Baby Clowns DAY 24

[Lukel]

Here is a vid of my clowns on day 24 !!!


http://youtu.be/cKULA6r8s30


Approximately 50 plus clowns still around!!
Losses to date: 16

 

[Sport507]

Good job Luke keep them rolling. What size tank do you have them in now and what are you feeding?

 

[Lukel]

They are in a 12 gallon tank filled about 4 inches from top. Today was their last feeding of Rotifers, and they eat Frozen Brine now, and Poloverized Flake... (ocean nutrician)....

 

[saltyjo]

Seeing this gives me hope. I am about to attempt my first clutch, they are due to hatch this coming Thursday night. I am all set up with rotifers. I have a 10 gallon set up as a nursery. Any tips or tricks you learned getting them to day 24 would be greatly appreciated.
Congrats!

 

[Lukel]

Seeing this gives me hope. I am about to attempt my first clutch, they are due to hatch this coming Thursday night. I am all set up with rotifers. I have a 10 gallon set up as a nursery. Any tips or tricks you learned getting them to day 24 would be greatly appreciated.
Congrats!

Couple things... Dont fill the 10 gallon nursury all the way... its too hard to keep food density high for those first 5 or 6 days... also check your food density (rotifers) in your fry tank regularly (25 rotis per mililiter) The way i check is to fill a test vial with tank water (the 5 ml ones) and count the rotis....

Lighting: cover the sides of the tank with black construction paper , make sure no light gets in from sides, also the light you use to light the tank, cant bee to bright, my 12 gallon has a 8watt compact flouresecnt 8 inches from water surface, if all the fry look like lawn darts on bottom of tank, the light is too bright!

siphon tank bottom clean everyday after day 3 with R.O. line and a old credit card....

i do 1 gallon water change Every day AFTER day 3, BUT i drip the new water into the tank with a tied off air line,

i think those where some of the more important things....
Ohh ya... i only did a 16hour light on peroid... Even now...

any questions, don't hesitate...

 

[saltyjo]

I have the nursery blacked out. I cut the cardboard box the tank came in to fight tight around the tank and duct taped all the seams. The tank came with a little hood that has 2 incandescent bulbs I will take one out and just use one in the begining.
About the rotifers, I have been culturing them in lower salinity than my main tank. The directions said they are more brackish and grow better at a lower salinity... I was wondering once the rotifers are put in the fry tank how long will they live in the higher salinity water?
Thanks for the tip about counting rotifers, much cheaper than buying a microscope!
Your parent fish are great looking! My spawning couple are my 5 year old true percs that finally decided not to eat their eggs after the 5th time. The last clutch the male ate all but about 20 that I watched with suprize as they developed and hatched into the display tank. This time however I am going to try to be ready to rear them.
Thanks so much for your advice it is much appreciated. This is the only place where I can truely share my enthusiasm.
~Jo

 

[Lukel]

I have the nursery blacked out. I cut the cardboard box the tank came in to fight tight around the tank and duct taped all the seams. The tank came with a little hood that has 2 incandescent bulbs I will take one out and just use one in the begining.
About the rotifers, I have been culturing them in lower salinity than my main tank. The directions said they are more brackish and grow better at a lower salinity... I was wondering once the rotifers are put in the fry tank how long will they live in the higher salinity water?
Thanks for the tip about counting rotifers, much cheaper than buying a microscope!
Your parent fish are great looking! My spawning couple are my 5 year old true percs that finally decided not to eat their eggs after the 5th time. The last clutch the male ate all but about 20 that I watched with suprize as they developed and hatched into the display tank. This time however I am going to try to be ready to rear them.
Thanks so much for your advice it is much appreciated. This is the only place where I can truely share my enthusiasm.
~Jo

My rotifer culture is 1.020, they can handle higher salinity they just don't multiply as fast, but ive never had a problem, you got to be careful cause they can only handle a .007 change in salinity, so they go into shock wen you throw them in the nursury, but i keep my nursury at 1.022 (according to joyce wilkersen there is a way higher success rate around there)
if you wan't the rotifers to last long in the fry tank, just add a little phyto, just a little bit, then the rotifers can eat and multiply in the nursury too.... if you look at the vids on my channel on youtube, you will see the first couple are a bit green....

those arent my parent fish... sadly they havent spawned since my strey voltage from a power head.... i got my eggs from a fellow reefer...

