Just noticed my first clown eggs ever!

[_shorty_]

Needless to say, I was excited to see my clown pair that I bought and paired about 2 - 2.5 years ago finally have eggs! I don't normally hang out in this section of the forums, but plan to start, so I can read up on maybe trying my hand at raising a fry. So, in your guys' experience, do they usually continue laying eggs after they start? If so, how often do they typically lay them?

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[shifty51008]

Congrats, its hard to see the eggs but cool

Mine lay eggs every 10 days and never miss a beat

 

[_shorty_]

I'll try to get better video or pics tonight with a better camera and when the lights are on. (My daylight lights had already gone off for the day). The eggs are just a tightly packed greyish mass of tiny 'sacks' bouncing in waves/current. I'm guessing it would probably give about an inch and a half diameter if they made a uniform circle/disk.

Any events that might stop a pair from continuing to lay eggs that I should try to avoid?

 

[krzyphsygy]

Awesome, mine just layed eggs tonight also.......no what? i have no idea what to do, am i supposed to do anything?

 

[_shorty_]

Awesome, mine just layed eggs tonight also.......no what? i have no idea what to do, am i supposed to do anything?

Lol! Good question. I've been reading the past several days about what to do... And am feeling like I've only barely scratched the surface. Mine just hatched last night, but I didn't plan to do anyone with them. They'll just feed the tank until I can get some feeder cultures up and running.

I guess the good thing is that they should continue spawning every 10-13 days or so. I can tell my female already has another belly full of eggs on the way.

I need to get the better pics I took posted still.

 

[Salinity01]

Will they actually breed and survive in a mixed reef tank. Will a yellow tang or a regal tang eat the eggs.

 

[_shorty_]

Will they actually breed and survive in a mixed reef tank. Will a yellow tang or a regal tang eat the eggs.

They won't survive. Even if they weren't eaten, or sucked into power heads, they wouldn't find the high demand of food they need. You have to get them out by themselves in a safe environment saturated with food.

 

[Salinity01]

Well that sucks.

 

[shifty51008]

I agree they will not last long in a mixed tank, between not enough food, other fish to eat them (even their parents), and the filtration, their chance is almost 0%. a small 10 gal. tank, heater, and air pump is all you need though along with the foods. so it is a fairly easy setup.

 

[_shorty_]

Since the nest is right next to the over-flow, I forsee difficulties harvesting the babies. I'd have to turn off the pumps and wait (who knows how long, without water and heat circulating through the system) So, for those reasons I decided to try placing a tile for them to lay thier next clutch on. I got some cheap tile from the hardware store and cut one of them to fit into where they laid eggs last time. Hopefully it doesn't throw them off too bad to where they quit spawning. Momma has been showing a couple days now... but they are pretty stand-offish of the new addition covering up where thier nest used to be. Hopefully they'll get used to it and use it. They did sleep in thier normal spot last night, right under it... so hopefully that means they'll be okay it.

What types of tile to people usually use for this?

 

[shifty51008]

I have been using extra bathroom tiles that we had laying around.

they usually hatch right after lights out and are usually done within 1-2 hours, but I have found the tile to be much easier to work with, the only thing is when you transfer them to the fry tank you have to have enough bubbles going over the eggs for them to hatch but not to much that it kills them.

 

[_shorty_]

I have been using extra bathroom tiles that we had laying around.

they usually hatch right after lights out and are usually done within 1-2 hours, but I have found the tile to be much easier to work with, the only thing is when you transfer them to the fry tank you have to have enough bubbles going over the eggs for them to hatch but not to much that it kills them.

You use the back side of the tile, then? Are they the shiny glass type of tile or more stone looking?

That's something I had read- about that being a need for a second air source. Do you use an air stone? As far as air flow, I just found this video... That look good? It doesn't look like the air is getting them all, though..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqTk4CRUXzg&desktop_uri=/watch?v=wqTk4CRUXzg

I noticed thier first hatch had not all hatched at 7am (lights still out). By the time I came home that day for lunch, all the eggs were gone. So I'm assuming if they use the tile, it should provide a better harvest rate... With a little less work.

 

[shifty51008]

yes, I will use the back side of the tile, but I have seen others use the shiny side also so I am not sure it matters. I just figured the non glossy side is more rough so it is easier for the eggs to grip.

the video you show does not have enough air. I will use an air stone under the tile that way it reaches across all the eggs, it is gonna be hard to describe how fast or slow to have the air on though. just turn it up slowly til all the eggs have a good slow movement.

and there are times where you will get split hatches, I have had it before where some will hatch on day 8 and the rest on day 9, nothing to worry about.

 

[Mpek]

This is cool stuff....I have 4 clowns...two snowflake and two black ice...That'll be some cool babies if they mix it up. Just gotta wait and see. Interested to see the progress you make on this Shorty

 

[_shorty_]

Thanks. I think it'll be a neat project. So I'm traveling this week for work, and am up near Chicago. Found a nice reef store and bought phyto that has two bottles, a nanno and tetra-someing or other.

