Well back for another update.
Batch II - Day 14 - Today marks the two week point and the fish are doing great. No losses since the Ammonia badge pinched the one. Still really haven't gotten an accurate count but I am guessing around 30-35 fish. All but the runt are in color showing two distinctive stripes. The secondary stripe on many of them is broken or incomplete but I am guess it is a moot point since it will eventually fade away
I wish it wouldn't. It makes them look really cool. Rotifers have been removed completely from the larval tank. All the fry are taking Oto A now. The granules seem so small and it makes me want to step up to the next grade. I am feeding very small pinches 3 or 4 times daily and it doesn't seem like enough food. I may move up to the next particulate size for one of todays feedings to see if they take it.
Detritus and algae are becoming an issue in the tank. It is absolutely filthy looking on the bottom. Cleaning it looks like it will become an every other day job. Which in terms of salt use is getting out of hand. Between the weekly 15 gallon change for the DT, the 2 gallon daily rotifer top off, and the 2 larvae tanks, (More on the second tank to come), I am using up salt really fast.
Question - Does anyone utilize a limited CuC in their larvae tank to aid in the detritus mess? If so what mix works (2 ceriths, 1 astrea, etc...)
thanks
New News!!!!
Batch III - Hatched Friday
Was very prepared for this hatching. Had a second larval tank up and running with greenwater for a couple days (rotifer soup). Had half of a 39 watt actinic PC lamp shining down from above. Heck, I even had the in-laws over to watch it all play out :lol:
Well the hatch happened about 30-45 mnutes after lights out, which I did earlier to accomodate the in-laws. Probably not the best idea, since it prolonged the time it took for the hatch to finish. Also because it was so early, there was still enough ambient room light for the female clown to move about and actually consume some of the hatchlings, maybe 20 or 30. With that aside there were still plenty of them to siphon out. Me and my wife siphoned for about 45 minutes with my father-in-law watching attentively. He is sooooo into it, which pleases me to see. In any case I figure we captured between 350 and 450 fry. Again this is another guess since determining the number is all but impossible for me. There were a boatload in the bucket for sure.
Moved the fry quickly to the larval tank and with the light on they remained active in the water column swarming like mosquitoes. Went to bed shortly thereafter.
Batch III - Day 1 - Next morning woke up to a wonderful thing. Only lost maybe 30 of the fry. I assume that this was due to physical damage or simply a few weak links. The rest of the swarm was doing its thing quite busily
The only thing I did that day was add rotifers in the evening.
Batch III - Day 2 - The fry started to take on the darker coloration on their posteriors and the silver bellies became evident today. No more losses than what I had from the first evening. I attempted to siphon / turkey baste out the dead fry from the previous day and gave up. I was simply siphoning up to many living fry and it did not seem worth it to me. I will make another attempt when the larvae get a bit bigger. Other than adding more rotifers in the evening I basically left the tank alone for them to do their thing. I have been really hands off this time around in the hopes of not causing a stir in there. At around day 3-4 I may begin more agressive cleaning.
On another note the broodstock laid down another huge batch of eggs. I need to make some decisions on how many batches I can take on without going absolutely mad! I may skip this one, still on the fence though. I do not know how I am going to offload this many fish but I guess there could be worse problems.
Take care everybody and thanks again for your help and support.
Kurt
BTW - I called the wife to email me some pictures from the weekend. We'll see how busy she is today as to whether I get them or not.
