Amphiprion percula "Onxy" (Onyx Percula Clown) Breeding Log!

Quick update on Batch III -> They are now 40 or 41 days old and we have one with a nicely developing 2nd stripe....harder to watch these ones grow as they're still in a breeder net!

I'm thinking about taking daily photos of the clownfish nests to show the development day by day (and do "egg counts" to see what, if any attrition rate, there is)....we'll see!

Matt
 
good luck and im tearing down my 300 and moving my clowns into a 30 cube so i will take tile and place tile in the tank next to where their host is just so they get used to having it in there and then just hope for the best.
 
Back from Vegas and it looks like all system's go for a hatch Tuesday night. I'm ready to nail the clowns this time around! Reread Wilkerson cover-to-cover on the plan trips there and back (went to visit my parents).

I know Tuesday will be early for a hatch, but they sure look ready (heck, I almost thought they had started hatching tonight when I walked in and put the flashlight on them!)

Matt
 
good luck still hoping mine come around these black/white oc's are evil i went to go feed a piece of shucked mussel to the anemone and i had them both on me like a pair of rabid pitbulls grabbing on and shaking and hitting me like there was no tomorrow. im just glad they werent maroons or clarks i would have had a few chunks taken out. but they seem to be settling in as i still havent taken down the 300.

the little guy got his shake on alot after i fed the nem and the female really did antagonize him for a bit i guess she was upset he let the big thing get too close but this morning they were both snug in the nem so hopefully its a sign of things to come.
 
12-12-06 - the eggs of Batch VI are 7 days old, and I shot a picture. I'm pretty sure they may hatch tonight. My count - 469 eggs remain, ready to go...

DSCN7548_eggcount.jpg


Here they are again, for comparison, at the time of spawning (7 days ago).

12-5-06_Batch6_975_DSCN7524_dots.jpg


FWIW,

Matt
 
12-12-06, 10:00 PM, we have a HATCH! Batch VI officially begins! Just over 7 days from egg laying to hatch...incubation temps hovered around 82-83F

So the lights in the parental tank go off at 9:30 PM...I immediately turn out all the other lights in the room. By 10:00 or so, larvae had started popping off...by 10:30 it looked like the larval collector had captured all it would get, so I spent the next 35 minutes collecting maybe 15 more by hand...mostly with the specimen cup, but the last few deepwater stranglers via a very gentle turkey baster. The larval tank was drained & seived, returning the rotifers and calanoid copepods to the tank along with 5 gallons of parental water earlier today. So far it looks like everything has gone without a hitch, except for the fact that I collected maybe 100 larvae at best.

So somewhere between this afternoon and now, 350 larvae were lost. Don't know if the tankmates got to 'em as they hatched, or if something else happened. Bottom line though, it simply wasn't large enough of a hatch for what I was looking for. I'm thinking that my next move is to try to replace the parent's current spawning setup with some sort of tile arrangement that can be removed and replaced for hatching.

The other strange thing is that at least to me, the larvae look like the "thin" larvae that Wilkeson describes. So, for at least tonight, I think I'm going to leave the lights on and let them feed....probably adding .5 L Nannochloropsis as well. This gametime decision hasn't officially been made.

Any thoughts or advice are welcomed as always...

Matt
 
So just some quick updates.

Batch VI - most of the larvae were on the bottom at light's out. I had added 1 L Nannochloropsis to the water to enrich the pods and rots which had been without food since this afternoon. I was going to leave the lights ON, but realized that they're on the same strip as the culture lights...so for now...they're getting a rest and in the morning it's time to FEED little buggers!

Batch I - over the weekend the largest juvie simply disappeared...Graham (my reef buddy, former coworked and fish caretaker) was actually in line for the particular fish that disappeared...bummer. He said it simply stopped eating and was gone the next day. We're both clueless on this mystery loss. The rest all seem to be going strong.

FWIW,

Matt
 
.5 days on Batch VI and for a change, the bottom isn't littered with corpses when the lights came on this morning! That's a step in the right direction ;)

Matt
 
sure is get apicture :-p

im taking mental notes and pictures and trying to figure in my head what i need to do im really hoping i can raise these b/w offspring because i do plan on a harder to get pair of clowns in the future and i want to perfect this.
 
How would you like to fight your way out of a constricting shell and the have to stay awake for more than 24 hours swimming on brand new muscles without so much as a nap?

Larvae need their rest. Good decision to leave the lights off. They will learn to eat just fine in the time they have. They have 3 days to master the skill. Just keep those rots bursting with selco or fresh phyto, and they will be fine.
 
Well Kathy, they DID get their rest and today they look great...all swimming around and feeding (tail curling lurches towards rotifers etc..). Unless I really screw something up, I may actually get a fair amount of juvies for a change!

Matt
 
SS Rotifers are on the sink, getting a selcon enrichment as I type this. I'm keeping the tank's "food" limited to SS Rots, as well as the existing copepod populations, so that down the line I don't have to tear down and start it over should I want to use it for Mandarins or something else...I'm sure the clowns will remove MOST all of the pods and rots, but just thinking that having the pods and rots present when I finally move the clowns out will make it easier to get it ready for "tiny larvae" rearing...besides, I have way more SS rots on hand at the moment!

Matt
 
where are the pods coming from? and i see your hatching the rots in a seperate container then taking some out and adding selco to the water they are in before you syphon them out and add them to the tank the fry are in?

sorry for sounding newb ish but i am still :-p
 
Well Keef, I've been trying something a "wee bit different". I maintain 3 copepod cultures...Tiggerpods, Acartia tonsa, and an unidentified and TINY benthic copepod. The Tiggers and the "benthic nanopods" will swim at times (especially tiggerpods that aren't adults)....

Soo....when a tank is empty, I'm co-culturing the 3 pod species in the 10 gallon at temperature along with SS rotifers. So when I was ready for this hatch, I drained the tank but seived out all the life and returned it (along with broodstock water). The result was clean water with lots of good life, not just rotifers, for the babies.

This is DEFINITELY NOT NECESSARY for clownfish, but I'm doing this to keep tanks ready for other fish that may need or see a big benefit from the pod populations (i.e. no doubt it helped the GBG's). IF the empty larval tank had received baby Apogon leptacanthus, Priolepis hipoliti, or Mandarins, it would've been more than "ready" for them. Copepods in general have been determined to be a major contributing factor in larval marine fish diets (i.e. basically that's what they actually eat)...so the SS Rots are there as a mainstay for "tiny" larvae, as well as whatever copepod nauplii etc are present in the aquarium as well.

So basically, while it's not necessary at all for the clownfish larvae, it isn't going to hurt either! ;)

Matt
 
good idea where did you get the pods to culture and if you could document your culturing if you have some free time and shoot it to me in email i would love to see it ill start culturing them now even tho my fish arent spawning and i can feed them to the tank. or add them to the tank be good culturing practice for me also.

im all into making sure i have this down before hand. practice makes perfect.

my wife can attest to that :-p
 
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