Feeding clown larvae
- Thread starter SAreefer
- Start date
Fresh hatch brine are too large, otherwise nobody would bother with the rots 
Some larvae might eat some of the frozen rots if you can keep them in suspension long enough, but your not going to get the same kind of food acceptance and larval survival that you would with live rots.
Some larvae might eat some of the frozen rots if you can keep them in suspension long enough, but your not going to get the same kind of food acceptance and larval survival that you would with live rots.
Twisted
Premium Member
Ok, so Live rots is pretty much The best food supplement for anyone thinking about breeding clowns.
Does culturing your own rots smell as bad as it seems it would? Figureing that you are pretty much filling a tanks with phytoplankton and dumping in rots. Atleast that seems like the basis of what I was reading.
I am planning on setting up a small breeding system in my house, and don't have any place to set up a rotifier farm, so was thinking about doing it in the small shop I have in the backyard, mainly because I assume the smell is going to be pretty bad.
Does culturing your own rots smell as bad as it seems it would? Figureing that you are pretty much filling a tanks with phytoplankton and dumping in rots. Atleast that seems like the basis of what I was reading.
I am planning on setting up a small breeding system in my house, and don't have any place to set up a rotifier farm, so was thinking about doing it in the small shop I have in the backyard, mainly because I assume the smell is going to be pretty bad.
Twisted
Premium Member
Cool, I will have to read up on it more I guess, my breeding tank, and the larva tanks should be set up in a few weeks, so I got a month or so to figure out the rots.
I have the baby brines down pat, and getting ready to attempt the phtyoplankton. The stinky part of it all!
Then after I figure out the phyto, I get to work on rots and copepods.
Man this is getting to be work!
I have the baby brines down pat, and getting ready to attempt the phtyoplankton. The stinky part of it all!
Then after I figure out the phyto, I get to work on rots and copepods.
Man this is getting to be work!
Twisted, seems we are both in the same boat.
billsreef, thanks for the help, the reason i wanted to know this is that i wanted to try and get away with commercially available food, so i could concentrate on raising the larvae without the need to worry about food sources.
Any other commercially available first food source i can feed to larvae, keeping in mind it must be available for shipping to south africa.
billsreef, thanks for the help, the reason i wanted to know this is that i wanted to try and get away with commercially available food, so i could concentrate on raising the larvae without the need to worry about food sources.
Any other commercially available first food source i can feed to larvae, keeping in mind it must be available for shipping to south africa.
Twisted
Premium Member
Wow! south Africa? I guess I glanced, I thought it said south america! lol, I pictured you south of me. This really is a world wide hobby, that is just too cool.
From what I have been reading rotifiers are pretty much the best food source for the clown larvae.
http://www.reefnutrition.com/rotifeast/index.htm
Is not a live food but is supposedly suitable for feeding larvae. So once I get to that point in a couple months hopefully, I will find out.
It looks like about $40 per bottle on the 16oz bottle and says suggested feeding is about .4oz per 100 gallon, I am guessing that is twice, maybe three times a day? How often do you feed Billsreef?. so on my set up which is half that more or less a bottle would last me about, hmmm..., .2oz per serveing, three servings a day equals .6oz a day, or 4.2oz per week, or 16.8oz a month, so I would be like 1.5 days off from a 30 day cycle per bottle. If the Experation date will make it, I would be happy with that!
I increased my cost by $40 bucks a month, but saved myself a lot of time, and experimenting with raiseing live food.
If anyone has used this please chime in and let us know!
From what I have been reading rotifiers are pretty much the best food source for the clown larvae.
http://www.reefnutrition.com/rotifeast/index.htm
Is not a live food but is supposedly suitable for feeding larvae. So once I get to that point in a couple months hopefully, I will find out.
It looks like about $40 per bottle on the 16oz bottle and says suggested feeding is about .4oz per 100 gallon, I am guessing that is twice, maybe three times a day? How often do you feed Billsreef?. so on my set up which is half that more or less a bottle would last me about, hmmm..., .2oz per serveing, three servings a day equals .6oz a day, or 4.2oz per week, or 16.8oz a month, so I would be like 1.5 days off from a 30 day cycle per bottle. If the Experation date will make it, I would be happy with that!
I increased my cost by $40 bucks a month, but saved myself a lot of time, and experimenting with raiseing live food.
If anyone has used this please chime in and let us know!
Yeah dude, SA has a pretty good reef scene and is growing fast....
I can get roti feast here, hence my first question whether dead rotifers could be used.
Does anyone know if there is any other place i could order livefood from. The cost is not that important to me as the breeding is purely for the fun and no interest in breeding for commercial reasons (or atleast not yet)
twisted, post some feeding about the roti feast when you tried it(seeing as you also a newby to breeding)
I can get roti feast here, hence my first question whether dead rotifers could be used.
Does anyone know if there is any other place i could order livefood from. The cost is not that important to me as the breeding is purely for the fun and no interest in breeding for commercial reasons (or atleast not yet)
twisted, post some feeding about the roti feast when you tried it(seeing as you also a newby to breeding)
Twisted
Premium Member
Here is a link for live starter cultures of rotifiers. This is what I had planned on useing before, but not sure how much trouble it will be yet. http://www.reed-mariculture.com/rotifer/instant.asp
From what I have been reading, it isn't that hard to grow your own with this kit, you basically make green water with Phytoplankton like DT's and dump these guys in with the right tempeture they will breed like rabbits.
