Any clown breeders out there willing to give a guy some advise?

[WDLV]

I've diverted my focus away from reefs for the last two years in hopes of successfully breeding a few clown species. I have yet to get any spawners.....

Over a year together:
leucokranos (not pairing well)
barberi (pairing well)
nigripes (not pairing well)

Less than a year together:
ocellaris (pairing well)
thiellei/sandaracinos (pairing well)
ephppium (pairing well)
percula (pairing well)
latezonatus (pairing well)

Food: Two or more feedings per day of the folowing from most to least used.
1. home blend of table shrimp and tilapia cyclopeeze and mysis
2. spectra pellet
3. high quality flake foods


Temps: 78-84

Photo period: 14 hrs

Water quality: Good enough to keep corals and anemones.

 

[tufacody]

I'm not a breeder, but many recommend bloodworms and a slightly increased photoperiod. I've also notice that the majority of reports of successful spawns also seem to have a hosting nem in the tank.

 

[Mike31154]

Can't say I'm a breeder, but I do have a Maroon Clown pair. They've been together around a year and a half. Both relatively juvenile when I got them, one 6 months or so after the other. The pairing ritual took about a month and it was a little stressful. First spawn that I noted was beginning April, then another followed several weeks later. Haven't done anything since those two initial spawns. They share a 75 gal with a number of other fishes and are hosting in a BTA.

 

[kerusso316]

Pm sent.

 

[95accord]

have a good spot for them to lay eggs?i heard they like clay pots or ceramic tiles. nice hard smooth surface.

 

[WDLV]

Thanks to those who PMed and posted thus far. Perhaps I should ellaborate on my systems a bit.

Most of my clowns are in 10 gallon tanks with a tile or a flowerpot. Those temps are 78-82 target. I'm using Whisper EX45 and the older version (Whisper 40.) I use 50W heaters.

I also have a 300 gallon system consisting of 3 100 gallon rubbermaid troughs. One is chock full of liverock and has a Euroreef CS12-2 skimmer. That system houses my leucs in one trough and my latz in another. The latz system has about a dozen E.quadricolors and one H.magnifica. The leuc side has one large E. quadricolor. Because this system contains latz the target temp is lower than the other systems. How low depends on the season.
I am definately going to remove the leucs and put them back into a 10 gallon because they live on opposite ends of the tank they're in. The question I'm pondering is whether I will split them up and try to find new mates or keep them together and assume I've been doing something wrong the last couple years.

Also the there's a tang in each tank. The one in the leuc side (hippo) doesn't do his job and so there's hair algae everywhere despite he's extremely fat. The latz side is smooth as a whistle thanks to a clown tang that was worth every penny. So, I think I'm gonna transfer that E. quad in the leuc side to the latz side, clean it out really well and find a new tang for algae cleanup. Either way, the leucs are coming out.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

re: A. barberi

re: A. barberi

Walt- what species (hybrid?) is this? I've never heard of it....

 

[Rod Buehler]

I dont consider myself a breeder, just a guy that has lots of breeding pairs. I have been given 4 new pairs this past year. 3 of the 4 have never spawned before I got them. All 4 have spawned within the first month of me having them. I attribute the spawning to 2 things. The first is that I placed a flat 6x6" ceramic tile for them to lay on and second I believe its the food that I feed. (PM me for the brand name ). The food has a lot of small particles that mignt simulate a plankton bloom? I only feed once a day with 10 spawning pairs.

Polymnus, (new pair.. a few babies just past meta, and more hatched last night I think)
sandarcinos (raised a few babies to adults. I dont always pull these eggs.)
nigripes, ( I have only pulled 2 batches, no luck raising any yet)
Frenatus/melenopus (Raised a few to adults. I rarely pull these eggs)
clarki (Only 1 spawn from what I that was 2 females.. Havent pulled any eggs yet)
Ocellaris (first spawn will hatch soon)
perc (x4) ( I only pull one set.. raised a few thousand)

Eppiphiums that I gave away because they were the most evil things when they had eggs.. I mean EVIL! ( Raised a few to adults. Still have one that is about 3 years old . Free for the taking )

Temps hover in the mid to upper 80s in the summer, and upper 70s in the winter with an average of 80-82

 

[WDLV]

Re: re: A. barberi

Re: re: A. barberi

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15102302#post15102302 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
Walt- what species (hybrid?) is this? I've never heard of it....

It's a Fiji species recently described by Gerald Allen.

 

[WDLV]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15102467#post15102467 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rod Buehler
I dont consider myself a breeder, just a guy that has lots of breeding pairs. I have been given 4 new pairs this past year. 3 of the 4 have never spawned before I got them. All 4 have spawned within the first month of me having them. I attribute the spawning to 2 things. The first is that I placed a flat 6x6" ceramic tile for them to lay on and second I believe its the food that I feed. (PM me for the brand name ). The food has a lot of small particles that mignt simulate a plankton bloom? I only feed once a day with 10 spawning pairs.

