dieing clownfish

[Jaypilot]

I am pretty new at breeding clowns. I have two breeding pair that I have tried to raise three batches of their eggs. I am getting 500-700 eggs per clutch (ocellaris and tomato pairs) with almost 100% hatch rate. On hatch night around 12:00am I would look into the tank with a small pen light and there would be 100s of baby fry. However by the time I get up in the AM there would only be about 50 left. Of those 50 I am able to keep about 40 to the one month point. Of those 40 so far I have zero misbars.

Because I have no misbars and I am able to get a large number of eggs to the one month point I believe my water quality is good. My question is though what is the normal cause for fry not making it past the first 12 hours.

Is it possible the diet that I'm feeding the parents and maybe the eggs are harder to break through? I have heard of people having good luck on just NLS which is pretty much all that I feed. Sometime I will treat them with mysis but thats pretty much it.

Any advice would help. Momma is holding a bunch of eggs as I type this (ocellaris momma) and I would like to try your advice this next time around.

 

[simonedi]

To be honest i would say you are doing well, rmember in the wild only a few (2-3) at the very most would make it to adulthood..
A lot just die, some may have defects, some may be subject to rivalry from their siblings, some may end up in pumps (depending on your setup) i doubt any breeder has more then 20% make it to adulthood..
so tbh i would not worry too much, as the fish get settled and so on they will hopefully produce healthyer and larger broods, plus as you gain experience things might improve a lil... though you have a pretty good survival rate

 

[Jaypilot]

simonedi, Thanks for the kind words. I do understand that in the wild survival rate is vary low, but I have seen a lot of pics or videos of 100s of clowns from one brood and I'm wandering what they are doing.

As far as having a pump. All that I have is just an air pump for water movement... HMMMM I might have just answered my own question wile typing this. Could it be the air stone that I have under the heater. And if so should I just use an airline with no stone??

 

[mwilliams62]

Jaypiolt that is how I have mine in the fry tank because thst is how I saw one guy has his setup except his was a bubble wand underneath the heater. Don't feel bad I am going on batch 13 and I don't even get that many eggs. This last batch I got 50 to hatch. I am still trying to figure out what is going on.

 

[Jaypilot]

mwilliams62, Thanks for the reply. in your case it could just be the parents. I have a pair of true percs that have eating the last 10 batches that I know of and possible more. I have two other pair that are GREAT parents and are vary consistent at giving me over 500 eggs with great hatch rates. My problem is keeping them past 8-12 hours and after that I am golden.

Next time I'm going to try to use just the airline with no air stone an I'm also going to try to use 100% fresh saltwater and not brood stock water.

 

[mwilliams62]

I think it is they are not getting properly fertilized. I trying different foods hoping that will help with their nutrients that may be lacking in their diet. But I will be moving them out of the main DT and hope that will help.

 

[reefstew]

If they hatch then they are fertilized. I use a fast flow of air to hatch them & I turn it down after they hatch. Their is a fine line of not enough or to much air movement. It could also be your rotifers not being feed & enriched or not enough of them. Don't compare tank raised to fish in the ocean. After you figure it out you will be getting 200+ per batch all the way to a sellable size. Also I always use new salt water & move the eggs to a sterile tank. I hope this helps you out. Good luck.

 

[billsreef]

How often do you feed the parents? Assuming good water quality and proper aeration, larval condition and yolk reserves of the larvae are the number one issue with those first few hours post hatch. Well fed broodstock = high quality larvae that should easily survive a day post hatch.

 

[Jaypilot]

Thank reefstew, and billsreef.

reefstew, I can tell you its not because there is not enough rotifer and in fact I think to many might have been the issue rather then not enough. I had a lot more die off on day two this time as well for the first time. I believe it was because I pulled out the air stone and I turned the air down a little. I did this because I thought the larva were getting caught in the tinny bubbles and dieing off. But I think by removing the air stone and turning down the air there was not enough oxygen with both the vary high number of rots and the clowns.

As far the sterile tank. How do you go about doing this. I do need to sterilize the tank before my next batch of eggs because it has not been sterilized and I think that could play a part as well. I guess the more important question is how do you make sure you got all of the bleach out of the tank and that its safe for the new batch of eggs?

Billsreef, I feed the parents as often as I can. Sometimes they go without food for the day and other days they get feed 3 to 4 times a day. For the most part they only eat NLS and some times mysis. I thought the parents were fed enough because they are on a tight schedule of their own when it comes to eggs.

You touched on another thing and that was water quality and airflow. Water quality I believe is good being that my last batch had no misbars at all and they seem to be doing great. But maybe you can help me out with airflow? I use a lot of air to hatch and I'm getting about 100% to hatch. The next morning I pull out that airline and they are just getting air from the air stone or airline that is under the heater. I guess I need help trying to figure out how much air to put inside of the pot and then how much air should be in the tank after they hatch either through and air stone or not?

Im rereading clownfishes again by Joyce Wilkerson to see if I am missing something else.

 

[billsreef]

For sterilizing a tank between batches, a shot glass worth of bleach in just enough water to slosh around the bottom and all the sides and rim of the tank will do the trick. A really good rinse followed by sloshing around some dechlorinater will take care of the chlorine...also letting the tank air dry will do the trick on it's own after the initial rinse.

