Looked in the tank with a flashlight during a power outage and saw lots of baby fish!

[slief]

The power went out last night around 10:40PM and was out for a couple hours. I decided to take a flashlight to the reef while the water was nice and calm. Something I haven't done in a long long time. Much to my surprise, there were dozens of baby fish swimming at the surface. I am guessing they were Oscellaris clown fish but possibly 6 line wrasses as my female 6 line was looking like she was carrying a week or so ago. My cardinals breed all the time but baby cardinals look like baby cardinals so I am certain it wasn't them. I'm not prepared to raise baby fish so they will just be part of the food chain. In addition to the baby fish, there were tens of thousands of copepods. I was quite surprised how healthy my pod population is considering the wrasses and other predators in my tank.

here is a quick video I took of the babies.
<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2te_Havsl8E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[CafeReef]

thats awesome! I hope my clown pair will breed.

 

[Member No. 1]

That's pretty cool!

 

[MelloW33]

Free food!

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yeah, they're likely clown babies. Pretty cool!

 

[ca1ore]

Nice. My clowns breed all the time but I have literally never seen even one of the babies.

 

[BlackTip]

Congratulation Pappa...

 

[moatdaddy]

You going to try to keep them alive, that is so cool!

 

[juniorrocketdad]

Sweet find tbh i have a feeling their sixlines not clowns

 

[FullBoreReefer]

My clowns just laid 5 days ago. Congrats. I too will not be ready for the first few clutches though.

 

[slief]

You going to try to keep them alive, that is so cool!

Noooooo. I'm not going to try to keep them alive. I'm not prepared for that and as such, I just left them in there to become part of the food chain. I suppose it would be easy enough to setup a small tank with an airstone but I wasn't about to do that last night. Given the amount of flow in my tank, I am sure once the power came back on, most would have been washed over the overflow into the socks below only to be hammered by nearly 3000 GPH.

Maybe next time. I might just keep an eye on things and shut the power down every once in a while at night to see if there are more and then grab a breeder net. I do have a spare 10 or 20 gallon tank I could easily setup.

It was a cool sight to see though. I have had fish breeding in my tank for many many years but never saw the babies. Then again, I never looked while the flow was off and the lights were out like I did last night.

 

[anbosu]

You might be surprised, sometimes in big systems you don't have to do anything special to have them survive. I remember khaos had a batch of clowns that he did nothing for, and a bunch of them survived.

 

[slief]

You might be surprised, sometimes in big systems you don't have to do anything special to have them survive. I remember khaos had a batch of clowns that he did nothing for, and a bunch of them survived.

It would certainly be surprising. I've had fish (clowns and cardinals) breeding in my tank for many years and they never make it but there is a first for everything. :beer:

 

[karimwassef]

awesome! I love catching the babies in action

Since we're sharing baby pics, here's my last brood

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RhEhdQV_Ob4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Soooo hard to focus on those little things.

 

[moatdaddy]

maybe try to feed live baby brine, the tiny ones that hatch after a day.

 

[slief]

awesome! I love catching the babies in action

Since we're sharing baby pics, here's my last brood

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RhEhdQV_Ob4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Soooo hard to focus on those little things.

Pretty cool! They certainly are a hard to focus on. You did a much better job getting those things on camera than I did. Your music was a nice touch too. I assume none of yours made it either? I was thinking about setting up a small tank I have here with some tank water and an air stone and catching some of the babies with a breeder net. It won't be this batch but I am sure this is a very regular occurrence. The female clown looks like she's holding more eggs and the male is pretty obvious when he's tending to them. It's just a matter of shutting down the pumps at night and checking.

 

[Buzz1329]

awesome! I love catching the babies in action

Since we're sharing baby pics, here's my last brood

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RhEhdQV_Ob4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Soooo hard to focus on those little things.

Cool. So are the fry clowns or cardinals or something else? If cardinals, are they Banggai?

Mike

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Mike, the fry are clowns.

 

[slief]

Cool. So are the fry clowns or cardinals or something else? If cardinals, are they Banggai?

Mike

Those definitely are not cardinals. Cardinals look like miniature versions of their parents when they are freed from the males mouth. They are unmistakable. I'm reasonably certain those are the same as mine which are most certainly clownfish fry. Mine probably hatched last night after the lights went out if not the night before.

 

[d2mini]

That's awesome!