breeding clown fish questions!

[D-Nak]

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.

This.

The hardest part of rearing the fry is the first couple of weeks where rotifers are required. If it wasn't somewhat difficult, then everyone would be raising clowns and they would be as cheap as freshwater guppies.

 

[shred5]

I highly suggest this book:
Clownfishes: A Guide to Their Captive Care, Breeding & Natural History
by Joyce D. Wilkerson

It was my bible when breeding clownfish.

 

[shred5]

This.

The hardest part of rearing the fry is the first couple of weeks where rotifers are required. If it wasn't somewhat difficult, then everyone would be raising clowns and they would be as cheap as freshwater guppies.

Yea I do not think people get that. I did freshwater breeding and saltwater is way different. It is a challenge just to grow the food. Thankfully some of these newer copepods might help out with some species.

People think that they can just ramp up breeding as these bans on fish keep coming. Was something like half a million yellow tangs alone come from Hawaii. I just wonder how many clownfish alone are being bred a year?

I think everyone think well tomorrow we can just start breeding millions of additional fish. The investment alone would be staggering.

 

[aquaman024]

Good luck; you need to read pickle’s guide on the R2R forum. Reed mariculture has great products and is where you can find all that you need from rotifers, rotifer good, culturing bucket setup, TDO chromoboost. You may also want to hatch brine shrimp eggs and feed baby brine starting somewhere day 3-5. It is easier than rotifers.