and returns via a screened siphon. The larvae tank is bare except for a bubbler, the siphon and return. That's the system. We would like to hear your questions and comments about the system.

As far as food, the rotifer count is high and because everything is circling around, the larvae can catch many rotifers swirling around them. The larvae that remain seem to be fat so we believe they are eating good. We would like to hear your questions and comments about the feeding.

As far as transport, the Ocellaris eggs were transported 10 minutes in their water in a bucket and acclimated to the nursery tank by water exchange for 1/2 hour. The Maroon larvae were transported 1/2 hour in 4 gals of their collection water and acclimated for something less than 1/2 hour. It took some effort to discard most of the water. I'm sure the transport and acclimation is stressful especially for newly hatched larvae. Most of the Maroon larvae were near the bottom of the bucket when they arrived. We probably should use an air bubbler during transport. Since the eggs all hatched, we believe the transport was less stressful on them but why have so few survived? We would like to hear your questions and comments about the transport.

Please feel free to throw out any and all ideas. You never know when an idea that may seem silly, will lead to something useful.

Thanks. Please help us Save The Babies. Clap


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Replies:
Posted By: dc
Date Posted: April 15 2011 at 9:14pm
as far as transportation ive been told they need to be moved as eggs.
also you dont mention water changes, all the info says water changes once or twice daily. hope this helps and good luck


Posted By: rnkjones
Date Posted: April 15 2011 at 9:28pm
Pam and Troy, picked up larvae from me in a ten gallon tank with a battery powered air pump and a heater that ran off of the car with a inverter from Taylorsville to Granville and they survived the trip. hopefully that will help
Thanks
Russ & Kathy


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RUSS&KATHY
125g 2'x 4' mixed reef-45g refugium-2x250 MH-2-65 watt actinics-Neptune pro controller-Ca reactor-Ozone
http://www.utmas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=336 - 120gal live webcam


Posted By: davser
Date Posted: April 15 2011 at 9:57pm
SO what you're saying is only a few of the maroons survived? Did you feed them right after you got em in the tank?

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It's not about what you know but about who you know


Posted By: phys
Date Posted: April 16 2011 at 4:53am
why do you need to move them to a different tank? Could you build a small clear box or something in the current tank so you dont have to move them and everything stays where its at? You could get something with a bunch of small holes all over it for water flow. Just an idea from someone with no knowledge on the subject. lol


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: April 16 2011 at 12:32pm
What I am saying is that none survived. Cry

These are good questions/comments. Please keep 'em coming.

dc-  I've done this before with a friend and several survived. We captured the larvae and ran. It was still 1/2 hour but we used all their own water in small tanks where the traditional daily water changes were performed. This time we are attempting to place them in a situation where we can avoid water changes.

phys - these are clownfish spawns from other hobbyist tanks. FYI, Maroon clownfish larvae are the size of this exclamation point ! Ocellaris larvae are 3x larger.

We expected that we would lose some but not all. We are already coming up with some changes but more ideas are needed.


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Posted By: Piscavore1
Date Posted: April 16 2011 at 4:09pm

I am going to preface this reply with the comment that all of my experience is with freshwater fry and is limited to a very specific order –cyprinodontidae (killifish). The killifish are much like Australian rainbowfish in that we could ship the eggs worldwide in either spawning mops or in moist peat. For most species the eggs were relatively hardy.

 

The difficulty was in raising the fry. None of the killi fry that I raised were as small as the maroon clownfish apparently are. I am guessing the obstacles are similar though. The biggest challenges were keeping enough of the correct sized quality food source in front of the fry and water quality. As luck would have it, those two are diametrically opposed to one another! Increase the food source and the water quality goes down, increase water quality and the fry can't find enough food to survive.

 

The normal fry food was rotifers, cladocerans (daphnia), phytoplankton, and later brine shrimp. Once the fry made it to day 3 the mortality levels went way, way down. 90% of our losses were in the first 3 days! Which I think says that the ability of the fry to find quality food is the key to survival, as long as there is adequate water quality. I don’t know what rotifer you are feeding, but are they small enough for the smallest maroon fry to feed on??

