Clownfish breeders, please help!

[cdipasquale]

Hey everyone, need a little help here. I am raising my first clutch of clownfish larvae and I am struggling with the ammonia level in the larvae tank and could use some input from someone with more experience than me.
They are in a 10 gallon, a little less than half full. Eggs hatched on thursday night so today is day 3. It was a smaller clutch with about 100 or so eggs and I have at least 80-100 babies swimming around. They are babies from a picasso pair if that matters at all. I haven't really lost many, just a few of the smaller ones I find here and there dead on the bottom but for the most part they all seem to be doing well but I am worried about my ammonia levels.
My API kit is reading 8ppm which is the highest it reads, so I don't really know what the total ammonia level is but i'm assuming it's over 8ppm (this kit is only about 2 weeks old). The seachem ammonia alert is in the light blue(alarm). These two reading have been the same since the morning after the hatch. I have done twice daily water changes from my reef tank, lowering the specific gravity first to 1.020. (I have checked ammonia in reef tank and it is always 0, This tank has been up for years and is in excellent shape) I have been siphoning the gunk from the bottom 4-5 times a day. Rotifer population is high and I dose live nannochloropsis into the tank as needed to keep the water a light green. Most babies bellies are bulging and silver and they are swimming around looking perfectly happy.
Temperature is 81, ph stays 7.9-8.0 (wish it was lower so I didn't worry so much about the ammonia. From all my research, I feel like I am doing everything right and so far, so good. But this ammonia really worries me with meta coming up later this week.
Any input and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cdipasquale]

Forgot to mention, I have tried 2ml of amquel plus twice and it seems to have no effect on the ammonia, but i'm hesitant to use it heavier because I have read that it is believed to slow their growth. Does anyone use ammonia reducers with larvae with or without side effects?

 

[jbax]

the high rotifer count may be leading to the high ammonia. although many people do co-culture succesfully, there are some downsides to it.

 

[billsreef]

How large are those water changes?

 

[reefstew]

Change more water & I always use new water, not aquarium water. To reduce am use Cloram x. You can purchase it from Reed Mariculture.

 

[cdipasquale]

I was doing 1 gallon water changes with no real effect. I finally did a 3 gallon change yesterday (probably about 75%) and knocked down the ammonia significantly. It shot right back up within a few hours so I started testing everything that goes into the tank and found out my phyto cultures had really high ammonia in them. Is this normal? I have nannochloropsis and Tetraselmis growing and have been using both in the larval tank. So I put amquel plus into my phyto bottles and got them all to test 0 for ammonia. I did another huge water change and think I finally have the problem under control. As of this morning, still no measurable ammonia in the phyto cultures.
My phyto was started from a disk from FAF about 3 months ago and I just keep splitting with no crashes yet, up to 8 bottles and I have been dosing it in my reef tank to use it up. It grows great and gets to a nice dark color 5-6 days after I split it. Is there supposed to be ammonia in there? I thought since I was growing an algae, that it would be consuming any ammonia so never thought to check it until I started getting desperate.
This morning starts day 6 and so far, only have siphoned out 6 bodies since day of hatch despite the crazy high ammonia I was fighting so I feel successful so far. Hope the next week goes good. They started eating NHBS yesterday afternoon and a good half of them are already brine eating machines and target them over the rotifers.

 

[billsreef]

With water changes, I'd be going for 50 to 75% daily, with a good bottom siphoning. What fertilizer are you using for the algae? Depending on temp, most cultures can be expected to peak around 7 to 14 days. Harvesting at that peak will yield the lowest amounts of residual fertilizer. In a half full 10g tank, you should only need about 1/4 to 1/3 liter of dense culture to get a nice tint, which shouldn't add to much residual nutrients.

 

[JerseyClowns]

I don't know how much it would help, but you may try rinsing your rots with fresh salt water prior to adding them to the fry tank and only adding enough rots required to get you to the next feeding.

I typically don't perform any water changes within the first 3-4 days post hatch, however, I do add water volume to the fry tank (~.5G per day). On about the 5 day, I start performing 20% water changes every day/other day as needed.

