Update:day 5 after eggs laid. Eggs are really dark now. Male is continuing to do a good job of taking care of them. Everything seems to be doing fine except one of my rotifer cultures crashed. One had light water when I came home and the other was still dark. The one that was still dark had no rotifers that I could see in it it when I strained it through the sieve . I think I put too much rg complete in that one because I change half the water in it and it still was pretty dark. I added some water from the other culture to seed it. I hope it takes off again. Good thing I split the cultures. Also the one that crashed was the one with the heater in it. So I took the heater out of that one so maybe it will do better this time
2nd attempt at raising clownfish fry.
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gtbarsi
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If there is one thing I have absorbed about culturing rotifers is that they will crash, so no matter what do not put all of your hopes in to a single culture.
So don't sweat it too much and keep up the good work and updates!
So don't sweat it too much and keep up the good work and updates!
Update: day 6 since eggs were laid. Everything seems to be going well. A few eggs starting getting the silver eyes so the hatch should be in a couple days. My surviving rotifer culture seems to be doing well and I'm not to sure about the new one I started but hopefully that one takes off as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that my surviving culture doesn't crash.
Also if anyone has experience with adding rg complete to fry tank for adding contrast so the fry can seen rotifers let me know please. Can I get away without adding rg complete to the fry tank? I know people have added live phytoplankton but I think rg complete is a little different. Any help would be great
Update: day 7 since eggs were laid. ( I don't mean to confuse everybody on the day count. The day the eggs were laid I called it day 1 so even though I say day seven, it's been exactly 6 days since the eggs were laid, sorry about any confusion) eggs are doing great. More silver eyes appearing. Last time the eggs hatched after 8 days so hopefully Thursday night will be the night.my surviving rotifer culture is doing well. I noticed it was at 1.015 so upped the salt in the water change to 1.021 (my tank is at 1.026) I didn't think. Them today because I'd say my rotifer density is at 75-100 per ml and reed mariculture says 500 per ml is considered low density so I just ran 20% of the water through the sieve and put the rotifers back in and changed the water taken out with clean water like I always do. The other culture has rotifers in it but I haven't thinned them or changed water because the water is still pretty green. I've just been adding prime water conditioner to it to help keep parameters in order. I hope everything holds out because this looks like 3 times the amount of eggs from what I got last time. ( last time I managed to get about 60- 80 fry). Feel free to chime in with any advice or questions.
Update:day 8 . About 90% of the eggs now have silver eyes . The male is really starring to fan them alot more often. Last time they hatched after 8 days so I'm thinking tommorow the eggs will hatch . But just to help make sure I don't get some early birds I'm going to leave the light in the room on all night so the tank gets some light and hopefully it will deter them from hatching until tommorow. I plan on putting the fry into the 2.5 gallon tank this time. I'm still undecided whether to use rg complete to add contrast in fry tank. Rotifers seem to be doing well. I do daily water changes but I'm still putting the rotifers back in the culture because I'm still not near 500 p/ml other culture seems to be doing good. When I filter the rotifers through the sieve there were more in there today than there were yesterday so that's a good sign.hopefully everything works out. I'm going to get a heater for my 2nd rotifer culture so I don't shock them when putting them in fry tank.
Update:day 9 . It's been exactly 8 days since eggs were laid and they hatched on the 8th day last time so I'm going to cover the tank after lights go out so it's pitch black and wait and hour. I'll also turn off all the powerheads and return pump. Hopefully the hatch goes good. Over 90% have the silver eyes so I'm sure today is the day. I'll give an update after I manage to get them out and into the fry tank. I'll post pics as well
clownfish chris
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From research I have learned that Clownfish fry are super light sencitive. They need to be in a very dim lit tank. Cover the heater indicator light with electrical tape. The water should be tinted green with rotifers. I'll see if I can find you the source of my info.
Reef Nutrition
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You can use RGcomplete as greenwater. Just make sure to agitate the contents before adding the dose. Add 1ml at a time until you achieve good tinting.
Chad
Update: 1 day since hatch. For some odd reason I lost about 200 larvae . I siphoned our all the dead ones and there are about 25 left. Some are spiraling and dropping and others are just swimming . I don't know what happened but it seems like as soon as they were transfered , majority of them laid on the bottom and just died and the ones that were swimming seemed to be the ones still alive. I did the same thing as last time except I used half display tank water and half clean water and this time I used all display tank water. There is enough rotifers in there and I don't think oxygen levels had to do with it. The only thing I can think of is since there were 3 times as many fry on this second hatch, that they were born sick and not completely developed. I fed the mating pair a variety of pellet and flake food along with rods food and store bought shrimp,squid,scallops,and cod. I can't seem to put my finger on. It but I'm going to try and get them to survive. Only time will tell iguess. Thanks for the tips and advice. It's greatly appreciated
clownfish chris
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I think this is going to be a great start but I would recommend moving the tile the day they will hatch. It is important to let the male fan the eggs. When moving the tile, expose to the smallest amount of light possible and do not expose to air.
Update: clowns laid eggs again for the third time. They hated the ceramic tile I put over there usually spawn rock and literally tipped it over constantly so there went that idea. I'm going to let the fry sit in about 6-8hours of darkness before feeding them rotifers this time instead of feeding them right away and even though the fry tank was brand new, I bleached it anyway to just make sure this time. I might switch from the 2.5 back to the ten gallon tank. I have the rotifers to do it. So I'm not to worried about it but I'll see. I'll give an update on hatch day or if anything changes. Thanks for all the tips and tricks.
Blue Lip
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I recommend stop using RG Complete. Switch to their product Rotifer Diet. Freeze it and and break off small chunks to use it. Don't let your fry tank turn clear. Keep it tinted green. Rotifers don't store food. If your water turns clear the rotifers have no nutritional value and all the fry die. Rotifer Diet works great at producing rotifers. A salinity of 1.20 works great. If the culture becomes to dense it will crash. Key is to harvest and replace water to keep density down. If you keep your fry tank tinted green with Rotifer Diet and a culture of rotifers in there I believe you will make it to the next step which is hatching brine shrimp. Decapsulated is the way to go. Reef Nutrition / Reed Mariculture sell a product of pellet food called TDO. It starts with TDO A1 and is a very fine powder that you start trying to feed day 2. The sooner the fry learn it is a food source the better. Good luck