There is one area where I question your premise. Water flow. Once again I will stress my experience has only been with killes. When killie fry first hatch they are not very coordinated. They often miss when trying to feed on live objects in those first few hours. Too much water flow just makes it harder for fry to get those first critical hours of food intake. We all know that the percentage of fry that make it to day two that don’t make it through day 1 is pretty low! They also appear to key in on motion of the food object. If the food object does not have some sort of motion of its own – it is not food to the fry. We tested all sorts of correctly sized  “pearls” and crushed foods on the fry to no avail. The fry apparently needed to see motion in their food.  We used bubble filters on our tanks and set them so there was just enough water motion to keep the food suspended. If water motion was running too high the percentage of food that passed by the fry before the fry could detect motion went up (our theory anyway). Our loss of fry in the first two days went way up with higher water flows. I am guessing they are also using a lot more energy in an attempt to stay stabile in the water flow and find food. They are also not as efficient at retrieving the food due to the higher flows. The ocean may be turbulent, but we also know that only a few percent of a hatch survive in the ocean – which is exactly what you are seeing. What you have are the hardiest of the lot – which is what nature demands. If you really want to maximize the survival ratio I suggest a lower flow rate for the first few days.

 

The rest of this is a poor attempt to explain how we raised the killie fry. Delete and move to the next thread if not interested.

 

The easiest way to keep the fry surrounded by its food is to use a small tank. Which everybody knows makes it difficult to keep water clean - especially when it is heavily stocked with live food sources. Even harder with frozen or flake food – which fry seldom take anyway till week three or more anyway.  

We started the eggs in pre-setup 5 gallon tanks with low levels of rotifers, daphnia, and phyto (both live) and a small bubbler filter. This way the filter has already gone through its bacteria colonization and is ready to help when the fry are introduced. There is nono "break in" period.The daphnia and rotifers are also reproducing in the tanks so there is a selction of sizes of food available for the fry. Once the fry hatched we increased the rotifer, daphnia, and phyto levels. With killies you could tell they were taking food by the short darting motions they would make as they fed. Other somewhat disjointed motions, usually with head pointed down, was a lack of control as they didn’t have enough food and were starving. So increase the food quantity.  

I don’t know how clowns are but too much light put killies in the bottom of the tank and the food source at the top. Too little light and the killies would be only at the surface looking for food.

 The tank bottom was cleaned often (2-4 times/day) with a small pipette to clear any detritus or dead fry. The small bubble filter also helped keep the water quality good and tended to keep the detritus in one area for cleanup. The bubbler was set as low as it could be and still have enough water movement to keep the live food suspended. We refilled the fry tank with water from the adult tank. Approximately 10 -15% of the water was changed each day. The temperature of the fry tanks were usually a few degrees lower (74-77) than the parents’ tanks (spawning around 80) – in the theory that lower temps reduced the fry’s metabolic need.

With killies, by day 10 or so it was time to cull fry to a 10 gallon tank – already setup and running, with adult tank water and bubble filter. With maroon clowns being so much smaller I would guess this would more likely be day 20 or later. The culling was to get the larger, more aggressive fry into a 10 gallon tank and away from the smaller fry. At this stage the larger fry were already feeding on the smaller fry. This also reduced the load in each tank and water quality presumably was better in each tank. The 10 gallon tank also had an existing low level of rotifers, daphnia and phyto. Feeding at this time was supplemented 2-3 times a day with newly hatched brine shrimp. By this time it is easy to see the fry feeding on the brine shrimp and the resulting orange bellies. We also feed once a day with live daphnia. Since the daphnia survived in the freshwater we feed more of those than the fish consumed in 10 minutes as they provided a constantly available food source.

Depending on how large the batch of eggs was there may be one more culling to a larger tank – the final grow out tank – of 20-40 gallons. Most killies aren’t very large so a 40 gallon tank could hold 60 or 100 fry and not have water quality issues.  Once in the larger tanks water changes weren’t as frequent (10% weekly) but the two smaller tanks were cleaned several times daily as long as there were fry in them.



