How do you breed clown fish?

fish clown

fish clown

New member
Hello, I am new the Reef Central as well the whole saltwater reef thing. I recently discoverd its alot more money to run than I expected so ive been looking for a way to at least break even. I was going to give breeding clowns a shot but which ones are the most profitable? how big would the breeding tanks need to be? which setup is the best? any help would be appreated.
 
breeding clowns isnt that difficult, raising the fry is a different story. you must culture live rotifers and other foods constantly until they are large enough to eat frozen or other prepared food.

From what i understand, its difficult even for advanced hobbyists- so i would imagine being new to the hobby would make it 20x harder.
 
Find the book called CLOWNFISHES by Joyce Wilkerson. It will tell you most of what you need to know about the basics. I have 2 mated pairs (in 2 seperate tanks) and hope as they mature I can find the eggs and give it a try. But mine are only just getting mature enough.
 
I've found this site http://www.breedclownfish.com/ was very informative and enough to let me know it was too time involving. If the process they detail doesn't scare you away, then buy the book. :)

You might try aquaculturing corals for trade and extra cash.
 
fish clown said:
Could I connect my 75 gal. reef to the mating and fry tanks?
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It is possible, but for the first couple weeks it is actually easier to keep the babies in a 10 gal. tank without filtration. The babies are very fragile and can't take much water motion. Getting water out of the tank without getting babies trapped/or swept into an overflow is tough. You want to keep the baby tank as sterile as possible and there are all sorts of wee-beasties (bacteria/viruses/medusa from hydroids/etc.) in your tank that can infect/eat the babies.

The babies are not that difficult to raise, but to do it right, it is very time consuming.
 
WDLV said:
Bread and butter like ocellaris.
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Definitely ocellaris. Pet stores will buy lots of ocellaris at a time but they won't want to pay much, usually less than half of what they sell them for.
They will buy percs too, but percs take longer to grow out and way longer to color up/get their stripes.

IME, selling to individuals was a pain in the behind. Way too much time waiting around for people, some that don't ever show. I started delivering to people, but that was a PITA too.

With any of the other clowns, you will flood the market with your first brood. I had a brood of 200 orange skunks. I ended up having to sell the last 100 to a wholesaler for about $1 a clown because they were getting too big and I didn't have any room. Designer clowns will bring you more money per fish, but unless you are selling on the internet, you won't find that many people willing to pay that kind of money for a clown.

As far as making money goes, you would be better off doing yard work for your neighbors. I think I figured I was making less than $1 hour raising clowns/rotifers/phytoplankton.
 
If you really want to do it, do it because you like a challenge or like baby fish. Not for some delusions of financial prosperity....for the reasons Phil already laid out.
If after realizing there's little or no money in it you still want to try it, go pick up those books... Starting with Wilkerson's book.
 
I dont think there is any sort of get rich quick scheme in this hobby. As the saying goes, don't quit your day job!

But as for the MOST profitable...if you can get a rare frag and grow it to colony size then frag it, then you MAY be able to turn a profit. Check out cherrycorals...those kinds of color morphs. But you'd still have to wait for them to get big enough to frag out.
 
fish clown said:
So from what I have heard so far it dosnt sound like this would pay off. Any suggestions on what will?
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Start a collecting station in a third world country and exploit the native population?

It used to be that you could cherry pick the best corals from the wholesalers, put a fancy name on them, frag them and sell them for outrageous prices, but the wholesalers and collectors have caught on and have bumped up their prices accordingly.
 
I have (along with probably every serious reef aquarist out there) been pondering this for some time. My personal direction would be to approach the government of a country like Philippines to allot a lagoon protected by a decimated reef and ask them if you can restore said reef and in return be able to collect from those very waters. You use the damaged reef as a platform to transplant corals and grow them out then set up a nursery in the lagoon to grow the frags into new colonies.
Hire local fishermen for US minimum wage to transplant and raise these corals. Skip the wholesale chain altogether, set up a warehouse in CA for quarantine and ship directly to the retailers.
So, you end up with a restored reef, a supply of aquacultured corals and you help the local economy on both the ornamental and the food side because a healthy reef supports biodiversity of both ornamentals and food source fishes.
 
WDLV said:
Work in commercial aquaculture.
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:lol:

Long hours, middle of the night emergencies that haul you out of a nice warm bed....and all for not much more money than flipping burger :eek2:

BTW the secret to making a million dollars in aquaculture?

Start out with 2 million dollars :D
 
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