Another good use for knee highs!

[Kathy55g]

Made a larval snagger in about 15 minutes with a cut off soda bottle, a minijet 404, a knee high stocking, and a plastic shoe box. First I cut some large holes in the sides and bottom of the soda bottle bottom, put a knee high stocking over it, and a minijet 404 set on lowest flow inside it. I have some flexible tubing attached to the outlet, to direct the water out of the box. Cut a square hole near the top of a clear plastic shoe box and lined the jagged edges with electricians tape, and covered the side of the box, too. Mounted a pen light on a clothespin with a rubber band and clamped it over the hole.

Floated the whole thing into my tank right over the nest, and clamped it in place so the water level came halfway up the diameter of the hole. Pluggd in the minijet. Nice soft flow thru the hole.

Turned the nearby powerhead and protein skimmer off, and waited for the lights to go off. When they did, I turned the pen light on, and did a sudoku puzzle in the next room. Came back later to hundreds of larvae!

They are not sucked against the nylon stocking, but they do attempt to swim back out the hole to the light. The flow throws them back in. I hope they do not injure themselves, but we will see.

This is the first time I've harvested from my very own clownfish. This is their third spawn, so I will not get my hopes up too high. The nest was huge, and fun to watch as it changed colors etc. My clowns lay in neat, tight rows, unlike my friend's ocellaris. They were a bit haphazard in laying pattern.

I don't have many rotifers as I just got back from vacation and the refrigerator technique did not work for me this time. Fortunately, the guys at the local university who study zebrafish are nice and generous with their rots. I plan to put these larvae in a ten gallon, instead of my usual 20, to help out with the rotifer situation. I may start them out at 4 gallons of water.

Well, wish me luck, I'm going to get the snagger out of the tank, now, and put the larvae into their new home.

Cheers,
Kathy

 

[Kathy55g]

Snagger seemed to have worked flawlessly. I have hundreds of living larvae. They are big and dark and active and have started eating enriched rots. Yahoo!

 

[Coraldynamics]

Excellent Kathy! Lets see some pix of that contraption!

 

[ediaz]

When the fish reach market size you can use fish nets to catch them...


The mesage was too long , I will type it again when back from indiana.

Ed

 

[Kathy55g]

Ha ha, Ed.

I'll get some pictures this evening. These larvae look really good. NO dead ones this morning, so I guess the flow was not too much for them in the snagger.

It is Dman's design with the hole in the side of the box. I think it brilliant to do it that way rather than a siphon. The hole exposes them to flow for only a second as they are carried over the threshold, and they do not bang against the sides of the tubing as they would in a siphon. I have no dead ones this morning, and they look really good--different from the ones I got from my friend.

They are darker with dark stomachs, not yellow. They are not transparent. They may be bigger than my friend's larvae. I am just delighted that my very own clownfish are apparantly doing such a good job of spawning. This bodes well for the future. I wonder what the fry will look like....Will they get their bands at different times, will there be deformities/misbarrs? Will they be the darker color that my parent fish are?

I can hardly wait for them to grow up!

 

[Kathy55g]

When I took the snagger out of the parent tank, there were still eggs on the rock. They were gone this morning. I may have pulled the snagger too soon, but I did not want to be greedy and lose the lot to the flow from the snagger. Now that I know that it is not too much, i can leave the snagger in there longer next time.

Papa clownfish is looking a bit ragged, but Mama looks like she could lay another nest today. She is huge, and the ovipositor is visible. I am going to have to target feed Papa. He often seems uninterested in food. Even when it floats by the nest. I worry about putting too much food near the nest, as it may attract other fish and shrimp who may develop a taste for clownfish eggs.

Perhaps I should not worry. Just before the Italy trip, I think my clownfish killed one of my cleaner shrimp. Found its dead body split in two on either side of the nest....

Cheers, on that cheery note.
Kathy

 

[Dman]

pictures, please

 

[Kathy55g]

I put the pictures in this thread to keep the larval snaggers all together.
Here is a link.