Polymnus, (new pair.. a few babies just past meta, and more hatched last night I think)
sandarcinos (raised a few babies to adults. I dont always pull these eggs.)
nigripes, ( I have only pulled 2 batches, no luck raising any yet)
Frenatus/melenopus (Raised a few to adults. I rarely pull these eggs)
clarki (Only 1 spawn from what I that was 2 females.. Havent pulled any eggs yet)
Ocellaris (first spawn will hatch soon)
perc (x4) ( I only pull one set.. raised a few thousand)

Eppiphiums that I gave away because they were the most evil things when they had eggs.. I mean EVIL! ( Raised a few to adults. Still have one that is about 3 years old . Free for the taking )

Temps hover in the mid to upper 80s in the summer, and upper 70s in the winter with an average of 80-82

Rod,
We are on several of the same forums. Feel free to reply to me on any of them. I know that the brand you probably speak of is a sponsor on at least one of them. I have the same screen name everywhere I go....
Anyhow thank's for posting. I'd like to hear more about your experience with A. sandaracinos and A. nigripes. Particularly as it relates to behavior and system description. The skunks are giving me the hardest time. They overwhelmingly ignore each other. I'd be happy just to see them fight a little.

 

[landlord]

Walt - Do you have a good feel on whether the clowns are comfortable in their broodstock tanks. Are they displaying natural behavior, etc... Myself being really new to the game find myself staring at them 24/7. I personally do not think the broodtank environment, at least in my case, lends itself to an environment comfortable for making them feel at ease. I dunno, if me and my wife were stuck in broom closet we probably wouldn't have too many children either :lol:

You have spent a lot of time gathering some nice pairs, perhaps devoting time now to making each pair happy is in order. This advice seems pretty generic, for that, I'm sorry but I've only got Tomatos breeding right now and several pairs that I'm simply trying to make comfortable. If you ever need advice on the tomato complex I'd be glad to offer my experience.

Good Luck - Kurt

 

[WDLV]

As a general rule everyone seems happy with the tank dimentions and setup. Larger pairs (tomato complex) are seeming to be as happy as smaller pairs (percula/ocellaris).
Most breeders use similar setups, so I'm not too concerned with this aspect.
That said I may eventually go with a larger tank for the larger complexes.

 

[MarinaP]

They'll breed for you when they want. These creatures have minds of their own. Consistency and stability are the key factors, IMO. Don't move them around, feed them on the schedule, keep the temp stable, set the lights on a timer.

 

[Toddrtrex]

I am not a breeder, but currently have two pairs of spawning clowns (( used to have a pair of spawning GSM )) -- a Clarkii pair and a pink skunk pair. The Clarkii pair took about a year to start spawning (( guessing at that, since I have had them for 10 years )), and the pink skunk pair took about a year and a half.

Both are in display tanks (( full reefs )), my temps are b/t 78 & 83, photoperiod is about 12 hours for actinics and about 6.5 for MHs. I feed a variety of foods -- Rod's food (( red, green and blue label )), LifeLine's herbivore mix, Prime Reef and Spectrum pellets. On average they are fed twice a day. Right now both pairs spawn on a rock, but I have had the Clarkiis (( and GSM )) spawn on a tile in the past. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes.

Both of my pairs are so comfortable with spawning and me that I can do a water change while they are spawning. And when I moved the Clarkiis kept their spawning schedule (( every two weeks ))

 

[WDLV]

I guess I'm looking for something I'm doing wrong. So far the things that seem to be standing out from what I already have going are that I:

1. Typically only feed twice per day. I've had a couple people say to double that. honestly I think the best I could do is three times. More on the weekends.
2. Keep a more stable environment. For me that would mean not moving them around. I have moved the older ones around two or three times in the last two years.
3. Try simulating a plankton bloom. I guess I could either hatch some of these brine eggs I have or give Rod's food a try (I see why Rod can't mention this but I see no reason that I can't.) I'm semi-cautious about an ammonia spike, so I may need to ramp that up to give my bio filters a chance to adjust. I do usually feed enough (I see pellets at the bottom sometimes) but probably need to feed more often.
4. I need to provide a little better quality of light.
5. I'm gonna switch all my smaller tanks from having flower pots in some cases to having tiles. I currently have about 50/50 tiles and flower pots. There are some with branch rock for a little added hiding space for the males. I will remove that also.


Question.... I use 6x6 soapstone tiles because they look more like liverock and probably aid the biofiltration to some degree. Is there anything wrong with using this style?

 

[Grunt]

I will get some pics of my tiles for you Walt. Not sure on brand tbh.
Got em at Lowe;s.

Out of all the pairs I've had lay eggs it was always in a reef and I couldnt get them to put it on a tile. I'm now offering pots and tiles in my current system. My saddlebacks seem to prefer the pot atm.

 

[Toddrtrex]

When I did use tiles, I just use a regular ceramic tile from Home Depot, like this one,

As you can see, it was partially covered in coralline, but that didn't seem to bother them. If memory serves the tile used to be leaning up against the rock, but had fallen over -- it didn't bother them at all. At the time of this picture, I was keeping BTAs, and it was just above the clown -- out of the picture.

 

[Grunt]

Thats a nice clutch Todd.

 

[WDLV]

So here's how I have been running things in my breeder style tanks.

This is the reef that the latz live in.

I neglected to mention that there are some percs in this tank too. It seems to be helping the latz pairing process by keeping them in the same anemone cluster.

This is how my leucs have been living. You'll notice that the male is nowhere in sight. He's on the opposite end of the tank hiding in a clump of hair algae.

Here's my problem.

These damsels are prior spawners from my 210 reef. The branch rock in this tank was the same stuff they used to spawn on.

Here's what I'm going to be trying on probably everything but the Latz.

 

[Toddrtrex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15103277#post15103277 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Grunt
Thats a nice clutch Todd.

Thanks. I really should think about putting a tile back into that tank, just in case I ever think about raising the fry (( trying too )) they would be used to it. Though that pair doesn't care about anything -- will break from spawning to eat, and then go back to work.