With the feeding, even skipping a day could make a difference in egg quality. I'd suggest feeding upwards of 4 to 6 times per day, to satiation...basically feed them at each feeding until they slow down in their feeding response. Also upping the mysis might help...I've seen feeding mysis effect egg and subsequent larval quality in other species.

With the aeration, I drop it a bit the night I expect hatch...about half way from the initial rolling boil that I incubate the eggs with. Morning I drop the air to just enough to keep the rotifers and fry circulating, while enabling the fry to move around on their own. If the fry can't swim in a direction of their own choosing, it's too strong.

Rot density should be sufficient that a fry doesn't need to move more than 1.5x body length without encountering a rot, at the lowest density.

 

[Jaypilot]

Thanks bills reef. I will be trying all that. As far as rots go I think in this last batch there was probably 10 rots per fry length. I believe that's way to much and could have depleted the oxygen.

Well my males are sitting on another 1000 eggs between two pair so rather then try them at the same time in the same 10g tank I will try them on their own and hopefully have better results. Well report back next saterday with my success/ failure.

 

[reefstew]

I use a small amount of bleach & fill the tank & let it soak over night & then rinse it good & let it air dry for about a week. If you need to use the tank asap then wipe in down with peroxide & you can use it immediately.
Back to the air, it is a fine line on not enough & to much.
I agree with Bill on feeding you adults. If you miss a day that is not good.

 

[Jaypilot]

Thanks I will try to be better about feeding. Being an airline pilot its some times tough to stick to a tight schedule. But I do have to say my fish breed like clock work. Hopefully by feeding a little more often when I can I will have healthier eggs.

 

[billsreef]

The NLS will work in an auto feeder for those day's your away

 

[ClownfishSushi]

Fry have enough egg yolk left over to go about 3 days without eating anything. If you have losses on hatch night we can eliminate starvation. On my first learning attempts it was always water quality. You need to use broodstock water taken from the tank on hatch night. You need to make sure the temperature is exactly the same. You need to make sure the light is dim enough that they don't swim into the bottom but bright enough that they can see the rotifers. I run 24 hour lighting the first day to get them hunting right away. Anyways, you'll figure it out. Good luck!

 

[Jaypilot]

I just got done running my 10g tank in about 5g of water and about 10oz bleach in it for about 5 hours. I also scrubbed down the sides really well that were outside of the water. Right now I am running the tank with about 10g of water and prime. I will let that run for about 24 hours and then I will drain it out and dry the tank.

On Friday I have a new batch that will be hatching that night. So I plan on making new salt water on Thursday and filling the tank with about 3-4 gallons of new salt water on Friday afternoon.

By doing all this I hope to eliminate one of the possible causes for my early death rate.

The second thing that I'm going to do is wait up for them to hatch and then once they hatch I will turn the air down in the aquarium and with any luck I will have a few hundred new clowns in the AM unlike my normal 30-50.

 

[ClownfishSushi]

I plan on making new salt water on Thursday and filling the tank with about 3-4 gallons of new salt water on Friday afternoon.

I think most breeders will tell you this is a bad idea. You need to use water from the broodstock system. Feel free to use the newly mixed salt water to top off the broodstock system after you transfer it into the fry tank.

 

[billsreef]

Yup. Fresh mix artificial SW tends to be a bit "rough". By all means use water from the broodstock tank for the egg hatching/rearing tank.

 

[Jaypilot]

OK Thanks clownfishsushi and billsreef. I am looking for advice everywhere I can and of course some advice is better then others. I have been told by one breeder somewhere that using new saltwater rather then water from the brood stock gave them better results, but now it seems that most people use brood stock water. So I will go with the masses on this one.

I think my biggest problem came from too much air after they hatched or maybe a dirty tank. So as of now the tank was bleached, declorinated and then wiped dry. So I have a clean tank now and my second hurdle will be to wait up until they hatch then then turn down the air so they are not beat up through out the night.

 

[Jaypilot]

Just an update,

Last night my Ocellaris clowns hatched again (still one more night for my tomato/cinnamon babies). This time I fared much better. I had once again about 95-99% Hatch rate by about 12 am last night. At that time I turned the air that was inside of the pot and the air that was behind the heater down from a boil to about 2 or 3 bubbles per second. When I got up this morning I had about 100 or so left with a total loss of close to 50%. AS of this evening, I'm sure I lost a hand full but its to hard to tell because the tank is still hovering right around 100 babies.

So Huge improvement on my part but I still seem to have a lot of work to do. The only piece of advice that I got from you guys that I wasn't able to try out was feeding 3-5 times a day to the brood stock, be the eggs were already laid at that point. So as of now I have been feeding a lot more through out the day so we will see if that helps next week.

One other problem that I have noticed is that its taking my eggs about 9 days to hatch on both the ocellaris and the tomato/cinnamon. I'm not sure why though because my temp seems to be right around 80+- on both the brood stock and the larval tank. I keep pulling the eggs on the 7th night because all the eggs are just glowing silver with their eyes. It seems like it takes about 3 days to hatch after I see the eyes.

So with that being said I am wondering if that is why I am losing so many larva between hatch and first thing in the morning.

My brood stock right now seems happy so I really don't want to mess with things but Im wondering if increasing the tanks to maybe 82 will help hold the larval over longer then just a few hours.

Any thoughts????