Will see how culturing both of these go before deciding to use prepaired feed products or not. I'll try to take my time with this whole process.... Well see how THAT goes.

Anyone know of a store up here that would provide micro alagae grow or F/2?

 

[_shorty_]

Live Rots or Cysts?

Live Rots or Cysts?

Should I get live rots? Or cysts? I'd think that cysts would be good in case of a culture crash, to get restarted. But I've read that it's harder to start up from cysts. Is it that much harder? I'm thinking that a smaller vessel might be easier to start up a culture with cysts, and then transfer to a larger (5 gallon) container?

My second clutch (that I'm aware of) hatched a couple nights ago. Mom jumped out of the tank (for the second time in three weeks!) at me when I was turkey baster blasting the rock work on her half of the tank. She goes for my hand and misses then ends up on top of a 3/4" wide board that my GFO reactor is mounted to under electrical wires. I put her back in covered with cob webs.. but she's been okay so far both times. crazy momma!

I ordered my F/2 product last night, and plan to order heaters and other equipment this week. So, I expect to be culturing some phyto before the week is done. ( I know... the prepaired products are easier - but I want to get the full experience ) I plan on recieving my rotifer containers this weekend so I expect to be ready to culture some rots by next week.

 

[_shorty_]

well crud! not seeing my female carrying eggs this time yet. Before, by this time in the cycle, she was fat.

I was gone this past week on business. Left my 17 year old to feed the tank. He apparently paid no attention to pumps sucking air or bubbles in display or anything. ulitmately I had an issue in the sump where a pump's plumbing came undone and water was spitting out of the sump. ATO dropped in fresh water lowered salinity down to 1.016!!! I lost my crocea clam (i'm guessing due to air bubbles or combo with salinity).. I thought I'd lost my RBTA, but the RBTA is back and looking good again. I'm slowly bringing salinity back up this week. Everyone else is fine, including corals (fortunately!) - between that, and her jumping out, I think it disrupted the breeding cycle..

Hopefully they pick it back up!! cause I just ordered a bunch of crap to try to raise thier babies!!

 

[Erin_O]

Go with cysts for when they start to get a little older. They are easy to hatch and raise, there are a couple good sites I just stumbled across.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/12/breeder
I also noticed no one mentioned that the parents will eat the babies/eggs. They will put a week and a half using all their energy to raise them then just eat them. As will any other fish you may have in the system.
The tile idea is a good plan, but don't leave it in. Pull it and put it into another tank by themselves with ompimum water quality and temp with a bubbler. (Yes the stone looking side of the tile works great.)
When hatched they typically swim to a source of light as well, in the wild it would be the moonlight so if they're in a tank with an overflow , coax them into a container of some sort with a light since they hatch in the dark.

 

[_shorty_]

thanks for the info and link! ya, i've been reading constantly on this and raising thier foods. I look forward to checking out your provided link!

Even though, she is not currently carrying (that I can tell), I'm still prepairing. Going to start my phyto cultures this weekend, and hopefully my rots next week.

 

[_shorty_]

progress!

progress!

I started my phyto cultures Sunday afternoon. I'm using 750ml glass bottles (old wine bottles). Acid washed the vessels, bleach sterilized my media for 24 hours, and then de-chlorinated each vessel before inoculation. Using separate air pumps per culture, because I cannot find .2 micron air line filters. Using 2 part f/2 product from fritzpet.

Currently running 1 culture bottle of Nanno and 1 bottle of Tetra. So far so good. I think I noticed them slightly darker yesterday than the day before. Using 'Phyto2' cultures from aqua-tech co. I'd already bought thier product from a LFS in Schaumberg just by chance (a week+ ago), and then I met the owner at a frag swap Saturday. Seems like a super great guy that offered to help in anyway he could through email. I didn't even realize I had bought his product until after I was home the next day getting ready to inoc my cultures. He is confident that thier product is superior if you want pure and live phyto cultures. I saw a video where he was at a show with a microscope challenging anyone to bring thier phyto product to compare.

I will be bringing samples of my first cultures vs the originals to work some day to compare under the microscope, and post my progress.

!!If anyone has any resources or references (preferrably with pics) I'd LOVE to have them, to know what I'm looking for under the microscope!!

In addition to all the phyto stuff, I noticed that I think my momma clown is carrying eggs again!! So, I'll post again when I see some eggs lain. So they only missed or were delayed by about a cycle from all the problems while I was gone. I should be able to be ready to gather this next batch, but I don't know if I will or not (being the first after all these upsets). We'll see if I have the willpower to not gather them!...

I also found a local source for rotifers, in a town not too far from me. He also raises clowns. So i'm looking forward to meeting him and picking his brain, as well as getting some rot cultures going!!

Anyone know how much volume per week of live phyto that a 4 gal rot culture might consume? I don't want to get a culture started without knowing I have enough to feed them. (I have read yeast and even v8 juice will do the trick) So I'm guessing that I could sustain a rot culture with either of those, and switch to phyto a few days before I need them for the fry. But, again, I have no reference on how much of any of these to feed. I may have to read up more on these methods...