Help Please - Baby clowns
- Thread starter agsansoo
- Start date
Might consider using a sponge filter much later in their develoment. Everything I've read suggests doing daily water changes for the first few months. If a sponge filter can screen out particulate, it may also do the same with young fry that are really not that strong with swimming yet. Also, the filter is depleting your population of rotifers and/or brine shrimp. I wait for approximately 2 months plus before using a sponge filter for oscellaris. One recommendation I've read says to start using sponge filter after the fry are weaned off of live food.
barelycuda
New member
Maroons do take longer to grow out than ocellaris. I would not introduce a sponge filter until the larvae are at least 14 days old. A daily water change of around 10-20% should be more than adequate. Their diet should be rotifers (live) for the first 7-8 days. On day 7 or 8 you can introduce newly hatched brine. Always overlap the old & new foods for at least a week when changing foods. Personally I would try to steer away from any yeast, flour or dry fish food as nutrition for the rotifers.(I am not in any way trying to devalue any one elses opinion but this is what I have learned from numerous conversations & research. Everyone here is trying to help but all have different experience.) You have to remember that the larvae are consuming whatever you feed the rotifers & yeast based food have no nutritional value so the larvae are expending energy to eat with no value. The yeast based rotifer foods also can foul the water quality much faster if the rotifers are overfed.
kerusso316
New member
The reasion you are loosing fish in the first 5 days is stress and low food.You will have better success if you get them laying on a tile.EGGS are easy to move when on a tile.They do not die.You can take them right out of the water,walk around set them in the new tank.This is possible because the egg protects the embryo.The egg slows the environmental change.When you move a baby they stress and die.You cant see why they Just die.You can rase some fish with a snagger but your numbers will be low.It takes the same amount of work to raise 20 as it does 400.Ther are many things you should be working on at once.First introduce the tile....Trust me.Second, you should set a uniform way to feed and care for your rotifers.Feed the same amount to them at the same time every day.They will get use to your habbits.They will multiply.Third Get a nano. culture going.When your eggs are two days from hatch set the tank up,Add rotifers[Like 20 per square inch]. and live nano.Your rotifers will get use to the new environment and flourish.You want the water in the hatch tank to stay VERY GREEN[use paste IA or live for this].This will feed your rotifers as they are eaten in the day.The rotifers will rebound overnight.You want to use your rotifier culture to supplement the tank not feed it.If you try to keep the rotifer culture fed for the babies it will be too much Phyto and will foul.Dont try to raise clowns."Raise rotifers" and the clowns will do the rest.Last order some good quality artemia eggs and a samplers pack of otohime from Reed Macroculture.If you do these things you will need the oto.There are many ways to raise fish.This way is proven by some of the top breaders.I raise Onyx Percs.I copy those who do it for a living.I hope this helps You and others........Mitch
barelycuda
New member
Thanks Mitch. I second the Otohime. I have several sizes & that is the primary food for my ocellaris juvies once they are weaned off of bbs. I am averaging ocellaris growout to 1" in approx 13-14 weeks.
Dave
Dave
kerusso316
New member
Nice.... My percs take 7 weeks just to get there second stripe.I keep them on Nano enriched 3 day old brine,oto and cyclo for the entire 7 weeks. I get better baring that way.
Let me throw out another alternative, and that's a 3" clay flower pot. My clowns seem to like it because it's much easier to "defend" if there are other inhabitants in tank. The pot comes with a small hole in the bottom to insert air line once in fry tank. Only problem would be if laying site does not allow the placement of the pot nearby. Luckily, my clowns' anemone is in the corner of a tank on a few pieces of rock, and it is easy to place pot next to anemone.
Atticus
New member
Have you bought Wilkerson's book? The hardest part of raising fry is the first week. You pull them through that and you have it made (well as made as a breeder can...). It sounds like you are either getting mechanical damage of the fry in the growout tank or they are not eating. What do you see them doing? How are they reacting to light? You want them to sit in the middle of the water column only using energy to dart 1/2 a body length for rotifers. I too suggest live phyto use in growout. It keeps the water cleaner, feeds the rots, and has the added advantage of diffusing the light. Best advice though is to read Wilkerson's Clownfishes and read the old threads on breeding clownfish. If you need to narrow the search look for my name, JHardman, Ediaz, or any of the "old timers".
barelycuda
New member
All of the breeders that I deal with are laying in a clay flower pot. I move them the night of the hatch & install a small airstone through the center of the flower pot & keep a steady fine mist of bubbles moving the eggs. Here is a pic of my last batch after I added some nano the morning of the first day. One thing I have noticed by hatching this way is that almost all of the eggs hatch over 2 evenings.
kerusso316
New member
I use pots on all broad stock.I use a tile in the reef.
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