 

[Sport507]

I also keep my rotifers at 1.020 at room temp. of 72 F. However, although it's true that they do not reproduce as rapidly at 1.026 SG they do reproduce more rapidly at higher temperatures. So it's pretty much a wash IMO and I think they reproduce close to the same in the fry tank. I tested this by setting up my second 5 gal. fry tank early and put a small culture in it. In 3 days it was loaded with rots at 80 F.

Depending on the number of fry, after the hatch I load heavy with rots keep the water tented light green and I don't need to had anymore rots until about day 3 or 4, again, depending on the number of fry. I run my fry tanks at 1.025-1.026 SG same as the parent's tank.

 

[saltyjo]

Luke,
Initial Sucess! My eggs hatched tonight and with the help of Joyce Wilkerson and a few others I sucessfully managed to catch about 50 or so True Percula babies!!! I can't express how excited I am. They are in the nusery (10 gallon) tank set up to your specifications. The tank is all blacked out, cardboard wrapped so only light will come from above, temp set to 80 degrees, tank water brought over from parent tanks, appoximately 3 gallons, and bubble stone set for medium low, just enough to disturb the surface of the water but not enough to toss the fry. I put the airstone right under the heater and blacked out the heater light with electrical tape.
I guess now the real fun begins. My backup rotifer supply came in yesterday and I will add the rots to the fry tank in the morning.
The coolest part of catching them was watching them head for my penlight beam aimed inside a white coffe cup. I counted as they went over the lip of the cup and headed for the light.
Thanks again for your advice I may just start my own post tomorow.
Hope your babies are doing well!
~Jo
~Jo

 

[Lukel]

Luke,
Initial Sucess! My eggs hatched tonight and with the help of Joyce Wilkerson and a few others I sucessfully managed to catch about 50 or so True Percula babies!!! I can't express how excited I am. They are in the nusery (10 gallon) tank set up to your specifications. The tank is all blacked out, cardboard wrapped so only light will come from above, temp set to 80 degrees, tank water brought over from parent tanks, appoximately 3 gallons, and bubble stone set for medium low, just enough to disturb the surface of the water but not enough to toss the fry. I put the airstone right under the heater and blacked out the heater light with electrical tape.
I guess now the real fun begins. My backup rotifer supply came in yesterday and I will add the rots to the fry tank in the morning.
The coolest part of catching them was watching them head for my penlight beam aimed inside a white coffe cup. I counted as they went over the lip of the cup and headed for the light.
Thanks again for your advice I may just start my own post tomorow.
Hope your babies are doing well!
~Jo
~Jo

That is great!!! if you are anything like me, you will find it hard to go to work today, then youll be frusterated all day till you get to come home....

Mine are doing great, they are big enough now that you can clearely see all there miss bars and stuff...

 

[saltyjo]

OMG they are so cute at this point looking like little clowns vs mosquito larvae. LOL I was prepared and took the day off from work. Told the boss I needed to work on a college final. Mostly true. I planned this out since last Thursday when they laid the eggs.
One thing I was wondering about you started from eggs right and let them aerated? Probabally with new saltwater. My fry hatched in the display tank and we lured them with light into a white coffee cup. It worked really good except I got more critters than just clownsfish larvae. I got what appears to be tiny little shrimp. They swim backward and you can see eyes and a pink middle. They were also attracted to the light. This morning watching the clownfish they seemed to be only a bit bigger than the "shrimplike" critters. I hope they dont compete for food.

 

[Lukel]

I had that same problem, i only used tank water from my reef, cause my ph in my fry tank always was good enoughf, i never had to use new water, i tried to avoid it, ammonia is more toxic at higher ph levels..... as for the little shrimp, they worried me the whole time, but on day 12 i added a hydro sponge II and the little shrimp dissapered (mind you my clowns are big enough to eat the shrimp at that point)

 

[saltyjo]

Luke, in the begining how many do you think you lost? I think from catch to today Day 2 I am down to about 15 or so. : ( I was prepared for this but what was your rate? Also you might have seen in my post, do you vaccuum all the dead ones on a daily basis so that you dont get ammonia spike? I was planning on doing a partial water change tomorow but I might do a little today getting the losses out of the water.

 

[Lukel]

I have a daily journal on another site.....

http://www.reefescape.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=7361

i used a turkey baster to suck out the dead, and the rest during my morning water change, although i never did a water change till day 3, to keep stress down, also i am not sure i had any losses till day 7 or so.... i am not sure... hence the journal would be a good read i think....

 

[ClownyReefer]

This looks great and is getting me excited to try the same thing. Did you have luck pairing 2 random young fish or did you purchase a mated pair?

 

[Lukel]

I Borrowed the eggs from a neibour reefer... my clowns stopped spawning after a strey voltage incident....