moving a pair of mating clownfish with Anemone?

[Popytoys]

Hi everyone,

I just found that my pair of clownfish ( a percula and snowflakes) hosted with an anemone just spawned for the first time in my 30G IM Nuvo tank, which has a separator to separate the other 2 maroons. Funny I saw they started to behave strange back in 3-4 weeks ago already. Unfortunately, the eggs were gone and all eaten by something else (either bristleworms or my two peppermint shrimps).

I am thinking about to relocate the mating pair to a 10 Gallon tank. Do you think if I can move just the fish without the anemone? (If I move the whole rock the bristleworms will be transferred to. ) If so do you think if the act will stop letting the fish spawn for a while? Any big change it be permanent?

I do not have to move them but feel bad as I see the male (the small guy) keep swimming around the area where the eggs used to lay now they are all gone.


Finally, do you think the small fry can eat brine shrimps instead of rotifers?

Thank you!

Popytoys

 

[phender]

It is more likely that the clowns ate their eggs than your other suspects. First time parents very seldom get it right and the eggs aren't viable. When that happens the parents eat the eggs. If the eggs were good, it would be very unlikely that the parents would allow bristle worms or shrimp to get near the eggs.
My clowns nearly all bred in community tanks with other fish, shrimp, worms, snails, etc. If the eggs were good, the parents didn't allow anything near them.
I attempted to raise a batch of babies on baby brine shrimp because my rotifer culture crashed. I staggered my brine shrimp hatches so that I would get a new hatch twice a day so the babies were being fed brand new BS twice a day (because the brine shrimp grow so fast at first). I did this for 7 days. With rotifers I was able to get most of my babies to metamorphosis. With brine shrimp (and pulverized flake food, which probably didn't help) as a starter, I was able to raise 4 out of about 250.
So the answer is yes it can be done. Was it worth the work? No. Would someone with no experience raising clownfish larvae be able to do it? Not likely.