Posted By: Piscavore1
Date Posted: April 16 2011 at 4:15pm
Sorry about the wierd text - my hyphens, quotes, and apostrophes show up as –!!


Posted By: davser
Date Posted: April 16 2011 at 4:23pm
COulf it maybe something wrong with the fish? (parents), how about using a smaller tank?

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It's not about what you know but about who you know


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: April 17 2011 at 5:04pm
Thanks that's good information.

Between the two batches there were probably 300 larvae so I figure a 10 gal tank was not too large. These saltwater Rotifers are the right size for the larvae and stay alive just like Daphnia in freshwater.

We're going to try slowing the flow by turning off the refugium pump until it's needed and then maybe only 5 minutes at a time which would in effect be a small water change.

We are also going to stop collecting larvae hatches for the time being and just do the eggs on the rock which is much simpler to transport and acclimate.

Thanks for the comments.


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Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: April 17 2011 at 5:48pm
*
 


Posted By: davser
Date Posted: April 17 2011 at 6:00pm
OH well I guess I will not have to feed my fish anymore :) all you can eat when the eggs hatch

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It's not about what you know but about who you know


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: April 20 2011 at 4:12pm
David, that's funny. I hope we can work out the bugs and collect those larvae again soon.

Pam, we aren't in competition here. You can leave your posts up. You posted some good stuff and I believe you were right on by keeping Russ and Kathy's larvae in their own water. I think that's where I went wrong, trying to acclimate too fast.

If anyone can benefit from what we've learned, let's please share it. It makes us all a little better.

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Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: May 01 2011 at 5:15pm
Donna and I just want to say thanks to Piscavore and everyone that has commented with their advice and suggestions.

A special thanks to Pam and Troy Clap
and to Russ and Kathy. Clap
Thanks to this discussion we may have finally narrowed down the problem in our clownfish hatchery/nursery. During Friday's transfer of eggs, we swapped all 8 gals of water in the larval hatchery/nursery for water from the parent tank. That was the only real change and we are happy to announce that the last batch of babies is surviving. Yea!!!

That's the first thing. Now, here are the next two steps we are taking in the progression to doing large scale clownfish raising.

2- We are growing Rotifers in the larval nursery. We added a small amount of phyto paste to the nursery which was already dense but not too dense with rotifers. The green phyto in the water immediately excited the larvae to more activity, almost as though the green water gave them a better sense of depth allowing them to see the Rotifers better. Another explanation may be that the phyto excited the rotifers which then excited the larvae. Within 4 hours, judging by water color, half the Phyto had been eaten by Rotifers. The rotifer density is only slightly less than before so it appears that Rotifers are being eaten and are multiplying too.
The idea to do this was based on a comment by industry expert and hobby icon, Julian Sprung, passed on to me by Adam. That comment reminded me of my experience 10 years ago with raising Tomato Clownfish in a soup of phyto and bugs.

3- Nursery water filtration
We use the established tank sitting next to the Larval Nursery to do biofiltration. This avoids the laborious and tedious business of doing water changes. The true lasting efficiency of this technique is still to be seen but in theory it should work. Embarrassed A small powerhead, with a ball valve to slow the flow, pumps water very slowly from the 10 gal biofilter tank to the 10 gal Larval Nursery tank. A "U" tube siphons water through a screen back over to the biofilter tank. At this point, we have chose to only run it a few minutes, just enough to do a small water change. We don't want to risk losing them again when we tried to acclimate them to different water too quickly.

About now, some of you are probably saying, Hey Mark how about some pics? Patience my friends. If all goes well, I'll post pics tomorrow.  Smile


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Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: May 01 2011 at 6:10pm


We swapped all 8 gals of water in the larval hatchery/nursery for water from the parent tank. That was the only real change and we are happy to announce that the last batch of babies is surviving. Yea!!! 


