Four Year old Clowns Mating

Just an ounce of the Otohime A. I actually forgot about the starter kit you mentioned! :( Maybe I can go from Otohime A to a ground up small spectrum pellet? Those are pretty small and they have garlic flavor + lots of protein. I also have a brine shrimp hatchery on the way too so I should hopefully have something to feed them.
 
I have heard that the first batch of eggs are not usually as strong as the ones that follow. It is great that you were able to get some fry from this. Hope all goes well. Keep us updated.
 
Good news! My female clownfish (Bonnie) is starting to have a big fat belly. I think any day now the pair will be laying eggs again. Check out this video of her being fed tonight. Sorry for the poor quality, and please ignore my hair algae infestation. I like to think it keeps my nitrates down! :lol2:

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Here's the update for Day 6. I still have 35 small fry swimming about. Last night was the first night in 4 days that all of the fish did not sleep on the floor. At about 11PM I still had about 8 or 9 fish swimming around. I guess they are getting a bit stronger as they grow.

I did a 25% water change this morning with water from the main tank. I used an airline hose to suck up all the waste and non-survivors from the bottom. I only had two that turned out to still be alive and were swimming around in my waste bucket. It was easy enough to scoop them back into the tank. The water has lost a lot of it's green color, but I should be getting some more phyto today that I can add to both the tank and my rotifer bucket. (thanks Whip316!)

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Second Clutch & Baby Update

Second Clutch & Baby Update

And we have another batch of eggs from Bonnie and Clyde! :celeb1:

wbwrml.jpg


Also, the fry are doing better and still swimming around at night. The rotifer cultures are going strong, and I have a good supply of concentrated phyto that was very generously donated.

I have a few more tanks thankfully, a 5.5 gallon tank that will be the new fry tank. And a 20g long that will likely be the long term grow-out tank. It's pretty exciting just thinking about whats to come. Thanks for all of your help and support.

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Nanoposeiden
 
I was reading through the post and have a quick question. Did you see the hatching and syphon out the fry? Did you just use the same kind you would use for water changes?
 
Yep, I just used my water change hose to siphon them out on hatch night. My wife held a flashlight on top of the tank and they were attracted to the light so it was easy to siphon them out. For the next batch I'll probably try and scoop them out as it will be a little easier on them.
 
Well guys I'm sad to report that only about 4 of my fry are still alive as of this morning. Last night I noticed that a good number were on the floor again, with only about 10 swimming. The surviving fry are noticeably longer and I can see they have developed their pectoral fins. Their swimming however is rather lethargic. The ammonia badge still reads safe and the temperature has been a steady 82. There were several fry dead on top of the heater, so for the next batch I'm going to try and put a bubble want directly under that heater to keep them off of it.

On the plus side, my food chain is taking off and I am able to produce a surplus amount of rotifers finally. Hopefully batch number two will be stronger and I'll have fixed my mistakes.

I haven't given up on the survivors.. I might move them to the smaller 5.5 gallon tank if I only have a few left, and save this 10g tank for the new hatch. Also, I think I'll start off with less than 10g of water with the new fry and gradually add more each day, so amount of rotifers needed isn't so high to attain a high density.
 
Nano-

I was having a similar problem. I corrected it by tinting the water even darker in the fry tank. If you're fry are on the bottom, usually it is due to the light being too bright. If that still doesn't correct the problem, could be related to the parents' diet.
 
Well the day has come! The second clutch hatched tonight. I've cleaned out the original fry tank as best I could and set it back up with 5g of water to start off. I've also covered up the light to dim it a bit for the first few days. My supply of rotifers has taken off and I only had to harvest 2L of rotifers to get the tank pretty dense, as you can see from the video. I've also tinted the water a bit darker than last time. The fry are swimming around in the water column this time instead of sticking to the surface. Oh, and one other change.. I'm now using a bubble wand under the heater instead of an airstone, to give me better water flow and to keep the little guys off the heater.

There was actually one fish left from hatch 1. I transferred him to a bucket last night and he is now back with his younger siblings. He still had not been through meta, so we'll see if I can spot him later if he makes it through.

Check out the video and let me know if you have any advice!

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Hatch #2 Update - 24 Hours

Hatch #2 Update - 24 Hours

The fry seem to be very active and doing well. I can't see the bottom of the tank very well with all of the phytoplankton in the water. I can tell that the fish are staying right in the middle this time rather than on the surface or the floor, so that is a good sign. I have been trying to keep the food density uniform throughout the day. I had to dose rotifers this morning, and again at about 4PM. Tonight the density was still high as you can see from the video so I did not add any more.

