breeding clown fish questions!

J

johnfallon135

New member
1. my friend just got a mated pair of clown fish and was hoping on any tips on what to do? he has a side 20 gallon tank should he leave the parents in his main display tank then take the eggs out to the 20 gallon after or could he leave the parents in the 20 gallon with the eggs? will the parents eat their eggs?

2. also how long does it take for the eggs to hatch? 7 days? anything he should do in the mean time?

3. finally he just has a regular ocellaris mating pair. does having a designer clown mating pair increase the chance for more designers?

thanks.
 
Can't really answer most of your questions properly except the last one... so wit many of the "designer" clownfish they are just the result of mutations during development although some of them are purposeful crosses of one "color" with another.

Look at this info on the Picasso for example: http://www.orafarm.com/product/premium-picasso-clownfish/ even when they breed 2 picassos although some of the offspring look like Picassos, most of them just look like "regular" clownfish!

I think it is safe to say in your case your friend will just be getting a lot of regular clowns and if he is lucky a few mutated ones with color variations, but the chance of that is pretty low IMO. If designer clowns is the goal I would either (a) get designers after reading carefully how they were made to make sure you have the correct pair or (b) just cross your fingers and hope you get some funny looking ones you can mate later on for the next generation

best of luck!
 
Leave the parents in the DT and let them care for the eggs - if they eat them they had usually gone bad - or you didn't feed your fish enough.

After about 7 to 9 days, when the yolk is almost gone and the eyes are very silvery the larva are ready to hatch. At this point you take the eggs out and transfer them to the larva tank. Ideally you convince the fish to lay the eggs on a small rock or ceramic shard that you can easily remove. Best is usually to give them a ceramic flowerpot - clownfish love them as anemone surrogates and like to put their eggs on the inside.

Unfortunately much of the offspring of designer clowns is not culled like it should be (ideally the "good" designer offspring should also be culled together with the parents), but rather sold as regular clowns to further pollute the gene pool. :deadhorse1:
 
thanks is there anything i should know when taking them out? i dont' want to put a pot in my display tank if they lay the eggs on my live rock can i just scrape them off? also is there anything i should know when putting them in the other tank? should i turn off my powerheads or skimmer? if you're saying take them out 7-9 days then they should hatch the next day in the other tank right?
 
No scraping off! That will destroy the eggs. Best is to place a smooth rock or a piece of a ceramic where they usually lay their eggs.
Transfer the eggs the night before the hatch with water from the parents tank to the larva tank. Best is to keep a journal and let the firs few nests go. This way you can figure out how long it takes and will know the next time when to take the eggs out.
Alternatively you could use a larva catcher and try to get some of the larva out of the tank before they get eaten or chopped up by the pumps.
 
could i have a skimmer and powerheads running on low of course on the other tank? how many eggs do parents usually have and what's the success rate usually? 20%?
 
I haven't tried larvae catchers but rather collected them manually with a scoop and a flashlight. That works pretty well, only downside is that you have to say up at night and wait for the eggs to hatch.

To raise the larvae you will need a good amount of rotifers. If you don't have a good and productive culture going, I wouldn't bother to collect any larvae and rather get the food cultures going first.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
In the clown hatchling tank there should be nothing but a airline tube and heater right? Could I have live rock to help with the ammonia and nitrates? How fast will I have to water change a batch of hatchlings in a 10 gallon tank?
 
Read

Read

Google "Pickle's Clownfish breeding thread"

This will answer all of your questions.

Howard
 
2 years later i've read his article lol however he doesn't explain why he doesn't use any live rock in his initial fry tank? i understand he wants a empty tank to clean it easier from ammonia build up but live rock can only help, no?
 
Make sure you have plenty of Rotifers, gut loaded with phyto and Selcon.
You need this as a first food, I usually start to ween onto pulverized flake in 10 ish days
 
johnfallon135 said:
2 years later i've read his article lol however he doesn't explain why he doesn't use any live rock in his initial fry tank? i understand he wants a empty tank to clean it easier from ammonia build up but live rock can only help, no?
Click to expand...

No, live rock just gets in the way, regular water refreshes is easier.
It's just a rearing tank, after metamorph, can be transferred to a holding tank.
 
Not to mention that it's hard to have "clean" live rock. You want the larval system as clean as possible including not having little nasties that could come on the live rock -- parasitic protozoans, hydra, etc.
 
johnfallon135 said:
could i use any flake and pulverize it? cause any other alternatives seems very pricey especially this,

https://jaysclownfish.com/products/tdo-chroma-boost-b2
Click to expand...

No. There have been very few successful cases of feeding crushed flake to fry. Rotifers are also very difficult to maintain without a concerted effort. They basically eat and poop, thus giving off a ton of ammonia. This means frequent water changes.

Edit: In addition, the heater in the fry tank needs to be completely wrapped in electrical tape so the light doesn't shine through. The fry will be attracted to the light and burn themselves up - adding to the bio-load.

Even if given a proper amount of rotifers they need to live through metamorphosis. Giving them a near perfect rearing as fry will increase their chance, but expect some die-off.

Then you need to start feeding them live brine shrimp.

IMHO, if you're not doing this for a business it's not worth the trouble.
 
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