Breeder opinions on latz or leucs?

[WDLV]

I would like to know if any of you here have spawning pairs of A. latezonatus or A. leucokranos. If so I'd like to know what your tank dimensions are, whether they were purchased as a "mated pair" and any other information you deem important (temp, SG, photoperiod, feeding etc....) If you'd prefer to PM or E-Mail me that's fine too.
I am currently housing unmated pairs of several different types of clowns. I have no experience in raising clownfish. Yes, I know the chances of any of my pairs of latz or leucs to spawn first is slim to none. I'm OK with that. I have multiple species for a reason.
I am looking to know what others are doing right with regard to providing the right environment for the difficult fish in hopes that I might provide the best possible captive environment both for them and for the easier species.
I don't want to have to replace equipment later.

My plan:
To set up 30 and 40 breeders on multiple racks.
I will run them into a common sump but will have separate HOB power filters and or skimmers on hand in case I need to isolate a tank for any reason.

My current rack system:
I feel that the top rack housings are too small and the pairs can see each other if I dare to clean the sides. No good. I also have another latz pair in my 210 gallon. I will either sell this tank or separate it into halves or thirds for housing additional pairs.
Experienced opinions welcome and desired.

 

[kris4647]

You sir are an incredibly lucky man.

Maybe 3-5 breeding pairs of Luec's have been documented.

No Lats that I've ever heard of. You are truly blessed to have them alive and happy.

Your plan is solid just go slow and don't stress out the Leuc's or Lat's in the transition or you could very well lose them, they are just that sensitive.

 

[oceanarus]

Yep, your new name is Lucky. So Lucky, where did you get your fish ?

 

[oceanarus]

Also, how long have you had the Lat,s ? I have never kept them, but most of the people on here that have lost them in a few months. Good luck, Lucky. I have a spawning pair of orange skunks, they are easy to raise and are regular spawners. I wish I could help with the harder ones but I have not seen them for sale.-Amy

 

[WDLV]

In August '07 I got my female latz from Blue Zoo Aquatics for the premium price. I'm not sure if i paid $336.95 or $308.00. On the same day, I got a juvie from a LFS in Florida. I got a "male" in November while I was in Chicago.
My fish were all treated for at least a month with Formalin III at a dosage of 1cc/Gallon. They were also treated with nitrofurazone and hyposalinity.
My friend called me asking if I wanted his male because his female had jumped. The same day my male from Florida died. I believe from internal paracites... I was planning to quarrantine him the following day because he was looking a bit skinny but had been eating well.

I may be considered "lucky" but I have had to look very hard for a long time to find my fish. I looked for 7 years before finding my first leucokranos.
I have turned every stone I could find to get them and done a bit of networking too. A lot of people didn't even bother returning my e-mails or phone calls. If a person is willing to make the effort, they can find these fish that I have not already learned.
I have researched the care of my fish 'till I turn up redundant information. I have tracked down the e-mail addresses of public aquariests who have bred these fish and other experts in the hobby/industry to seek their advise. The reason I'm posting here and every other place I can find is the hope to turn up someone who knows something about the leucs I haven't read or anything at all about the latz.
To me, the lucky ones are those who walk into their LFS see a cool looking fish and then post on RC "please identify what I just bought."

 

[kris4647]

Umm Walt I dont think I was trying to detract from your hard work by calling you lucky, just saying that beyond the networking etc your fish are incredibly rare and awesome to look at. The Latz have exhibited health conditions as well long term blinding etc.

I'm going out on a limb and saying there are no Lat breeders, um damn near anywhere.

There are more and more Luec breeders showing up, from year to year. Their succes is very hit and miss, fry very often being half and half skunk. There is a rare clown fish website with quite a bit of info you may want to check out but I dont think I can link it directly here.

I have been pursuing Luec's for nearly 10years and still haven't landed a single pair but one, that nested. Singles often; pairs not so much, so in that you are lucky to be in the right place at the right time for all your truly rare fish

I have succesflly bred three types of clowns [Nigripes/Maroon/Perc] and as I said I think your plan is a sound one. Just for god's sake go slow and be carefull. I truly hope for your succes!

 

[WDLV]

No I didn't take it that way. I just don't want anyone out there thinking I have not done my homework to get where I am right now... where ever that is.
I know about RCF. In fact I'm awaiting a PM response from you there from a couple days ago regarding your avitar.

 

[kris4647]

Thats you?

Good Lord I'm outta touch, talk to ya soon!!