Main goals right now:

  • Keeping plenty of food in the tank
  • Keeping the water tinted green enough that I can only see the fish from the top down
  • Keeping the temprature at an even 81 degrees
  • Testing Ammonia daily
  • Keeping stray sunlight or other bright light out with black construction paper on all four sides of the tank

Oh I thought I would mention that I did order a 1L bag of frozen Nanno3600 from Reeds Mariculture, so I should have plenty of rotifer fuel for the foreseeable future! It should be arriving tomorrow afternoon, which is good because I'm almost out of the stuff I have.

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hatch 2 - 48 hour update

hatch 2 - 48 hour update

Down to about 50 fry at the 48 hour mark. I only had about 25 of them swimming this morning so I turned up the airflow. Tonight I saw they were just tumbling so I turned it way back down to what you see in the video. The rotifer density is still high, maybe even too high. (it's starting to look like my buckets in the garage). If it keeps getting more dense I'll probably have to do a water change this weekend to thin them out and clean up the morts. I have removed the towel from the lights and also the black from the sides of the tank now that their eyes are hopefully a bit more developed that will be ok.

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Love the videos. Just wanted to know I have been following your thread. You are very diligent to commit to trying to raise those fry.
 
SmilingSam said:
Love the videos. Just wanted to know I have been following your thread. You are very diligent to commit to trying to raise those fry.
Click to expand...

Thanks Sam! I'm having a lot of fun and learning quite a bit of really interesting stuff. It's great to have a place to share my progress and to get such good advice and feedback.

Let me know if you would like to see anything specific about my setup or routine thus far. It's really low budget as we are on a paycheck to paycheck basis here so a lot of my materials are on the cheap.

I hope that someone who may have a similar budget my look at these videos and it will help them as others have helped me.
 
Well things did not go well for the new hatch today. I only saw about 25 or so swimming this morning. They were not very active or darting around all day and now tonight I cannot see any of them swimming around at all.

I suspect that it may be the parents diet as some have suggested. I'm going to pick up some more variety frozen foods and feeding them more often to see if that helps. My regular diet for them is just spectrum pellets and frozen mysis like once a week. I've got a pretty good HOB skimmer on the tank so I'll just crank it up to skim wet for the next few weeks while I do some heavy feeding.

I'm invested now and have my cultures set up, so I'm ready for many more hatches to come.

Nanoposeiden
 
Hey guys, it's been a week and a half since my last update. Last night was hatch night #3 and I have compiled a short video of the new fry. I have been feeding the parents a good bit more than usual. Instead of the pellets, it's been only frozen mysis and the emerald entree frozen food. I have been soaking that food as well in Kent's Marine Zoe. Hopefully this clutch will be more viable.

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Lets hope that third time is the charm!
 
Day two, 45 hours and I still have at least 200 fry swimming around. I took this video just before adding more phytoplankton to the water so you can see through the water a bit better. They are swimming very well, I think there is a lot of difference between this hatch and the previous two.

One potential issue.. my wife fed more rotifers to the tank today while I was at work. She wasn't sure if they needed them or not so she filtered out a few cups of them into the tank. I believe there are now too many rotifers in the water. Would this be harmful to the fry? Should I do a water change to get them back down to about 10/ml? Here is a picture of the rotifer density tonight after adding the phyto back to the water:

v97YA.jpg


And here is a short video of them swimming around before I added the phyto:

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Nanoposeiden
 
So far my first two batches did not make it past day 7, with 90% mortality by day 3. This latest batch has survived very well and I think they will do better, but time will tell.

I very much enjoy the challenge. I'm looking forward to getting a clutch past metamorphosis. It can be a bit of a bummer when you lose so many on your first few attempts, but from my research it is a fairly common outcome as the fish and the breeder learn the ropes. There are lots of things that you have to find out by trial and error. How much food density, amount of light, how many bubbles, how green to make the water and when to change it, when to start feeding the different foods. I feel like I'm getting things more dialed in with every attempt, and that is very rewarding to see my efforts lead to positive outcomes.

Today I did a 25% water change using a slow siphon through an airline tube into a two gallon bucket. I also used a clean wash cloth to wipe the sides and bottom of the tank as there was lots of rotifer waste (dark green gunk) that had accumulated. Keeping the fry tank clean when there is a rotifer co-culture going on is a bit of a challenge. I will probably have to do at least 1 gallon a day.

Thanks,
Nanoposeiden
 
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