Clownfish breeding without culturing rotifers

[Hijinks_78]

The movement of the live feeds seem to be a trigger for the response of the clownfish fry. Please realize that some of us on this thread have bred a lot of fish so these comments are based on a fair amount of experience and research. However if you choose not to follow an established recipe then feel free to experiment and let us know the results so we can continue to learn together.

I’ll be following the advice of you more experienced breeders. I hope the person that replied tries it out using some unconventional methods and reports back. Unfortunately I don’t have the time or space to be the person who experiments on this one.

 

[Peace River]

I’ll be following the advice of you more experienced breeders. I hope the person that replied tries it out using some unconventional methods and reports back. Unfortunately I don’t have the time or space to be the person who experiments on this one.

Here is a link to the Reef Nutrition "recipe" for clownfish fry:

Reef Nutrition product use chart

@Reef Nutrition - I was recently talking to a friend and trying to explain the importance of making the right size food available for tiny fry with super tiny mouths. I was using the TDO Chroma BOOST options as an example and then I also pointed to the differences in the size of live foods as...

www.reef2reef.com

What you'll quickly notice is that live food (in this case rotifers) are necessary for only a very short period of time, but they are necessary. I have tried to skip the live food step with dismal results. Many breeders use live foods for much longer, but this is just showing one approach.

Here is another traditional full-blown approach to breeding clownfish:

Pickle’s Guide to Breeding Clowns

Pickle’s Guide to Breeding Clowns What works for me… You are welcome to place a link to this guide on another website or forum, however, do not place the actual article itself on your forum or website with out my permission. Your link must direct traffic to it's original form here on nano-reef.co...

www.nano-reef.com

Good luck with whatever direction that you decide to go!

 

[sabeypets]

There is not enough rotifers in a $20 bottle (i doubt even a days worth) to raise a clutch of clownfish. Rotifers (do not posses a high nutritional value) need to be enriched with phytoplankton every 2 to 4 hours for nutritional (EPA, DHA, ARA, and other nutrients) value due to a high metabolism . You can read more about rotifers @ Reedmariculture.com. You could buy 5 million rotifers from Reef Nutrition @$75 plus shipping, but would sill need 2 buckets, air, and to feed them RG Complete twice a day. You should be able to keep the rotifers alive for a week if not over or under feed. Order another 5 million for week 2 and by day 14 they should be weaned on to TDO "A", no more rotifers needed.

 

[Hijinks_78]

There is not enough rotifers in a $20 bottle (i doubt even a days worth) to raise a clutch of clownfish. Rotifers (do not posses a high nutritional value) need to be enriched with phytoplankton every 2 to 4 hours for nutritional (EPA, DHA, ARA, and other nutrients) value due to a high metabolism . You can read more about rotifers @ Reedmariculture.com. You could buy 5 million rotifers from Reef Nutrition @$75 plus shipping, but would sill need 2 buckets, air, and to feed them RG Complete twice a day. You should be able to keep the rotifers alive for a week if not over or under feed. Order another 5 million for week 2 and by day 14 they should be weaned on to TDO "A", no more rotifers needed.

That’s the answer I’m looking for and at $150ish probably right on the line between being worth it or not...

 

[Rjramos]

There is not enough rotifers in a $20 bottle (i doubt even a days worth) to raise a clutch of clownfish. Rotifers (do not posses a high nutritional value) need to be enriched with phytoplankton every 2 to 4 hours for nutritional (EPA, DHA, ARA, and other nutrients) value due to a high metabolism . You can read more about rotifers @ Reedmariculture.com. You could buy 5 million rotifers from Reef Nutrition @$75 plus shipping, but would sill need 2 buckets, air, and to feed them RG Complete twice a day. You should be able to keep the rotifers alive for a week if not over or under feed. Order another 5 million for week 2 and by day 14 they should be weaned on to TDO "A", no more rotifers needed.

This is the best reply. I’ve had experience raising clownfish and other marine fish. Preparation prior to larvae hatching is key. By this I mean, you should have a dense 5 gal bucket culture of rotifers ready. You could buy a smaller culture of rotifers then than the 5 million at $75 mentioned above and grow out a smaller culture in bucket. I have never used Rotigrow Complete,but I’ve heard it works. Instead I have also, prior to larval hatch, established around 6- 2 liter bottles of nannochloropsis phytoplankton. This has to be fed daily to the rotifer culture,by maintaining the water green tinged. If the water goes clear, rotifer culture will crash soon afterwards. Well enriched rotifers are a must until metamorphosis takes place at around 2 weeks, after this newly hatched baby brine shrimp or TDO “A” size as mentioned can be used. Some small sieves around 50 micron are necessary to harvest rotifers from bucket to feed larvae. Matt Wittenrich’s book Marine Fish Breeding is a great source of information for everything you need to know. That’s where I got started! Remember preparation prior to hatch is very important for best results. Hope you have great results! Keep us posted.

 

[yeon.joon.hong]

My neighbor raises them. You need the live food. Once they get bigger after a month or two, he feeds them powdered food called first bites I think.

To put in perspective, your asking two week old baby to eat pizza. It isn't going to work.

is it true that clownfish will have eggs every two weeks?

 

[AC1211]

If I may add to this thread even though it is a bit old. I just fed my Molly fry reef roids. Upon inspection they ate it. It is now time for a little experiment with Molly fry. Only pulled 2 of the the tank this time however. Let's see how this goes.

 

[Reef GE]

There are some breeders that don't use rotifers at all. They use BBS, but I do believe they have more losses then when using rotifers.

what’s BBS

There are some breeders that don't use rotifers at all. They use BBS, but I do believe they have more losses then when using rotifers.

 

[Rtaylor]

what’s BBS

Baby brine shrimp

 

[Tlledsmar]

If I may add to this thread even though it is a bit old. I just fed my Molly fry reef roids. Upon inspection they ate it. It is now time for a little experiment with Molly fry. Only pulled 2 of the the tank this time however. Let's see how this goes.

What was the experiment?