Can I feed my adult clownfish dead rotifers?

[brittanysmith18]

If my rotifers die, is it alright to feed them to my fish? I thought about just dropping them into my tank as fish food for my clowns, blue tang and fire goby... There's some alive, is it alright to just feed them to my fish?

 

[OrionN]

They are too small and fish likely not eat it. Live rotifers likely can be coral and clam food but dead rotifers should be discard IMO. Being single cellular they spoiled very quickly unless frozen quickly when they still alive.

 

[brittanysmith18]

I do have corals and an anemone, so thanks! I plan to breed my clowns and I know the babies would enjoy rotifers and brine. Freezing them in cubes would be good to feed the adult fish though? I do that with brine and they go crazy for it.

 

[rssjsb]

I apologize if you've answered this elsewhere, but the clowns are in your 55 community tank, right?

Are you planning to move the clowns to a separate tank or remove the babies to a grow-out tank? Otherwise, you won't be able to feed them anything because you'll never see them. They'll hatch and be eaten by the parents and your other fish.

 

[brittanysmith18]

Yes, I plan on moving them. I actually have a very LARGE breeding net that's close to the size of a small tank that fits on the inside of my 55 gallon tank, and I might put them in there.

 

[OrionN]

Clowns need to be comfortable to spawn. I don't think they will breed if you putting them in a net. What you need to do is to get them to spawn on a tile or a small rock. Take this tile to a small tank to hatch the fry on the night that they are going to hatch.

Get back to the original question. Rotifers are too small to be eaten by adult fish. They won't eat them. Filter feeder, clams, and SPS likely will eat these tiny animals.

 

[brittanysmith18]

I have corals and an anemone that can eat the rotifers. I have a clay pot for them to spawn in, they keep going in it and sort of cleaning out sand that blows into it. I feed them extra and my tank temperature is at 82 for the "summer" feeling. I will remove the eggs once I see them. I don't want to risk my hermit crabs eating them or anything like that. I want them to spawn in the community tank, but I will separate the eggs once they have them.

 

[rssjsb]

The parents will protect the eggs, so you don't need to worry about your hermits. The parents (actually, I think, the male) tends the eggs by pushing water around them. So, as OrionN says, you should not remove the eggs until they're more developed (i.e., when you can actually see what looks like perfectly developed little fish inside them).

I'm sure someone around here can tell you exactly how many days it takes for them to get to that stage from the bright orange phase, so you don't have to guess.

 

[rssjsb]

Double post.

 

[brittanysmith18]

I didn't know that, but thanks so much. I have read so much about breeding, and read that the parents will eat them sometimes and all this other bad stuff, and I don't want that to happen.

 

[OrionN]

The parents will remove and eat eggs that are bad, either not fertilized or somehow died as it developed. I can see with my eyes which eggs are bad. These will be remove by the male. It keep the bad eggs from spoiled and cause problem for the other eggs.
They will defend the eggs well. Both of my females occasional get gashed from the tang when they defend the eggs. They give as good as they get because the tangs also get bite mark on them. So far fortunately they heal without problem. If I set up a dedicate tank fro breeding I would not have other fish in it. Both of my pairs are in DT so there are tangs are in them.

Keep the eggs with the parent until they are ready to hatch. If you have pottery, get at least two identical ones so that you can swab them out. This will keep they lay their next patch at the same place. I sterilize them (clean and dry them, microwave nuke in fresh water, whatever...) This will keep algae from growing on them as the eggs developed. The parent really clean the surface well before they lay their eggs on them, but in porous surface, like in potter and LR, algae will start to grow and due to the eggs, there is a layers of algae on the surface of the rock/pottery by the time the eggs hatch. I find that using glazed tiles, sterilize it before hand will keep this algae from growing and the percentage of eggs become bad are lower. I have very high light in my tank, so in lower light tank, this may not be a problem. Normal the snails grazes these on other surface but the parent keep the snails away too.

 

[Tmoriarty]

I would not bother feeding any rotifers to your tank dead or alive, you keep mentioning your anemone, that is one of your animals that could care a less about the rotifers, their size is to small. If you do not have quite a few sps I would not bother adding any rotifers to your tank (they may do more harm then good).

Like stated above make sure not to remove the pot before the eggs are ready to hatch. You want to remove it the day they are going to hatch, and keep their light cycle in the hatch tank the same as the DT. Don't worry about your male eating eggs, he may eat eggs that are not bad, he may eat the complete clutch the first few times, but he has to learn and his ability to care for the eggs is needed or your eggs will turn white with bacterial infections.

When you have eggs continue to ask questions and I will give you whatever advice I can, until then just give your clowns some time to spawn .

If your rotifers have crashed I wouldn't start up another culture until your clowns lay a clutch, no reason to waste money raising rotifers until your clowns have at least began their laying cycle.

I would also skip brine, its a personal choice and slighting more expensive, but feeding brine is not very nutritious and is definately a lot more time consuming. OtoA works great for me as a supplement and I start feeding it around day 3 to get them use to it (overlap the oto and the rotifers).

 

[brittanysmith18]

Thanks so much. I've noticed some new behaviors in my clowns.. They're cleaning the pot, swishing their tails in it and picking at it. So, hopefully I'll get some eggs soon!

 

[ajdiver]

What is the best way to tell if your rotifers are dead or alive?

 

[D-Nak]

What is the best way to tell if your rotifers are dead or alive?

You can see them moving with the naked eye. However, I use a jewelers loop. They're really cheap on Amazon.