My first attempt raising clownfish

[Eliot]

great thread

 

[Pinback]

Yep. Lovely journey

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Thanks all. The journey still continues but ive been slacking. Ive had so many other things going on as well rearing difficulties that i havent had too much to post about for updates. Ive acquired some new breedings pairs but dont have much to show currently.

 

[Brian W]

Thanks all. The journey still continues but ive been slacking. Ive had so many other things going on as well rearing difficulties that i havent had too much to post about for updates. Ive acquired some new breedings pairs but dont have much to show currently.

Any updates yet?

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Any updates yet?

Not too much good news. Ive had some mishaps that wiped out some darwin clowns i was raising. At the moment im only raising a few regular clowns. Wish i had more exciting news.

 

[Brian W]

Not too much good news. Ive had some mishaps that wiped out some darwin clowns i was raising. At the moment im only raising a few regular clowns. Wish i had more exciting news.

sorry to hear that man. Hope you will back in full swing soon!

 

[Shixpoo]

Hey reefermadness09, hope all is well. My first clown pair just laid eggs.. I want to try to raise them.. my main concern is removing them from the tank. How did you do it exactly? And also how did you grow Rotifers? Thanks

 

[Gunnyreefer]

This is an old thread so I hope no one minds if I answer this.

1) I believe he used a bowl to collect the fry after lights out on day 8. This is done by watching and knowing exactly what day the nest was laid. Next you wait around 8ish days, on the 8th night after lights out, turn off all flow and wait for the eggs to hatch. After they have hatched you point a small flashlight at the surface of the tank where you want to catch them from.
An easier method to this is using a Vossen Larval Trap
The easiest method is setting up a clay pot or tile either in your display or a specific tank or system for your clowns.
2) Rotifers are usually purchased as a culture in a bag or bottle. I would recommend picking up the book by
Joyce Wilkerson Clownfishes. And there is also an amazing thread on here: pickles guide to breeding clowns. I'm only 20 days into my first batch of clowns, but I can try to answer any questions you may have.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Thanks for covering down gunny reefer and semper. I have to admit that i havent looked at this thread in quite a while, didnt realize there were new comments. As gunny mentioned, my original attempt was using a flash light to draw the newly hatched fry to the tank surface and then collecting them with a plastic deli cup.

While that approach worked, i definitely wasnt able to catch as many as i would have liked and took quite a bit of effort/time. (If your tank lighting schedule is set like mine, lights out usually means you should be in bed sleeping and hatch always seems to happen on a week night meaning its going to be a long day at work lol). I personally believe having a dedicated tank for the breeding pair with a tile or pot for them to lay on is best. You can pull the pot or tile and put it in another tank by itself to hatch thus having all the fry contained already.

Rotifers are pretty straight forward to culture. First youll need to buy some rots, i think L type are the most commonly used. There are various places to buy but reed mariculture is a great place to start. Besides that you'll need phytoplankton to feed the rots( which can be live or a concentrate such as rgcomplete which i would recommend, a 5g bucket, air pump, airline, rotifer sieve, and some airline tubing. The phyto food is the most expensive part but otherwise its straight forward and pretty easy. Fill the bucket with salinity appropriate water, add some phyto to tint the water a slight green, put a lid on it and run some airline tube into the bucket to lightly bubble the water( if you get any foaming action at the top of the water your need to turn down the air) The main requirement for rotifers is to ensure that you are keeping the rotifer water green and also harvesting a small amount of them each day once your culture is up and running otherwise youll risk the culture cashing due them overpopulating.

Sorry the long winded response and happy breeding! Its a very rewarding pursuit.

 

[Sharir]

I recommend weening them off brine shrimp using TDO croma boost foods. They have a wide array of food sizes and have high protein and fat content. Lots of breeders use it. Great job by the way.

 

[mattgsa]

This is a great thread

 

[Bryn]

@ReeferMadness09 Did you ever post pictures of your hatching tank, brood tank setup on here any where?

Thanks

 

[Bpp124987]

Are you still breeding or gave it up?
Great thread!

 

[ReeferMadness09]

@ReeferMadness09 Did you ever post pictures of your hatching tank, brood tank setup on here any where?

You know, im not sure if i did for my broodstock tank or not. Ill see if i can get one up. For the hatching I've just used your everyday anything from 2.5- 10g tank. The growout was done in a simple 55g tank as well.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Are you still breeding or gave it up?
Great thread!

I still have my system running but i havent been doing any raising for a little while now. I think when a person initially starts breeding its because of the excitement of a pair they have that starts laying eggs. You put in the work ( and its a lot lol) and hopefully raise some fish. Some time passes and eventually life gets in the way and starts to slow your efforts down. Thats been my story for a while. It still fascinates me and i think ill always do it but maybe not as prolifically. Ive bought some clown pairs recently from awesome people on here and other places that i hope might breed one day for future projects.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Well, after over a year the itch needed to be scratched. Figured I should include it in the thread. Recently had the opportunity to get a special pair of clowns from a great member here. Here's my Bali Aquarich Picasso's.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Taking reef2reef along for the ride, here's a shot of the first clutch of fry. Only managed to collect a few fry but I ended up with 15 or so past meta. They're getting stripes but not quite far along enough to see how they compare to the parents yet.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Here's the 2nd clutch. I was better organized this time and collected quite a few. These are 3-4 days old and doing well.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

First clutch is coming along well. Most look like normal clowns but I have 4 or 5 that are mostly white. There's not much variation in-between but it's only about 20 fish. My second clutch is about to go into meta and is much bigger. Maybe I'll see more variation in that one.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

Ok so here's a shot of the first clutch at just over a month. A few platinums and mostly regular percs but the color is good. I have some much larger subsequent hatches that I will post in the coming weeks. I'm hoping to see more variation in the larger clutches.