guess my chances are 0-none

[LovenBama]

been trying to get pics but it is impossible to do but my clowns apparently laid and "hatched" a clutch in the past week and there are babies everywhere in the tank....from what I've read ..they will not survive for some reason or another..but just wondered why not?I first saw them last Sunday night so they are at least a week old and pretty much stay in the cracks and crevices of the liverock and can only see them at night about 20 minutes after the lights go out...what's everyones thoughts,opinion, comments or suggestions? I am moving the parents to another tank in about 2 weeks in hopes of raising some babies

 

[wpecoul]

I think their biggest problem is lack of suitable food. Even if they can avoid predators, there's not much that they are likely to find available to eat that has much nutritional value.

 

[KingRicky]

Tomoko seems to be the clown baby expert. she has raised some really nice looking Clowns so I would recommend hitting her up for advice.

 

[LovenBama]

I know Tomoko does...saw some of her babies when I picked up the 29g I bought from her....she had lots of babies

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Congratulations!

Your clownfish babies must be eating some tiny organisms in your tank to survive for a week on their own. I would offer them a good amount of live baby brine shrimp. If you don't have live ones, frozen baby brine shrimp may work, but you need to clean up after them a lot more since they decay faster.

Since they are not good swimmers, it is easier to feed them in a smaller tank/confined space. Babies probably still gather to a flash light in the dark. You can scoop some up into a cup and raise them in a tiny tank with a sponge filter. You can do a 25 to 50% daily water change with the parent's tank water to keep up the good water quality.

However, I hate to change anything (except for moving parents out of there) if the set up is working well for them. If this batch does not work out, you can move a small number of clownfish babies out of the next batch and raise them in their own tiny tank. Once they start spawning, it's like clockwork. You will see eggs every two weeks. Eggs hatch like clockwork, too.

HTH,

Tomoko

 

[LovenBama]

Thanks for the info Tomoko....WOW!!! every 2 weeks, now thats alot of work for the parents....the babies in the tank seem to be doing well as far as I can tell....the are turning orange in color and seem to be getting better at swimming...was watching a small group of them the first night I spotted them and they didn't seem to swim well as you stated, looked as if they kept running into the sides of the whole in the rock in which they where at..but now they seem to be darting around pretty good and fast in and out through the holes in the rock
as far as eating tiny organisms...I really don't know but I was just telling Susan and Bill that there was so much activity goin on in my tank at night with all sort of wicked and strange little things everywhere, that I was almost afraid to put my "bare" hands back into the tank As for now I'll just keep doing my usual thing and let nature take it's course...whichever it maybe be because I'm not set-up to raise them properly yet..I know that may sound aweful but I have too much on my plate for the next week or so to try to tend to babies in another seperate tank and I really didn't expect them to lay so soon after I got them ..thought I'd have a few more months before they would lay a good batch of eggs since I've only had them about 2 1/2 months and had read that they go through a bad egg period after being moved to a different enviroment
Anyways, thanks again for the info and hopefully in about a month I can report some good news on a batch after the parents are moved to their own little tank with no other fish

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Good luck, Virginia. It's so exciting to see a bunch of babies doing well. I hope some of the baby clowns will make it. They just might since they are doing so well to this point . A mature female can lay 700 to 800 eggs easily each time. You will be inundated with young'uns soon at this rate .

Tomoko

 

[NicoleC]

It would be unusual but not totally unknown for the babies to make it in a reef tank, and it says very good things about the biodiversity of your microfauna that they are metamorphosing on what they can find to catch and eat. Odd, though, that they are coming out at night since they need light to target prey. I'm guessing you have a moonlight?

Anyway, once they turn orange they are on the road to adulthood. For this batch, once they are 1/4" long or so -- which will be another week or maybe two -- you could scoop them (with a cup, not a net) and move to a separate tank filled with water from the parent tank and proceed from there.

Or not. Whatever they are catching is nutritious enough to see them this far, and that's a challenge. My concern at this point would be running out of food, not the wrong food. You could supplement with BBS as Tomoko mentions.

If you want a science project, you could try to capture microorganisms in your tank using a plankton net and culture them. You may have a great larval food in there, like a very small and slow moving copepod.

Please don't feel bad about not trying to rear them. You just can't raise every batch, and in the wild, it is very rare for one to live to adulthood considering the numbers of eggs clowns put out. But clowns are lots of fun to raise since they grow so fast are relatively easy since the larvae are so large.

 

[jasontammy]

Eggs

Eggs

Congratulations - that is so cool! Ours spawned a week ago Friday for the first time and I can't wait until this weekend to see if I can catch them in the act. A bit pervy, huh? Unfortunately, our male ate the first batch of eggs.

On the other hand, our cardinals are 6 days old - maybe later we can swap cardinals for clowns.

Tammy

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Tammy,

Can you place a clean tile or a small terracotta flowerpot saucer where the pair is making a nest? They start cleaning their spawning site when the time gets closer as you know. They are known to use a flat tile or even a flowerpot as the nesting site. Once they lay eggs, you can pull the tile with eggs out of the parents reach and raise them yourself. However, it's best to leave the eggs with the parents as long as possible since they do much better job of keeping eggs aerated and disposing of spoiled ones. The parents will eat unfertilized eggs, too. Your male probably needs just a few more practices to fertilize the eggs just right.

If your pair lays eggs on a tile and guards the eggs until they are ready to hatch, you can easily move the tile with eggs into a small rearing tank on the night they are going to hatch just before the light goes out. It's easier on you that way than waiting until one in the morning with bleary eyes.

Tomoko

 

[NicoleC]

It's easier on you that way than waiting until one in the morning with bleary eyes.

[/B]

True... but don't say you weren't warned you might be up every half hour to go in and look at the eggs anyway.