landlord, rkelman...i am trying to catch the larvae tonight

phil519

phil519

Got Rotifers?
Premium Member
So...this is day 8.

My true percs have laid about 7 batches of eggs this year and this will be the first time that I am ready for them. The main downside is that i was able to get the tile in before they laid them on the display back wall.

So I am sitting here in the dark with a flashlight on the top level of the tank with the pumps mostly shut down. Waiting...

Waiting...

I will try my best to catch as many as I can and if I'm not exhausted take some pics.

This will not be the amazing setup like rkelman and landlord...let's just call this the newbie method of trying to save the babies.

Wish me luck!
 
good luck. i noticed that if you watch at night when they hatch they will hatch within afew minutes of that time,without fail
 
Well the good news is that I was able to catch 9 percs. The rest stayed on the wall and I assumed would hatch the following night. The bad news is the female clown was really fat after eating the rest of the batch.

So of the 9 - one died during transfer (i assume).

Day 2 started with 8 but ended with 6.

Day 3 started with 5. The rest appear to be fat and happy but i have no idea. Everything is new to me. One of my rotifer cultures crashed. I don't know how anyone else does it - this takes serious time and effort!!
 
phil519 said:
Well the good news is that I was able to catch 9 percs. The rest stayed on the wall and I assumed would hatch the following night. The bad news is the female clown was really fat after eating the rest of the batch.

So of the 9 - one died during transfer (i assume).

Day 2 started with 8 but ended with 6.

Day 3 started with 5. The rest appear to be fat and happy but i have no idea. Everything is new to me. One of my rotifer cultures crashed. I don't know how anyone else does it - this takes serious time and effort!!
Click to expand...

Sounds like you're doing pretty good to me. Towards the beginning I was losing 50 fry during transfer, and usually about half of the remainder by the next morning. My first batch of tomatos after week 2 was down to 27 individuals IIRC.

Rotifers crash, it happens, just be prepared for it by splitting the batch into at least 2 containers. I try and keep at least three cultures going in case of the crash.

After another half dozen or so batches I'm sure I'll be reading a thread entitled "What the heck and I gonna do with all these clowns!"

Good Luck - Take some pictures!

:) Kurt
 
Phil,

I didn't see this mentioned (sorry if I missed it) but as a long time practitioner of the "fry dipping technique", I wonder if the nest got hit with too much light during the hatch? I've found that if this happens, a large proportion of the eggs fail to hatch and the parents will often eat them. Because our clownfish usually spawn in large public aquarium exhibits, we have to be resigned to coming in at night to dip larvae. The last time we got 150 larva by having the room totally dark and not shining any light on the eggs themselves, and just using a tiny penlight at the tank's surface to dip larva.....

Jay Hemdal
 
JHemdal said:
Phil,

I didn't see this mentioned (sorry if I missed it) but as a long time practitioner of the "fry dipping technique", I wonder if the nest got hit with too much light during the hatch? I've found that if this happens, a large proportion of the eggs fail to hatch and the parents will often eat them. Because our clownfish usually spawn in large public aquarium exhibits, we have to be resigned to coming in at night to dip larvae. The last time we got 150 larva by having the room totally dark and not shining any light on the eggs themselves, and just using a tiny penlight at the tank's surface to dip larva.....

Jay Hemdal
Click to expand...

Jay - I will admit I shined a light a few times on the hatch. My wife and I had NO clue what to look for (wilkerson's book says a bristle worm with big eyes). So when I thought things were hatching I'd try and take a peek at the clutch to see if they were still there.

Now that I know what to look for - next time, it will be completely lights out and waiting. Hopefully next time i'll have a tile with eggs on it.
 
landlord said:
Sounds like you're doing pretty good to me. Towards the beginning I was losing 50 fry during transfer, and usually about half of the remainder by the next morning. My first batch of tomatos after week 2 was down to 27 individuals IIRC.

Rotifers crash, it happens, just be prepared for it by splitting the batch into at least 2 containers. I try and keep at least three cultures going in case of the crash.

After another half dozen or so batches I'm sure I'll be reading a thread entitled "What the heck and I gonna do with all these clowns!"

Good Luck - Take some pictures!

:) Kurt
Click to expand...

My rotifer sieve arrived from brineshrimpdirect today. Unfortunately I timed it wrong so since the larvae are out already I had to co-culture them together because I had no way to strain the rots out.

So I think this has messed up my water quality a little in the larvae tank. The ammonia badge is showing 0.05 ppm. A minor water change earlier brought it back but now it's back to 0.05 so I'm going to do another change shortly.

Thanks for the encouragement. I will call it victory if I can get them past meta.
 
Good news for sure. The water that your rotifers came in was probably a bit on the nasty side but if everyone is still alive then you are doing well. Small water changes can assist in getting the quality up a bit. Chances are it won't help tremendously but in another week or so you should be at the stage to add a sponge filter if you are choosing to use one. Good Job for sure!

I am kind of right there with you. Siphoned my first hatch of Percula's ever last night. I missed the first of the hatch and was only able to get 11 fry. 2 got stuck in the siphon tube :( 4 died at the bottom of the larval tank :( I do however have 5 fry swimming an filling the bellies with rots.

Good Luck and we can compare notes as we go.

Kurt
 
Thanks again...since Day 3 (now at Day 7) - I still remain at 5 fry. I am not quite sure what to make of their swimming - it is less fluid for one and another appears to have eaten too much (big fat silver stomach).

One concern I have is that although they all have this room to swim about they like to swim near/along the walls. I removed the covering of the tank since I believe their eyes are well developed now but they continue to swim along the walls.

The other thing I noticed is that I probably have got a far higher density of rotifers and baby brine shrimp than necessary. I will be cleaning today and siphoning out as many of these as I can. I will restock them with newly hatched brine (decaped already) and rotifers.

This is a lot of work/challenge for such a small batch of fry. But the experience has been a lot of fun.

For the folks who have never seen the scale of the fry - here's one of my unlucky fellows next to a penny.
IMG_5962.jpg
 
Thank you for the well wishes. Somehow I've kept all 5 fry alive since day 3.

Today is Day 14 (sorry I don't have a great camera, but you can see the second stripe coming along):
IMG_6097.jpg


A new batch of eggs will hatch on Jan 5 (if my timing is right).

I'll start a new thread for that. :rollface:
 
Great news - the 5 are still alive (and I think i see a third stripe!)

Even better news - I just caught over a hundred fry. It's tiring...:lol: I'm like an egret scooping.

Andy if you are reading - I never got around to putting the larvae collector in place - just too busy this week with work and what not.

Anyways - interesting note - my tank temp dropped under 78 and I think this delayed the egg hatching since today is officially day 10.

Wish me luck!
 
phil519 said:
Great news - the 5 are still alive (and I think i see a third stripe!)

Even better news - I just caught over a hundred fry. It's tiring...:lol: I'm like an egret scooping.

Andy if you are reading - I never got around to putting the larvae collector in place - just too busy this week with work and what not.

Anyways - interesting note - my tank temp dropped under 78 and I think this delayed the egg hatching since today is officially day 10.

Wish me luck!
Click to expand...

Good luck Phil! How big are the 5 from the previous batch?
 
Just curious, when everyone is talking about "laying on a tile", what exactly does that mean?

I have a juv pair, but am trying to do my homework in advance.
 
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