**This is exactly what we do. We set up the nursery tank up the day of hatch about half way in the 10 gallon. We get a foam filter going, a bubble wand and heater set at 80. When it's time to hatch we transfer the larvae over to the 10 gallon and finish filling the 10 gallon tank up with the parents tank water.**

2- We are growing Rotifers in the larval nursery. We added a small amount of phyto paste to the nursery which was already dense but not too dense with rotifers. The green phyto in the water immediately excited the larvae to more activity, almost as though the green water gave them a better sense of depth allowing them to see the Rotifers better. Another explanation may be that the phyto excited the rotifers which then excited the larvae. Within 4 hours, judging by water color, half the Phyto had been eaten by Rotifers. The rotifer density is only slightly less than before so it appears that Rotifers are being eaten and are multiplying too.
The idea to do this was based on a comment by industry expert and hobby icon, Julian Sprung, passed on to me by Adam. That comment reminded me of my experience 10 years ago with raising Tomato Clownfish in a soup of phyto and bugs.

* This is exactly how I do it. At first I didn't think it made a difference but I expirmented a bit and I decided I liked the results of using the phyto in the Larvae tank to help Co-Culture, it not only helps the Co culturing which saves me some time it does seem to benefit the larvae over all as well. I always keep their tank a hint of green from days 1-roughly 14, while they are going through meta. I also from time to time will add *green water* to the older babies tank as well and they like it as well. I know Russ and Kathy do not do this and are successful not doing so.
 

 I do not touch the tank for the first 2 days. I leave the Larvae alone and only start doing water changes on day 3. I then do water changes daily. I have a seperate bucket of water mixed up for the nursery tanks which have a heater in them as well and I use that to do the water changes. After the initial hatch I do not use the parents tank water anymore.

 Some people also cover the sides of the tanks, I do not. I do however put a piece of white paper on the bottom, it makes cleaning the bottom a lot easier. Hope that gives you a little idea ... or a lot of idea.. hahah of how we do it

 My clowns are:
1 Month old
2 weeks old
3 days old

And a new Clutch being laid as we speak Big smile. BTW the frame work of the Breeder is done!!!ClapClap
 Pam
 

 


Posted By: rnkjones
Date Posted: May 01 2011 at 6:12pm
Good luck mark, and good job yahoo!
Russ & Kathy

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RUSS&KATHY
125g 2'x 4' mixed reef-45g refugium-2x250 MH-2-65 watt actinics-Neptune pro controller-Ca reactor-Ozone
http://www.utmas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=336 - 120gal live webcam


Posted By: rnkjones
Date Posted: May 01 2011 at 6:13pm
Originally posted by rnkjones rnkjones wrote:

Good luck mark, and good job yahoo!
Russ & Kathy
   

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RUSS&KATHY
125g 2'x 4' mixed reef-45g refugium-2x250 MH-2-65 watt actinics-Neptune pro controller-Ca reactor-Ozone
http://www.utmas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=336 - 120gal live webcam


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: May 01 2011 at 7:15pm
I have noticed that Rotifers are attaching to the glass, like 10/cm. I swish them off with a stick.

I once watched a 10 day old Clownfish go up the glass and flip it's tail to dislodge a Copepod. It quickly turned and gobbled up that Copepod.
Amazing that something so tiny can be so smart. Smile


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Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: May 15 2011 at 4:13pm
Big smile It's working.Big smile
Today we have ~17 two week old baby clownfish. They were born April 30. They passed through Metamorphosis while we were away this last week. Our 22 yr old son took care of feeding them rotifers and keeping the water slightly green with algae paste. He has no experience caring for fish, only what he saw me doing while he was growing up.

I'm really happy to report that the system works. We have done none of the typical water changes in this system. A small pump on a timer exchanged about a gallon of water with the Refugium at regular intervals 8x/day. These baby fish are growing up in aquarium water just like they will live in for the rest of their life.

The system was up and running for the Reef Tour. The pic below was taken today.  The Refugium on the left has lot's of Macroalgae and Cyanobacteria, LS, LR, a Chromis and two 1/2" Clownfish (the two smallest of the remaining 8 http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=45613 - clownfish we got from Nick801 . The seventeen 1/8" baby clownfish are in the tank on the right. The dark green tank below is the Rotifer culture.




