<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9258340#post9258340 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cschweitzer
Please, you have no obligation to anyone but yourself. I would never give up my clownfish, no matter how many clutches I would not raise. I was just merely pointing out that they are one of the easier things to breed, have the best success, quickest MMP of the clowns being bred, and it is a very fun and intersting process to watch little 1/4" baby larvae turn into full grown baby fish. Many people have had great success leaving the broodstock in their reef tanks, setting up a little area for egg laying, and just pulling the tile with eggs on it out and putting that into the separate tank for hatching. You do not need to put your fish somewhere else to breed, it just makes it easier. They look very happy where they are at and to tell you the truth, I think moving them to a separate tank would be a step in a backwards direction toward breeding them anyways.
The way to determine if they are a breeding pair(probably not with other clowns in the tank) is to look for the signs. They will usually clean off a flat area with lower flow. They will do this by the male picking at the rock and waving it off. The female then lays the eggs and the male will tend to them for about five days, waving them, picking off dead ones, keeping predators away. Sometimes on these days the male may not eat or may be late to the feast. You would also see the female lose a lot of weight in a day...carrying around 600 eggs can be very bloating.
I might try that. I could remove the other pair without issue. I have a population of almost microscopic critters in the water column of my sump, thousands and thousnds (probably some sort of tiny pod, dunno they are smaller than the tip of a straight pin and swim in the column). I could setup a box in the sump that had the top higher than the water level, but had some entry for flow to pass thru close to the top and exit the bottom thru some dense filter pad. I could move the eggs to that area. Might be worth a try.
I actually on a weekly basis perform a process of flushing alot of those little critters into the aquarium water coulum. It feeds my corals etc. I do that with a converted phosphate reactor, that has the pump reduced to a very, very low level. The critters accumulate in that area over the week
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