 

[cdipasquale]

Bill, do you recommend 50-75% daily all of the time, or just to help overcome this ammonia problem? i am using miracle grow and it takes about 7-8 days for my cultures to get nice a dark looking. I've never seen anyone elses culture in person so maybe I could get them darker but i'm probably a little conservative with it so I don't leave them too long so i don't get a crash. I had a air pump fail on me while I was at work one day last week and when I got home, all of the bottles had settled to the bottom. I hooked up a new pump and get them bubbling again and everything seemed fine. I think, maybe I had a little die off while the pump was down causing the ammonia spikes, and then I was dumping the ammonia into the larvae water. All seems ok now, and I have the ammonia down to about 3ppm total and the alert badge is almost back in the yellow (safe) zone. Should I keep up the big water changes? I'm assuming meta will be starting in the next day or two but i'm not sure I even know how to tell if it has started (or when it's done). I've read about it but cant find any good pics pointing out what it looks like so i'm still kinda going with the flow and see what happens.
With meta starting, should I still be doing these big water changes? I read not to change any during meta unless you have to.

 

[billsreef]

I go for daily large water changes. Generally 50% is pretty standard, with going 75% if things are fouling faster or ammonia is getting high. Look into getting some modified Guillards f/2 media in stead of the miracle grow. You'll have less ammonia issues and end up growing more nutritious phyto. Guillards isn't just based on simply growing phtyo, but growing nutritious phyto for larval fish and shellfish culture. It also isn't really any more expensive than miracle grow...and light years ahead of miracle grow for use in phyto culture. You can get a 1 lb "mass pack" of the dry ingredients from Florida Aqua Farms or Aquatic Ecoystems, around $25 shipped IIRC. That will make a 1 gallon stock solution that will provide enough f/2 to culture about 3,000 gallons of phyto

 

[cdipasquale]

Awesome, I am only like 15 minutes from aquatic eco so I will run by and grab some this week.
Do you keep doing the big water changes throughout meta also?

 

[billsreef]

I do the big water changes up until I they are large enough that I have good filtration established in the rearing tank...usually a big old sponge filter

 

[cdipasquale]

Perfect, thanks for all the help!

 

[cdipasquale]

Ok, well today is 11 days. Despite the prior ammonia problems, all have seemed to make it and I think they are through or very close to through meta. I still don't have stripes at all! From all my reading, they should have head stripes by now. Here are a couple pics, best I could get. They move so darn fast it's hard to get good pics. Let me know what you think. Do they look ok for their age?

 

[billsreef]

They are looking good. I expect you'll start seeing the first signs of the head strip starting to appear within the next couple of weeks

 

[alaska clowns]

Very nice looking little clowns

It took longer than I expected for mine to get their headstripe - and when I finally saw the first one, it startled me

 

[cdipasquale]

OK, i have another question. I am well past meta now, about 20 days old. Two of my fish I have pulled and put in another tank because I think there are problems. The first fish has one of his side fins looks like it was damaged, maybe in a fight, but looks infected like it has something white growing on it. The second looks fine but has a little growth under his chin.
I was affraid these could be something bacterial and seperated them from the rest. Is it normal for some fish to have something like this? Are you supposed to medicate the growout tanks with anything to help keep healthy fish?

Basically is there anything I need to do to keep the rest of the fish healthy?

 

[billsreef]

Generally lots of bottom cleaning, water changes, and a good diet will be all that is needed to keep them healthy. Sometimes you do get some damage to some when they start to squabble. Separating any with issues is a good step. Any need for treatment is something I do on a case by case basis. Can you get any decent pictures of the ones with the growth?

 

[cdipasquale]

Here are the best pics of the one with the bad fin I could get. The other one that had something under his chin must have just had some otohime or flake food stuck under there because it was orange colored and is gone now. The fin is looking worse and I only noticed it for the first time this morning (and I spend a lot of time staring at my babies so I believe it started last night). He already has a pretty cool looking head stripe so i'd hate to cull a fish that could potentially be a cool picasso or something.
Any guess as to what this is? What i can do to treat it?

 

[billsreef]

I'd try hitting it with some nitrofuran. It's a good broad spectrum antibiotic that also happens to have some antiprotozoal activity.