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Posted By: Piscavore1
Date Posted: May 15 2011 at 6:20pm
Great report! I am glad to see everybody sharing in the success. If my clowns ever figure out their part I will have to give it a go also.


Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: May 15 2011 at 7:14pm
Good job! Thumbs Up It is so exciting watching them get bigger and watching them get their color isn't it?

 Question... why do you keep your rotifers so dark?
 Pam


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: May 15 2011 at 7:45pm
Well, being away for a week was almost unbearable - wondering if everything is okay and how they look. It was a big difference to see them as larvae with just a little color, but mostly black splotches before we left to real orange and white clownfish when we returned. Shocked

This is what happened 10 years ago when I did it the first time. I left my daughter in charge of them while we went on a vacation. Embarrassed

Dark green Rotifer culture? I like to have them full of phyto for the babies to eat. When I can see the bottom frame of the other side of the Rotifer tank, I know it's time to feed them more algae paste. How do you do it?


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Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: May 15 2011 at 9:54pm



Dark green Rotifer culture? I like to have them full of phyto for the babies to eat. When I can see the bottom frame of the other side of the Rotifer tank, I know it's time to feed them more algae paste. How do you do it?
[/QUOTE]

I keep my rotifers in 2 5 gallon buckets and I keep them green as well but not nearly as dark. Once the rotifers clear I know to add more :).
 Pam


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: May 16 2011 at 8:11am
More food ensures a denser population. This has been useful for when I have many mouths to feed and still have enough to share with other hobbyists.


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Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: May 16 2011 at 8:40am
Hey guys -
 
I don't know much about raising clown babies, but I read through this and was thinking about the water quality questions, and the mortality issues that may have been at least partly blamed on water quality...
 
I was thinking perhaps a setup similar to the one I used when raising my Banggai babies might prove helpful; the one where I basically set up a 10g 'nursery' tank right next to the display and used a simple siphon tube to bring water from the display into the nursery - and a small powerhead to move water back into the main tank.
 
You would need to modify somewhat (probably not run the powerhead constantly to avoid removing all the rotifers, etc out of the nursery water column; a sponge filter over the p-head intake to avoid sucking in fry) but my thought is that this will mean a fairly constant inflow of clean tank water that has all the exact same parameters as the water the eggs were laid in.
 
Also eliminates the need for water changes within the nursery tank - and the resulting fluctuations in parameters that may be harmful to the delicate fry...
 
When I raised the Banggais I simply used a piece of airline tubing to siphon out any detritus from the bottom of the nursery tank every couple of days. Other than that, no real maintenance to be done. And I lost very few fry.
 
 


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- My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) -

* Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 *


Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: May 16 2011 at 11:58pm
Bob,
 I totally agree with you. I am so anal that I have set up my *baby*breeder that has 4 tanks. these are for the babies that are weeks 1 through 4. I did not want these 4 tanks set up with a sump because I wanted to closely monitor them and do water changes daily. I know, call my crazy because I could set something up that is far easier but I kind of enjoy the time with the clowns anyway.
 We then have about 10 other tanks set up so far in the bedroom with a sump that runs to all of the tanks so that will eliminate me needing to do the water changes on the older clowns tanks. :). The brood stock tanks are also set up with these. They essentially will be set up with very little maintinence.
 Pam


Posted By: SGH360
Date Posted: May 17 2011 at 12:28am
perhaps a bigger tank for the eggs? are the parents of the eggs vital for the survival?


Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: May 17 2011 at 12:44am
With clown fish the eggs are laid and the male takes care of eggs until they hatch. Then at dark they make a sweeping motion to release the larvae from the rock. The larvae is tiny for the first week or so when they finally start going through meta so a 10 gallon tank is plenty big for the eggs because if you went much larger it would be difficult to keep the rotifer density as thick as you need it to be.
 There are people however that will take the eggs out of the parents tank the day of release and use a airstone to essentially do the same thing as the father does in releasing the eggs from the rock/tile etc.

