Clowns eating eggs...

[Raibaru]

Well for the second time my clowns have laid a batch of eggs and eaten them as soon as they came out. I shut the room for the day once I noticed they started and didnt enter again until lights out, but still none there.

I'm running a fully stocked tank. 36g w. sixline, chromis, midas and 2 clowns. I'm wondering if this is stressing them to the point to eat the eggs? Should I try over feeding a bit?

I figure once I see them leave the eggs a night I'll worry about trying to get ready for actually raising them. But for now I just need to find a way for them to leave the eggs alone.

Any pointers? I read the sticky article and that's why i left the room pretty much.

 

[MarinaP]

What are you feeding the pair, how much and how often? What species are they?

 

[Raibaru]

It is a pair of Oscellaris Clowns. One Black one Orange. I feed the tank Spectrum and flakes every day. Every third day I feed cyclopeeze.

 

[yellowslayer13]

add some krill

 

[Raibaru]

The female is quite bulged too. Do they usually lay their eggs over several days? Or will they slowly be reabsorbed until next week or so when she does it again?

 

[MarinaP]

That's not enough food for spawning clowns. Spawning pairs need to be fed at least twice a day, once to saturation with mysis, spirulina flakes, formula1&2, c-peeze..

There is more info in the FAQ sticky at the top of this forum.

 

[Raibaru]

Yea, I read they needed to be fed more often, but I didn't get the point that they needed twice a day. I usually feed the tank every other day and had been feeding daily for the past couple weeks when I started noticing their odd behavior (the clowns were kind of stripping the coraline algae from the rocks surface where they eventually layed and ate the eggs).

Should I wait till after I see the female start to bulge back up (as it looks like she's her normal size today so I'm guessing any eggs left in her have been reabsorbed) or should I just try to feed the whole tank more often? My Midas and Clowns are the real pigs that eat most everything I put in. The sixline and chromis don't get much.

 

[shred5]

My onyx clowns spawn regularly... 9 days for hatch 3 days new nest...

I feed 3 times a day and you need a more varied diet than that. In the morning flake because of time. When I get home from work frozen and frozen before bed.

Mysis, cyclopeese, enriched brine, formula 1 frozen and flake, forumula 2 flake, prime reef flake. Or make it easy and buy rods food.

Clowns lay all there egss at once over about an hour period sometimes more or less...


If the clowns actually eat the eggs it could mean several things. One the parents are hungry and not getting enough food. If this is the case usually they will not lay eggs.

The other is the eggs are not viable. Which means the parents do not have a proper diet or the eggs did not get fertilized; possible they got a fungus etc.


Dave