 

[WDLV]

Yeah, this is the only place I'm known as anything but WDLV. I had some difficulties with my account when I first started here so I had to create a new screen name.

 

[oceanarus]

WetSleeves- I too didn't mean to make lite of your hard work. If you had not done your homework the fish wouldn't still be alive. I ment it in a very friendly way. I have raised GSM, Percs-reg and onyx, Ocel-blk and snowflake, Akindy, Saddles, Clarks,Toms, o.k. you get the idea. But I take my hat off to people like you who are willing to do the hard work these fish take. And yes if you look hard they are out there. I just don't trust the places that I've seen who had them. There was someone a while back that had a spawning pair of Luecs. He sent me a pm looking for s-rotifers. I will see if I can find that message. Once again, forgive me. I was being silly. But I still wish you luck.

 

[WDLV]

None of you has offended me. My skin is a little thicker than that.

 

[chrisstie]

Hey Wetsleeves. I have a single latz that I got from bluezoo and she's doing great. Acquired her in October 2007. My tank is a mixed reef tank and not ready to house a male for her also so eventually i plan to find her a mate and see what happens when I upgrade tanks later this year.

In the meantime, what I have read has only been accounts of other people telling their story so I'm not sure how true or false it is.

I have read accounts of people getting latz to breed in captivity, but apparently the issue is raising the young past the pelagic larvae stage. Bringing them to full term so to speak to viable offspring hasn't happened for folks like you and me. I'm unsure if it has for any professional aquariums, labs, etc. It is incredibly hard to find good reliable info out there about their husbandry.

For taking care of mine, though, her name is Gladys. Gladys gets mysis soaked in zoe marine and selcon and formula 2 as well as nori. Believe it or not most clowns will eat more veggies than you would think and I read somewhere latz really need a good source of vitamin A (she'll even eat broccoli tips) so I make sure the veggies are in the diet. If any fish are picky, feeding the veggies first usually overcomes that.

Have you checked the rareclownfish site and forum? Sometimes there are some folks with more experience over there since its hard to find a lot of people who keep such rare fish.

Also I saw you're afraid of cleaning the glass so they will see each other ;p Have you thought of getting some black acrylic cut to section off everyone so they dont have to worry about that? And if you're concenred for size - full grown latz get pretty big so I'd say the bigger the better to make them comfortable. Gladys isn't like normal clownfishes I've kept. She swims the tank, hunts for food, doesn't just stay hovered above her anemone.

Hope this helps a little bit, I'm excited about your endeavour here and hope you find great success

 

[WDLV]

The more I observe them the more I think they need a huge tank to be happy. I may decide to leave what's left of my 210 gallon up for that reason. For financial reasons, I can't keep buying huge tanks just for them but based on their behavior I think a 4x4 or 4x6 footprint would be about right in captivity. This is of course a guess, but the pair in the 40 breeder seems less happy than the ones in the larger tank. 300 gallon rubbermaid sumps might be a more cost effective option for me but it would be harder to keep tabs on eggs should they ever lay a clutch....

 

[WDLV]

oceanarus,
What can you tell me about your experience with saddlebacks? They probably have similar requirements....

 

[criccio]

There is a breeder in MI raising leuc fry and selling some juvies, but I think you knew that already.

 

[chrisstie]

Hehe Wet I feel you on that one. i'd love to keep getting large tanks but to a point its so not practical I can agree that a 40 breeder may be too small when they become closer to adult size (hard to tell now).. I originally had plans to upgrade to a 125g thats 6' by 18" by.. 20 something high and I know that would be plenty for a mated pair if it helps.

I scratched those plans and want to do my first big super duper do it right from the start tank for Gladys and her future mate in a 215 Tech tank.

as much as I'd like to further their breeding I think I would rather have them with me for 30 years as long term pets if I have luck with them. If they decided to breed I wouldn't complain and I'd certainly try to rear the young. I think its best to get them comfortable though. I might try a flowerpot trick like you did if they ever do and cross my fingers

 

[oceanarus]

WetSleeves- So far I have only had one spawning pair of saddles. I can't say all saddle experiences will be like mine. But here is what happened. A few years back no one on here believed blk saddles would spawn in captivity. I don't know why. But I knew saddle brown did. So I got a big brown female and a small blk male. I wanted them to be as dark as posible. After about a year they started. I kept them in a 30 with just a pot and tile. SG was 1.018. I keep Saddles, Akindy, Sebae,etc. in really private places in the house. The nest were huge. They were regular spawners. The fry would all hatch out at once but lots would die right away. I always had some survive. But no matter what I did ,I never got as many as with ocel and other easy clowns. I would use s-rotifers at first but you don't have to. It seemed as though more would live when I did. As fry they were alittle hard but once they grew everything was straight forward. I never had mis-bars. They were brown/black. They would host faster than any other clown I raised. But one day the female just hated the male. The next day the male attacked the female. My little blk male was now large and changed into a female. The only time it has ever happened to me. There is now someone on here with a blk pair spawning. Check post from 5 days ago. Things are happening about the same for them as it did with me so far.

