Landlords Log - Breeding Tomato Clowns

landlord

landlord

New member
Greetings All,

I am going to move forward with a breeding thread on a pair of Tomato Clowns (A. Frenatus) which have recently begun laying eggs. I previously documented the first hatch in the thread below

First hatch

In any case I am not going to get into a lot of detail as of yet. I did place an order for a rotifer starter kit and a starter kit of otohime today. Should receive that by Wednesday. I have plenty of 5 gallon buckets for the rotifers. I expect that I will need an air pump, a 5 way valve, some airline. This I will need to go purchase along with a 10 gallon tank for the fry.

I have some pictures of batch 2 which I will post as soon as I get my wife to email them to me :)

If anyone has any other things they think I should get to get started feel free to post.

Thanks for reading.

;) --Kurt
 
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Quick question - Is this the type of sponge filter that some of you are using? If not throw me a bone to where you are getting them, please.

Sponge Filter

Trying to avoid making bad purchases :)

Thanks

--Kurt
 
As promised. I am attaching some picture of the parents as well as the eggs from Batch II.

Enjoy :)

41453Male1.jpg


41453Female1.jpg


41453Female2.jpg


41453Pair3.jpg


41453Pair2.jpg


41453Pair1.jpg


...and the Batch II egg mass, from which I will make my first attempt at rearing fry.

41453batch2eggs.jpg





--landlord
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14679477#post14679477 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by landlord
Thanks FB,

Is it simply powered by an airline from an airpump?
Click to expand...

Yes

Nice pics
 
FB - Thanks again

agsansoo - They seem to be pretty healthy looking. The female is soooo dark, almost black. I believe that she could have been laying eggs 2 years ago. It wasn't until I started diversifying the food, and beefing up the amount of food that she did it. Literally I doubled the amount of food in an attempt to satisfy another nutrient project I was undergoing, an tried out some gel based meaty foods. BAM! two weeks later I had the first batch. In an attempt to keep nutrients out of my SPS tank I had probably been way underfeeding the fish.

I should be getting the rotifer starter pack today from Reed. I am thinking that they will need to go into the fridge until the air puimp, lines, valves get here from DFS. I want to get started producing a couple bucket splits worth of rotifers now so I do not miss my next hatch (tentatively scheduled for 3/30/2009 - 9 days from the laying). The only spare pump I got is hooked onto my ozone reactor. I may sacrifice ORP for the babies :)

I'm going to throw out another question, does anyone have an approximation of how long it will take me to get a couple buckets of rotifers from one of these "starter packs" grown?

Thanks Again for looking

--Kurt
 
landlord, I think all of us that raise clownfish here have sacrificed a little maintenance of their DT. My nitrates were higher while overfeeding my parent clownfish. So unhook that ozone reactor and keep those rots alive. Also follow the directions on the Reed's instruction sheet so you don't shock and crash your starter pack. Mainly the temp and salinity, not so much the PH. Also split your starter pack into two buckets from the start, in case one should crash. Better safe then sorry.
 
I spoke with Customer Support over the phone at Reed's, great people. She said that the rotifers should not be affected by temperature or salinity???? In fact, way she described them, made them sound almost indestructable.

I think I'll take your precautions instead. Weird huh??

Thanks again --Kurt
 
Indestructable ! LOL Ask everyone here about rots crashing. Very weird ... I always try to keep salinity in rot culture and larvae tank about the same.
 
I've done a ton of reading here, so like I said, I'm sticking with the rotifer advice I've seen here....

;) landlord
 
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On a side note, I was wondering if anyone had opinions about using weekly (15 gallon) water change water from my DT for the rot culture and larvae tank water. My DT water change water is pretty darn nice water, I keep the tank immaculate and polish the water with a PO4 RX, multiple carbon filters, ozone, it's RO/DI water too boot.

Salinity is up at 1.065. Too high? Bad idea???

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Kurt
 
rots can breed/live within a rather broad range of salinity, but your larvae that's going to be fed the rots cannot...and the rots are sensitive to quick changes in salinity. you don't want them to just explode once introduced to the larva tank, so having them w/in .003 or so of your larva tank before you use them for feeding the larva is generally a good idea.

i keep 2 buckets as a 'constant culture' at around 1.015-16 (seem to get quicker breeding with lower salinity)

from that, i take rots and plunk them into 2 liter bottles with the salinity @ 1.018-19 - these are what is actually fed to the larvae. having them separated makes it easier to time gutloading them w/ larvae feeding schedule, and serves as a bit of acclimation for the rots to higher salinity.

pre-meta, i always use the parent tank's water for larvae tank water changes, but haven't used it for rot cultures. i suppose you could run it thru a filter screen, but the risk of a contaminant obliterating the cultures just seemed too high.
 
i forgot - your question on time line for starting the cultures - i'm guessing you're getting the bag-o-rots live culture from reeds?

when you get them, divide them into 2 2-liter bottles (fill the rest of the bottle w/ sw), and feed them. it'll take awhile to get a good feel for density without breaking out the magnifying glass, but they should likely be dense enough to split again after 2 to 3 days.

after you've got 4 2 liter bottles ready to split, then start your buckets...just dump 1 2 liter per bucket, fill w/ sw, feed, rinse, repeat. the bucket should be dense enough that you'll have to remove rots from it within around 5-7 days.

you could just take the reed's bag and start a bucket from that, but...essentially the bottom line here is your rot cultures are going to crash. not all, by any means, but...some will crash. having several going at all times is the best defense against having to call reed's up again for another order.
 
Yeah ... A little high. Since you take water from the parents tank to hatch out the larvae, you'll want to bring down the salinity slowly each day until you reach @ 1.020. I just used IO salt mix for my larvae tanks, with weekly water change.
 
Heap / agsansoo - Thanks, wish I had read your post yesterday prior to logging off.

In any case I got my rotifer kit yesterday. The whole process of getting them set up was very new to me. Therefore it seemed odd, like a first kiss :lol:

I was not prepared to run multiple buckets yet, so I did not split the batch. I simply thought I would cut my teeth and take my lumps following the directions that were sent to me.

The bag of rotifers had a green tint to it, which I am assuming was phyto loaded into it prior to shipping???

The directions recommended taking a pH measurements of the bag the rots came in (7.76) which wasn't too far off from my DT pH (nighttime 7.84). Oh yeah, I ended up using DT water (unstrained :( ). I did bring the salinity of the DT water down to 1.020 with some fresh RO/DI. After temp adjusting the bag, I dumped it in, added some Rotifer Diet (the water now looks pea soup green), slow bubbling airline, not rolling with bubbles, per the instructions. I also added a heater to keep the water at 79.

I'm guessing that I probably made some mistakes:

1. It was mentioned in previous threads to split up the batch, which I was not ready for.
2. heap - mentioned using 2 liter bottles for culturing, I used 1 now pretty darn full 5 gallon bucket.
3. Didn't strain the water from the DT.
4. Probably could have tried to match the pH better but didn't have the materials to do so (didn't think vinegar would have been a good option...).

So now I've got a bucket full of what looks like green water, I hope that I didn't completely blow this batch. I'm thinking that I should have timed the arrival of the rotifers more towards the week-end when I simply have more time to fuss with them. I've been balancing a busy schedule this week. I have been hastily trying to get things ready for the hatch of batch II (should be Monday night), and this could be my downfall, I'm hoping not.

;) thanks for the advice above. If things go badly I may just slow down a bit the next time around to avoid potentially costly and time delaying mistakes. In any case the experience was an eye opener full of learning opportunities.

Advice or comments are always welcomed and appreciated :)

Kurt
 
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