I also got from the reading that if you have a phytoplankton crash, that you will lose everything. Rotifiers eat like every 4 hours and if there is no food in the tank they will die, but the green water will usually keep for a day or two, then you just add more phyto as the water starts to clear.
These cultures last 2 weeks refridgerated, so, I assume you could probablly take some rotifiers out of your tank every so often and put them in the fridge in case there is a crash, that way you don't lose everything, or have two breeding set ups.
Anyone running a small home rotifier culture that can chime in?
From what I have been reading, it isn't that hard to grow your own with this kit, you basically make green water with Phytoplankton like DT's and dump these guys in with the right tempeture they will breed like rabbits.
I also got from the reading that if you have a phytoplankton crash, that you will lose everything. Rotifiers eat like every 4 hours and if there is no food in the tank they will die, but the green water will usually keep for a day or two, then you just add more phyto as the water starts to clear.
These cultures last 2 weeks refridgerated, so, I assume you could probablly take some rotifiers out of your tank every so often and put them in the fridge in case there is a crash, that way you don't lose everything, or have two breeding set ups.
Anyone running a small home rotifier culture that can chime in?
I would stay away from using a hobbyist brand for feeding to rotifers. You'll go broke. Grow your own, or use a paste.
Roti-Feast isn't that great for clown larvae. Frozen rotifers tend to be bursted cells and are not gut packed.
Tigriopus are too large and you have a very hard time raising the amount of copepods need to get a density that the clown larvae require. The copepidites are benthic, so you're not that usefull in this application.
FWIW, shipping live rotifers to SA is a not a problem
Twisted
Premium Member
Thanks for the reply Gresham. Was hoping you would show up, you seem to be one in the kow when it comes to these things. So maybe you could clue us in? From what I read, for breeding clowns, you pretty much want to culture your own phytoplankton to feed your rotifiers, then feed your rotifiers to your larvae, when the fish get about 4 weeks? you can move to fresh hatched brine? Or is it earlier? Then you can move inot frozen foods at like 2 months? Or is my time line off? maybe it was 4 weeks to do brine, and 4 months to do frozen, like mysis or something?
I meant to introduce myself at the frag swap last month, but I couldn't placew you until you won the tank at the end, by then you were swarmed and my group wanted to get out of there and hit a few stores before we made the long trek home.
Wish I could have seen your set up, at home, and at work, would have given me some great insight I am sure.
I meant to introduce myself at the frag swap last month, but I couldn't placew you until you won the tank at the end, by then you were swarmed and my group wanted to get out of there and hit a few stores before we made the long trek home.
Wish I could have seen your set up, at home, and at work, would have given me some great insight I am sure.
FWIW, shipping live rotifers to SA is a not a problem
this sounds interesting, do you perhaps have a link for me (if it's allowed on this site)
when it comes to breeding marines i feel like a person getting his fisrt soft coral and don't have a clue of the best course of action. easiest wrt time etc.
SA,
Gresham works for one of our sponsors, Reed Mariculture. However, he still isn't allowed to promote them on RC outside of thier sponser forum.
BTW if you click on the link in his little red house, he has them as his homepage
I've used Reed both personally and professionally and have found them to be a good company.
Gresham works for one of our sponsors, Reed Mariculture. However, he still isn't allowed to promote them on RC outside of thier sponser forum.
BTW if you click on the link in his little red house, he has them as his homepage
I've used Reed both personally and professionally and have found them to be a good company.
Yah, I'm walking a fine line Bill 
I know my place though :lol: Think you could petition for my to get my Sponsor logo? I'm not trying yo hide the fact I'm a sponsor :lol:
Twisted, I'm not entirelly up on when clowns need to be fed what, sorry. I've been told a bunch of times, but it probably won't set in until I do some breeding projects myself. I learn mostly by hands on
Your order i right though, Phyto>rotifers>BBS>flake/frozen
Some have tried with success going phyto>rotifer>GP or Otohime and skipping BBS. There's been a few threads on this forum on that very subject. Search for Otohime, it'll bring the threads up the quickest.
I know my place though :lol: Think you could petition for my to get my Sponsor logo? I'm not trying yo hide the fact I'm a sponsor :lol:Twisted, I'm not entirelly up on when clowns need to be fed what, sorry. I've been told a bunch of times, but it probably won't set in until I do some breeding projects myself. I learn mostly by hands on
Your order i right though, Phyto>rotifers>BBS>flake/frozen
Some have tried with success going phyto>rotifer>GP or Otohime and skipping BBS. There's been a few threads on this forum on that very subject. Search for Otohime, it'll bring the threads up the quickest.
Thanks billsreef
not trying to step over the line here (mod can edit post if need be), but will roti-feast work as a first stage food source for clown lavae. How much would you guys say i would need to feed ,i know size of batch will matter but lets assume on a batch of 50 larvae...
also for how long would i need to feed roti's before swithing over to BBS. this will be for false percula clowns
I wanted to post this question here in the hope that there is one or 2 people that have used this product before seeing as this is the breeding forum i though i might get the best answers here.
not trying to step over the line here (mod can edit post if need be), but will roti-feast work as a first stage food source for clown lavae. How much would you guys say i would need to feed ,i know size of batch will matter but lets assume on a batch of 50 larvae...
also for how long would i need to feed roti's before swithing over to BBS. this will be for false percula clowns
I wanted to post this question here in the hope that there is one or 2 people that have used this product before seeing as this is the breeding forum i though i might get the best answers here.