 

[KMatysek]

Thanks for the pics! I can't wait to try it out.

Congratulations on your first home-brewed batch!

 

[Kathy55g]

Thanks, Kathy

 

[Dman]

Is that ever freakin cool.
Well done.

 

[Kathy55g]

Freakin! Thanks.

 

[Kathy55g]

Day 7, today. They are now on Oto A and bbs, so the rots can dwindle in the larvae tank and I can build up the rot culture for the hatch that should happen on Friday night. No headbands yet, but lots of tail curling and bunching up. Meta cannot be far away!

It is really fun to have your own spawning clownfish!

This hatch is really different from the other parent fish's larvae. Friend's larvae was transparent, these guys are dark. Friend's larvae showed big bellies , these do less of that.

I have had a death a day for the first four days, and then 2 or 3 a day since then. Not significant given the population--I am guessing one or two hundred.

I put them on system water today day 7. This is the earliest I have ever done it.

Usually I coast along until they start dying, and then I give myself a good dope slap and say, "Ammonia!" like you would say, "Eureka!". Then put them on the system. After several eureka moments, including a couple of dozen dead fish, even I can learn.

Unfortunately they are very attracted to the overflow. I have bridal veil over the gutter guard (interesting juxtapositioning of adjectives) plugging the inlet, but they climb on the ledge of the pvc and tempt fate. After brushing them off a couple of times, I got some more bridal veil and rubber banded it to the outside of the pvc. We will see. Which is better, losing them to the overflow, or losing them to ammonia....Perhaps I'll lose less to the overflow.

I would not be too surprised if I had a massive die off tomorrow. I am due. This has gone far too swimmingly. Ha.

I am a little worried that I am not feeding enough. They don't have the large bellies that have characterized previous lavae fed bbs. I guess I'll find out. I came home at lunch today to give them a little more bbs. Another small serving this evening. Still not sure if it is enough. I have never had such a large number of mouths to feed. Still, they look like they are growing, and healthy and active. If it ain't broke...


Tomorrow is another day,
Cheers,
Kathy

 

[Kathy55g]

Oh, at the St. Louis Saltwater Enthusiast Association meeting last Saturday, I ran into a guy who breeds perculas in Illinois . I turned him on to the larval snagger I made, and he built one and used it on his latest hatch. Worked well for him, too. Thanks, David M! Brilliant!

 

[David M]

I put them on system water today day 7.

So.. does that mean you are not keeping the larvae at a lower sg? What is the sg of the "system" ? Also, if on the sytem now, does that mean you are not adding algae to the larval tank?

 

[Kathy55g]

my entire system is at 27ppt. Same as the larval tank. I added algae until today, correct.

 

[David M]

So many different methods employed here. I seem to have better luck with the larvae at 22ppt, but my system is also at 27 like yours. I started the lower salinity a few hatches ago based on advice here and it has greatly reduced my early losses. I was advised to keep them there thru met but haven't got that far yet, my 10 day olds died out. Maybe I'll try the low salinity for 5-7 days and then bring them up to where I can put them in the system by 9-10 days. I'm sure I lost those fish to overfeeding/ poor water quality/low 02 or something having to do with the small isolated volume of water.

 

[Kathy55g]

Day 10 is when my ammonia shoots up. Or day 9 if I am feeding dry food. Big losses on that day could be ammonia. Are these guys you lost in a tank with the bioballs in the other half?

I wonder if that is the problem. Have you raised Ocellaris in a tank without bioballs?

At 27 ppt, I lost 4 larvae in 4 days. I cannot complain about that.
Keeping the larvae the same as the system helps get them on it later.
K

 

[David M]

There was a sponge filter in the back section but no bioballs, I usually add them after met. I think all the successful broods have been in the two section tanks with BB's.

 

[Dman]

I just had a pair of Percs decide to lay on the back glass of their tank the other day. We built a larval snagger for this one based on the success you had with yours. Pictures and hopefully a success story here by Sunday.