Clownfish 3 weeks old, i have a couple questions

[keh9qd]

I have an interesting situation. I had a pair of clowns in my 40 breeder that were were laying eggs. They layed a batch 1 month ago and right after I got sick of them drawing blood everytime i put my hand in the tank so i traded them in (which i regret). For whatever reason i decided to read a friends "clownfishes" book and it drew my interest in raising baby clowns as a challenge. I had never done it but had a few things laying around the house so I said what the heck.

With that said i threw the rock and some tank water in a 5g bucket with a heater and air. After a couple of days 4 hatched. I knew they would probably die but i tried anyway. A LFS sells live rotifers so i went on 3 occasions and bought rotifers and ran a light 24hrs with water changes daily. After a week i had 1 clown left.

Im now about 20 days in in the clown. Hes graduated to a half full 10g and on bbs since day 14. I hatch my own since it is very simple. Hes past metamorphosis and clearly a clown with two stripes. Ive been crushing flake food and feeding before water changes to attempt to get him to eat it.

My questions are the following:

1. What should my light cycle be?
2. Ive kept a ton of newly hatch brine in his tank, what should that density look like and how should i go about feeding flake to increase my chances of getting him to eat that?
3. Are water changes every other day still necessary?
4. Any other pointers?

 

[shifty51008]

light cycle is usually around what you want. I run mine 12 on and 12 off.

careful on how much BBS or food you put in the tank, baby clowns will litterly eat themselves till there stomachs pop. start off with ground up pellets I use TDO from reeds as it is already very small but just put a little bit in every now and then and they will get used to it and will soon know that it is food. syphon out any uneaten food later on.

water changes I do once a week but will do them sooner if ammonia starts to raise.

other things I would watch for is keep an eye on evaporation so the sg don't swing and same with temp.

 

[Wilrok]

Unfortunate that you lost the rest , you are putting in a lot of work for one baby .

 

[mrdobie]

any work to save the animal in my opinion is worth it. 1 or 100 no difference.

 

[keh9qd]

Ok, thanks. Yea i would have loved to have a small group. Im doing this more for fun and curiosity than anything.

Thanks for all the details, im gonna do my best to keep this one alive.

At this stage will the fish need a lot less food as pre-meta?

 

[Spyderturbo007]

That's awesome that you're putting the time, money and effort into saving one little clownfish! How about a picture of the little guy?

 

[keh9qd]

Here is a cell phone shot

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Awwww. He's so cute.

Good luck!

 

[woods4542000]

A lot easier in my experience to raise a bigger group . I don't feed bbs . I do lights 24/7 thru meta , at which time I keep rotifer population to about 10 per ml.