 It's actually easier for me to maintain a 10 gallon tank. I have tried a 2 1/2 gallon 5 gallon and the 10 gallon works the best for me.

 Mark has a set up I believe that is similar to what Bob is suggesting. I probably baby my babies too much..Wink


Posted By: Bluespotjawfish
Date Posted: May 17 2011 at 6:50am
Hi all!  Interesting thread Mark.  Have you tried using Rotigrow Plus yet?  If not I highly recommend it.  Better nutritional value for rotifers (resulting in denser cultures) and for the babies eating the rotifers.  When do you introduce brine shrimp?
 
Like pam, like to dabble with the babies and I siphon junk off the bottom of their tank and drip water in to replace it once or twice a day. 
 
 


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Home of the baby Picasso!


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: May 17 2011 at 9:51am
Pam, those parents actually stay awake after dark and fan the eggs? This is what releases them?
In my experience the larvae release themselves from the eggs, though I currently place the rock with eggs on it right next to a bubble stream, so that helps in the release.

Yes, I am doing something like what Bob suggested. I try to spend as little of my time as possible. Efficiency and mass production is my goal.

Rotigrow Plus is a fortified algae slurry/paste. I use an algae slurry from BSD and when I want to bother with it, I add Selcon to fortify it. I'm also using a product that is used by commercial growers to enhance health and increase growth. It is a bacterial product that works like bioactive yogurt for humans.

Here is something that might interest some of you. Another batch of eggs were ready to hatch last night in the parents tank. As in the past, yesterday around 7PM I removed the spawning rock from the parents tank and transported it to my place.  I set it in the 10 gal tank with the bubbler. Already this morning, two larvae are floating around, but the majority of eggs are still on the rock. The disturbance delays the hatch. The anemone is still on the rock and presumably catches the larvae as they float around so after the point in time where most of the larvae have hatched, I remove the rock and it's attached anemone and place it back in the parents tank for a new spawning.

BBS are too much trouble. I'm continuing to feed Rotifers, along with Golden Pearls and freeze dried Cyclops. A pic of the 2 week olds is below this pic of the egg rock awaiting the hatch tonight. Smile



These things grow fast. For anyone that has not had the opportunity to see them in person (everyone is always welcome at my place) the size difference between a just hatched Clownfish Larvae and these 2 week old Clownfish is like 50X. See the white dot in front of the nearest baby. Imagine that white dot being the head of the larvae with a body and tail that just reaches the head of that baby. And they are much skinnier too.



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Posted By: ptronsp
Date Posted: May 17 2011 at 3:12pm
Mark,
 Apparently I just assumed my male did. My male clown is very attentive and is very seldom away from the eggs, I mean that literally, he is always at the eggs constantly taking care of them and fanning them. When we are ready to collect the larvae at night the male is still by the rock and still fanning the rock.. I guess that just made me assume he was helping them off the rock.
 
 Lorraine I am going to look into the Roti grown I have heard great things about it. I wonder if BSD has something similar?
 I start bbs about the 5th day in conjunction with the rotifers and GP. The little ones LOVE the Golden Pearls.
 Pam


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 07 2011 at 9:36pm
I have been asked how I grow rotifers.
Well, let's see... I've grown Rotifers many times since entering the hobby in 1993, but only twice to feed Clownfish Larvae.
Here are some tips from what I've learned along the way:
1. Salinity (sg) around 1.021
2. Set the container near a window for diffused sunlight OR near artificial light
so that algae grows on the sides of the container. This keeps the water relatively clean of Nitrogen pollutants.
3. slow air bubbles without diffuser stone
4. 65-80 degrees
5. feed more phyto when the water changes from green to yellow. The water should be very dark green after adding sufficient phyto
6. Strain rotifers out by slowly running through a coffee filter, then rinse filter off in the target tank
7. replace 10-20% of yellow water (rotifers can live in some nasty water) every month
8. Do not clean the container but siphon crud off the bottom at about 2 months
9. Collect a bottle of Rotifers directly from the container, cap it and place it in the refrigerator. Replace every 2-3 weeks


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Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 07 2011 at 9:56pm
10. Continuing from Rotifer growing, I hope the following description of my successful Clownfish Nursery pictured below helps explain how I raised clownfish.

