Moca clowns anyone?

Well my male black clown and orange female clown finally layed eggs the other day. I did not notice until tonight. I have watched the two cleaning off the back wall where they hange out, but nothing more than that for quite some time (months). Then the last few days I noticed that the male was hanging out in the same corner a lot. I investigated further tonight, and to my delight there was a clutch of eggs all fully developed and ready to hatch tonight. Unfortunately I am no where close to raising them. I took some photos, so here you go.

Here are some photos of the pair when I got them. They have never hosted in anything in my tank other than the top left corner by a power-head.






Nice silvery eggs ready to hatch!!!


Proud dad taking care of the eggs!!!

Awesome!

Thanks for the offer to raise them, but obviously the first batch became tank food. Hopefully they lay some more.

I am working on getting a setup going since my wife basically gave me the go ahead last night. Now to see if they lay eggs again.

I would love to see a picture of it as I am just starting out.

I am starting my roti culture today, and hope to have a dense enough population by the next round. My plan is to use tank water in a 5 gallon bucket using an air pump for circulation. Feeding them algae paste.

For the larvae tank I am using a 2.5 gallon tank with a heater and air pump. From what I understand keeping the temp between 80 and 84 is ideal as closer to 84 helps them grow faster. Along with that I plan on doing a water change daily if not twice a day for the first week. After that every other day until after meta. Also for the larvae tank I am going to cover it with black construction paper. All of this is to see if I can do it and if my wife can handle it.

What do you do for feeding them after rotifers? It seems like everyone uses freshly hatched brine.

Well I'll have to see how it goes. Thanks!

I feed and harvest at least 30% of rotifers daily. The more you feed denser the culture. The tricky part is learning to feed enough but not over feeding. Keep the water just green enough you can't see the bottom of the bucket. 

Edited by sabeypets - May 12 2012 at 9:24pm

Shaun, thanks for the advice. I will probably be asking questions periodically as I have read all I can and know that I will have missed something along the way.

As far as a small tank, I will have to see if that turns out to be an issue or not. One thing I did prior to consulting my clownfish book was to paint three of the outside panels of the tank, including the bottom. I painted the sides blue and the bottom yellow. After reading it sounds like painting the tank can cause light to reflect and may adversely affect the larva. Also I am going to wait and see with the first batch how things go. Also I am planning on only using the 2.5 gallon for the first 7-10 days and then I was planning on moving them to a 5 gallon tank. Then once they reach about a month move them one last time into a 10-20 gallon grow out tank (depends on how many survive).

I took a picture of the eggs and counted them, wow 570 eggs! My plan is to do basically what Joyce suggested, which is with the lights out use a bowl and flashlight. Basically insert the bowl about half way in, shine the light into the bowl, and then transfer them once you get enough in the bowl.

I was thinking after meta, but just had the timing off. Also with the tank color, if it proves to be bad I can just use the 5 gallon and run it with a little less water. Also I was reading that reducing the salinity to 1.0018-20 seems to help in the survival rate through the different phases. The suggestion was to slowly lower it over 2 days.

Right now my concern is that my rotifer culture won't be ready. I am using a used 5 gallon bucket from fire house subs pickles. It is a red bucket, and although I rinsed it out it still has that pickle smell. I went to harvest some and found almost none. It seemed like my feeding from Wednesday was consumed by Friday evening, so maybe it is growing.

This is really cool to read! I think you will enjoy raising them. I used a 10 gallon tank and I just used black card stock to cover all the sides and a piece of white paper for the bottom...worked like a charm!
Pam

I was wrong about the hatch. They still have not hatched yet. Odd that they are so developed and silver looking tonight that I was sure it would be the night, but still nothing. I'll wait and see if these are eclipse babies or not.