Clarkii Larval Rearing (no rotifers?)

[jnowell]

A quick post-holiday update. I have 27 fry left still alive, I started adding artemia Sunday evening, and a few of the smaller ones were dead within about 5 hours of putting them in. Some of the larger ones are growing exponentially now too. I'm not sure I would know metamorphasis when I saw it, but a few of them are more fish shaped than minnow shaped now. We are at day 10, I'll post some more baby pics tonight so you can see the progress.

Hope everyone had a good holiday, and many thanks for the newbie support, I wouldn't have made it this far on my own.

Jason

 

[jnowell]

Well, here are some new pics. These are at day 10, size variation seems extreme, but I think a few are starting metamorphasis, one even has his stripes and coloration coming in.

Jason

 

[mtraylor]

That is really cool.

 

[spk]

Hi there,

Some really neat pictures and good stories.

Kathy, need to try and follow your plan with the bleach story.

Good luck with all theser babies.

Steve

 

[jnowell]

Thanks Steve,

The Phyto plan works like a champ (although I think it was Ediaz who originally posted it). Kathy explained it to me, and since then my Phyto grows like clockwork, and without incident.

After 3 days of artemia, the little guys are all still doing well and growing like weeds. I tried my hand at decapsulating brine shrimp eggs, and got about a 20% hatch rate Gotta go search around and see if Kathy or Edgar has any fool proof tips for those I used the method from the Wilkerson book, but it didn't work out so well for me.

Cheers!

Jason

 

[ediaz]

Don't be so confident with the phyto

When harvesting it, use a new sterile bottle to start a new culture instead of just topping off the botlle again. Clean the lines and change the floss too. An inline air filter for the cultures will help too.

For decapsulating artemia read Dr. Marini procedure at the top of the FBF. Wilkerson's instructions is missing some steps. That is if you really need to decapsulate.

Try offering some dry food to the larvae and watch them to see if they eat, weaning them to dry foods it's better for them.

Ed

 

[jnowell]

Ed,

I have mixed up about 30 bottles of water/bleach, so when I use most of one, I just pour last 1/4 of it into a newly dechlorinated bottle, and add some micro algae grow (1 mil per gallon). I hadn't been cleaning the rigid airline or changing the floss though, good points. I guess I could wipe the tube with a bleach dampened cloth and then dechlorinate it in the bottle at the same time.

On the feeding, I had ground up some Ocean Nutrition Formula One flakes for them, and more than a few of them ate it. I still have a few that are much smaller than the others, and they seem to shy away from it. The tank still has a ton of rotifers in it (I'm co-culturing right now with a Nanno drip on the larvae tank). I guess the small ones could contiune on Rotifers until they decide they like the dry stuff.

I am pleased to hear that a guy with your experience switches to dry foods early. I thought I was in for weeks and weeks of daily BBS hatches. I have had good luck with separating the shells, cysts, and artemia, so I'll keep that up until I have them all eating dry foods.

Thanks alot Ed! I promise to pay my dues by helping the next set of newbies go through the same stuff you guys have helped me through. 27 out of 50 isn't bad for my first hatch (it's only day 12, still plenty of time for my "newbie-ness" to rear it's ugly head).

Jason

 

[Kathy55g]

What Ed said!

One suggestion. When you take a bottle off the airline to use some, propagate first. Top off a freshly dechlorinated bottle, add fertilizer, and put that back on air. Then you can take what's left to use as you wish.

This way you don't introduce any more bacteria/critters than you absolutely need to.


Just a thought. Glad it's working for you.
Kathy

 

[Kathy55g]

oh, and congratulations! You have a greater than 50 % success rate which is terrific, especially for a beginner. You do know, that you are taking advice from a beginnner whose success rate is only 10%!

 

[jnowell]

I had read that on your other thread Kathy, but the voice of (more) experience is still music to my ears. Right now I'm considering myself a lucky, diligent reader! I would probably have no babies, no rotifers, and no nanno had it not been for you guys.

What kind of dry food works for you guys? I fed some more Formula One, and a bunch more of them ate it this time. In fact they ate ALL of it! I still need to vacuum the bottom today, but I don't think any food made it there this time.

I took some really horrible video with my digital camera, and some really great video with my video cam, I'll try to get some of the good stuff posted, in the mean time, here is some of the bad stuff. 3.5 Mb., so it'll be a slight wait, and my camera only does Quicktime format, I'll do a better one from the Sony!

Jason

http://www.wfrs.org/rc/DSCN0817.MOV

 

[mako56]

How do you guys collect your rots? What do you use?

 

[Kathy55g]

those fish look really great!

 

[jnowell]

Thanks Kathy, I'm proud of them, but still a little nervous.

Mike,

I bought a Plankton Collector from Florida Aqua Farms. It's basically a 6" long, 4" diameter peice of PVC with a 54 Micron nylon screen on one end. You just scoop up some water from the rotifer tank, let it drain out the sceen, and you have some rotifers. Then you submerse the tube (screen first) in the larvae tank, and pour the rotifers out.

Take a look around Reed Mariculture's site, they have awesome descriptions of the processes, and all the equipment too. Plus Randy Reed is a great guy, he has helped me immensely with my rotifer cultures.

 

[Kathy55g]

Before I got my plankton collector I used paper coffee filter stretched over a plastic planters nut jar. That worked, but it was awkward getting the rots off. The FAF one is much easier to use.

 

[jnowell]

I dropped below the 50% mark this morning. Metamorphasis is hard on the little guys I guess. I lost two more, so now the count is 24. I have about ten of them with their stripes, and about ten more starting to show a little color. The other 4 still look like they just hatched, only larger.

They are eating the dry food very well, but I still have rots and BBS in there too. I skipped a day on the BBS, but started some more last night. Time to vaccum the bottom...come to think of it, it's ALWAYS time!

J

 

[mtraylor]

Oh no sorry to hear that. 24 is great though, especially since they are eating regular foods now. Lets see some pics..

 

[jnowell]

Oh Gee, well, maybe a pic or two. I'm not a proud daddy at all!

I had just added BBS and dry food when this pic was taken. My food density isn't always that high....but I do have fat little babies...hmmm.

I'm thinking these will hatch tonight....

 

[Kathy55g]

Wow!

 

[mako56]

Very cool, congratulations someday I will get it. I ordered one of those collectors from Florida aqua farms and some Lab cultured L Strain Rotifer Cysts I hope these work but I am afraid that they won't be ready for my next hatch.

 

[jnowell]

Mike,

Read the stuff Randy Reed posted about Rotifers earlier in this thread if you haven't already. I would ditch the batch culture idea and go with a 10 gallon continuous culture. I ordered the filter pad from Reed Mariculture and it is very nice to have also. Rotifer cultures produce a TON of waste, and the water fouls pretty quickly. I rinse my filter pad daily, and vacuum the bottom every other day, removing about 30% of the water, then I top it off with water from my display tank.

It's working, but you do have to harvest daily, clean daily, and watch closely. I bet you could get a quart of rots to a respectable density inside of a week if you feed it right. Plus the fry don't really eat that much for the first 3 days, so you might be able to make it. I did it with 2 quarts, but mine got here 2 days before my hatch. I also killed a batch culture right off the bat.

Now that I understand the harvesting thing, my corals are getting fatter, and I know that I could have easily cultured enough of them without my beginner mistakes.

Good luck with your soon to hatch babies!

Jason