- I was lucky that the eggs were laid on an anemone rock sitting by itself on the sand. Getting the parents to lay on a tile would have been my next step. The egg rock was placed right next to the bubble wand in the right-side tank on the day of scheduled hatching. This is the Larvae tank. About 80% of the water in the Larvae tank came from the parent's tank. No water changes were done in the Larvae tank. The anemone rock was removed the night of hatching. The anemone ate quite a few larvae. (A tile without an anemone on it would have saved a lot of larvae.)

- After hatching, the Larvae tank is fed enough Rotifers to keep the larvae eating constantly. I was adding Rotifers 2-3 x/day

The left tank is the Refugium and grow out tank. It has a small powerhead mounted at the water surface (to prevent flooding) with a tube leading to the Larvae tank. A U-tube siphon leads from the Larvae tank to the left tank. A fine fabric (I believe it's called Voile) is sewn into a bag which was placed around the end of the siphon tube in the Larvae tank to keep larvae in the Larvae tank.

At around 2 days after hatching, the powerhead was plugged in and run for about 1/2 hour twice that day. The next day it ran for 3 or 4 1/2 hour periods. Around day 5 the pump was plugged into a timer which ran it for 1/2 hour every 3 hours or so.

Baby clownfish were moved to the grow out tank at around one month.

The point of this two tank system is to have the larvae start out in their parents water where they were laid and then gradually replace the slowly polluting water from the Larvae tank with clean water from the Refugium tank. During the four months this system was running, only two 10% water changes were done. A month later, a new batch of eggs can be introduced into the Larvae tank, including using 80% water from the parents tank, while the previous batch grows up in the Refugium.

At around 2-3 months of age the babies were moved from the refugium to a larger tank with more biofiltration, where they could grow up faster. The babies in the Larvae tank can then be moved into the Refugium and a new batch of eggs placed in the Larvae tank.

Hope this makes sense. I'll add more detail as I think of it and to answer your questions.



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Posted By: Jeffatpm
Date Posted: August 09 2011 at 2:24pm
I've decided to start breeding clown fish to continue our hobby without pulling more fish from the ocean.  I need help though to ensure I SAVE THE BABIES.

My challenge currently is my rotifers - I've moved them into my furnice room as it is the only place that will stay at a decent temperature without getting too hot.  Of course not the best choice but I'm out of options.
I've been using phytofeast as recommended by Chris at Fish 4 U, I may switch to a BSD product as Mark has had great success with that.
The bucket on the left is new and is just getting started.  The bucket on the right I've had for a while and it smells like mold - I'm sure I at least need a water change in there(this one has been in the garage and gotten hotter than it should have.)


This is the tank I have the parents in and will put the babies when they are big enough.


I went with a 120 with low flow so that there is plenty of water to not require water changes ever day.

My plan with the eggs/larva is to put them in this acclimatization box that I have covered the slits with very fine material that won't even let rotifers out. - the box will sit at the top of the center section of the tank so they larva will share the parent tank water and still be confined to a small space that I can feed them.


So far I have caught one group of larva that hatched in the night and tried to keep them fed in the box but didn't have enough rotifers so they all died.

The parents :-)



So far the Maroon's are laying about once a week,  The Percula's still haven't got egg laying figured out yet lol.

Thoughts on the build design?


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210 Reef with loads of LEDS
Large Fishey Room
Located Near Jordan Landing in West Jordan.


Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: August 09 2011 at 6:31pm
Two suggestions:
1. Strain the rotifers out of the stinky bucket, dump it, completely clean it and start over.
2. Set up a separate tank for the larvae,
3. I don't believe that little acclimation box will work for more than a few days. The filter material covering the slits will clog quickly with crud and a growth of algae and bacterial slime, especially if it is so fine that Rotifers cannot pass through. Clownfish larvae grow fast, poop a lot and are constantly changing. At around 10 days they will go through a major change and will need plenty of elbow room.




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