 

[WDLV]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11989801#post11989801 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by criccio
There is a breeder in MI raising leuc fry and selling some juvies, but I think you knew that already.

I think my latest leuc is one of his babies. He's pretty friendly.

WetSleeves- So far I have only had one spawning pair of saddles. I can't say all saddle experiences will be like mine. But here is what happened. A few years back no one on here believed blk saddles would spawn in captivity. I don't know why. But I knew saddle brown did. So I got a big brown female and a small blk male. I wanted them to be as dark as posible. After about a year they started. I kept them in a 30 with just a pot and tile. SG was 1.018. I keep Saddles, Akindy, Sebae,etc. in really private places in the house. The nest were huge. They were regular spawners. The fry would all hatch out at once but lots would die right away. I always had some survive. But no matter what I did ,I never got as many as with ocel and other easy clowns. I would use s-rotifers at first but you don't have to. It seemed as though more would live when I did. As fry they were alittle hard but once they grew everything was straight forward. I never had mis-bars. They were brown/black. They would host faster than any other clown I raised. But one day the female just hated the male. The next day the male attacked the female. My little blk male was now large and changed into a female. The only time it has ever happened to me. There is now someone on here with a blk pair spawning. Check post from 5 days ago. Things are happening about the same for them as it did with me so far.

Hopefully my black saddles will spawn some day too. I thought you all might like to know about a little trick I use if you're not already aware of it. When I have a male clown that i'd like to keep that way but don't have another of the same species I use this method.
When I got my first leuc from the MACNA conference in DC back in September 2005 I wanted to keep it a male or juvinile in case I was able to find another but it happened to be female. So, I kept the leuc in the tank with other clowns that served to keep him from turning into a female. The first was a very large black polymnus. The second was a large pair of chrysopterus.
When i found my second leuc about a year and a half later, it was of course a female. I was able to pair these two up after having the first leuc for over a year and a half. He is still about half her size as you can see in the pictures and is still submissive to her.
I did the same thing with one of my new black polymnus. He was paired up with the Latz female until I got the new latz in Chicago. Now he is probably a She, but has a mate that it gets along with.

 

[WDLV]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11991760#post11991760 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by oceanarus
WetSleeves- So far I have only had one spawning pair of saddles. I can't say all saddle experiences will be like mine. But here is what happened. A few years back no one on here believed blk saddles would spawn in captivity. I don't know why. But I knew saddle brown did. So I got a big brown female and a small blk male. I wanted them to be as dark as posible. After about a year they started. I kept them in a 30 with just a pot and tile. SG was 1.018. I keep Saddles, Akindy, Sebae,etc. in really private places in the house. The nest were huge. They were regular spawners. The fry would all hatch out at once but lots would die right away. I always had some survive. But no matter what I did ,I never got as many as with ocel and other easy clowns. I would use s-rotifers at first but you don't have to. It seemed as though more would live when I did. As fry they were alittle hard but once they grew everything was straight forward. I never had mis-bars. They were brown/black. They would host faster than any other clown I raised. But one day the female just hated the male. The next day the male attacked the female. My little blk male was now large and changed into a female. The only time it has ever happened to me. There is now someone on here with a blk pair spawning. Check post from 5 days ago. Things are happening about the same for them as it did with me so far.

What were you feeding the parents?

 

[traveller7]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11991760#post11991760 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by oceanarus
...But one day the female just hated the male. The next day the male attacked the female. My little blk male was now large and changed into a female. The only time it has ever happened to me.

Same event with MarinaP's pair.

fwiw: Pretty sure Vert20 picked up a pair that was breeding from an RC member, and I am fairly certain there have been 2 other folks posting with breeding pairs.

My pairs did not breed for me prior to selling them, always wished I put them into the 300gal tank where everything bred....but other pairs had priority :>)