Clownfish colors

[pszemol]

Where can I read something more about taking care of the clownfish color development ?

I had some experience with breeding maroon clowns, but my fish did not develop this rich wine-red color like wild fish have. Mine were rather brown than maroon to be honest...

The parents looks good - I think both are tank breed nut I am not sure - have them from the same store but purchased separatelly weeks apart. Here are some movies of the breeding pair before they actually start breeding. They were very yound on these pictures:
http://voila.pl/aqzam/index.php?get=1&f=2
http://voila.pl/aqzam/index.php?get=1&f=1

Female lost the bottom part of the white/gold middle band for some reason when she grown... She is left with saddle looking golden bands. Male kept whole bands intact - also golden even they were pure white when younger.

Young ones were colored properly when very young:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v481/pszemol/?action=view&current=ZmianaWody2005-Oct-03.jpg
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v481/pszemol/?action=view&current=2005-Oct-09.flv

But when they continue to grow they become lighter in color and loose their red coloration towards brown and dark orange.

What could I be doing wrong ?

Also, I am seeing sometimes tank bred tomato clowns in a local LFS and they seem to have the same problem with coloration: they have more brown/dark orange tint than actually red like they should be. So the problem must be quite well known. Is the solution to the problem known, as well ?

 

[David M]

Color is primarily a function of nutrition, tell us your adult & juvenile feeding regime. As for those local brownish "tomato" clowns, I think Edgar can provide the answer there

 

[pszemol]

As sson as my juvenile clowns methamorphosed and were able to move out from the ritifers/baby-brineshrimp regime they started eating flakes and I was feeding them exclusivelly variety of kinds of pulverized flake foods soaked from time to time in Selcon.

Flake foods variety consisted mostly of Ocean Nutrition's: "Formula 1" flakes, "Prime Reef" flakes and "Brine Shrimp" flakes.
Occasionally frozen adult brine shrimp when they were larger enough.

As you can see I did not use any special juvenile diet - I am not even familiar if such exists.

Adults were fed with other fish in a comunity tank - they do not eat algae at all - only meaty items like frozen krill and frozen "ocean plankton" and frozen brine shrimp by Sanfrancisco Bay, variety of flakes/pellets. As I mentioned, my adult marrons did not take dried sea weed - tang is the only fish which eats this stuff. I have heard some other people feeding green sea weeds to their maroon clowns but mine NEVER touched this stuff for some reason.

What is the best diet out there for adult/juveniles maroon clownfish?

 

[David M]

Astaxanthan is a caretanoid that promotes the red/ orange colors in fish, look for it as an ingredient in whatever dried foods you are feeding. I think there is one called VibraGrow, I'm sure there are others. Also Sally's SF Bay Brand Omega 3 brine shrimp contains it.

You can get frozen Cyclops-Eeze to feed your juveniles and maybe adults, this has a very high level of astaxanthin.

Breeders use special larval diets such as Otohime or Zeigler, these are great for growth but need to be supplemented for color. There is a product called Natu-Rose that will accomplish this.

It really sounds to me like you want to upgrade your feeding, using more fresh or frozen meaty foods and getting some astaxanthin into the diet.

 

[pszemol]

I forgot to mention but you reminded to me - I was trying frozen Cyclopeeze but for some reason my juvenile clowns COMPLETELY IGNORED this food. They were running for flakes like crazy, but each time I tried thawed cyclopeeze they just totaly ignored the food prefering to stay hungry than eat this stuff.

Thanks for mentioning some names/keywords for me - I will do more research before attempting on these clowns next time.

On a second thought - anybody tried to rise juvenile clowns in more "natural" condition in some reef tank with corals/sand bed populated with worms/crustacians providing natural plankton for fish as dietary supplement?

I was imagining something like on this picture:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Aquarium-Monaco3.jpeg
With plenty of caulerpa growing and absorbing dissolved nutrients water quality should be managable.
What do you think?

Also - are the dietary problems fish suffered as juvenile fixable later in life? Let's say for example I have one year old, still quite small fish with these pale "ugly colors" - is this reversible ? Is it possible to fix red coloration as the fish grow bigger ? The reason I ask is I kept two last fish from my first successful breeding attempt and I was wondering if I could "fix" them or it is too late for this and the damage is irreversible...

Thanks for the interest.

 

[Kathy55g]

the effect of naturose

click that link!

 

[pszemol]

Thanks Kathy - I see I have a lot to learn
And with lots of missbars and wrong/pale coloration I shold probably not call my first attempt of breeding maroons successful anyway
Well, they survived at least, but they could not be called uber-fish race

BTW -
Is this the place you buy your Otohime products:
http://www.reed-mariculture.com/otohime/ ?
How much of the product do you use to feed one batch of clownfish ?

 

[Kathy55g]

Of course you have success. You have fish! None of us learned how to do this perfectly overnight.

Yes, Reed is the main distributor that I am aware of. Hard to say how much to use. I've never measured it. Reed sells it in the 3 oz bottle if you want to try it without committing yourself to a full kilogram.