My attempt at breeding black clowns (in a 28 gallon mixed reef)

[gotfrogs]

With all of the amazing success that rkelman had with his clowns I got inspired and set up a 28 gallon tank to house a pair of Black Ocellaris. My tank build is documented on Reef Central over in the nano section.

On Friday I discovered my 1st set of eggs. I am going to do my best to try and raise them even with the short notice and lack of supplies on hand.

With the help of rkelman, I went ahead and ordered the following items from http://www.reed-store.com/:
OTO-STARTOtohime Starter Kit, Marine Larval Diet, 3 oz bottles1$50.00$50.00
RSK-DLXRotifer Starter Kit - Deluxe1$80.00$80.00
NAN-QTNannochloropsis 3600 - 1 Quart Bottle (18% dry weight)1$70.00$70.00

I am late for work but will provide additional information when I get off tonight.

 

[ctenophors rule]

are you going to syphon them off the rock before they hatch?

holy shi@ what are the long white things on the bottom left of the rock???

ps, awesome live rock!!!

did you order this from ocean? or does your lfs just carry the good stuff?

 

[rkelman]

Hey Gotfrogs. Good luck!

 

[gotfrogs]

Thanks, my rotifers and algae should be here tomorrow. I am going to try and set up the tanks tonight. I sure wish I had as much space as you do. The don't have basements down here in Houston.

 

[rkelman]

Cool. I wish I had more space. Its pretty tight down there. If you want to grow those rotifers fast start a batch or 2 with a heater and an airstone on low. Keep the temp around 70 degrees and feed whenever the water clears. Keep in mind a heated culture also goes south in a hurry.. Wait you are already south.. Well you know what I mean.

 

[gotfrogs]

I feel totally lost but slightly comforted by the fact you were lost during the 1st few pages of your thread and yet after LOTS of hard work you are doing awesome with these guys. I will be thrilled if I can grow out even a few of the babies.

Today I set up a 5 gallon tank for the babies using water from the main tank. The rotifers come tomorrow and I still don't know what to do with them. How big should the cultures be (I have a 2.5 gallon, 10 gallon, 3 brine shrimp cones, and lots of salt buckets that I can use), how many cultures should I run, and what salinity should they be kept at?

 

[gotfrogs]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15196520#post15196520 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ctenophors rule
are you going to syphon them off the rock before they hatch?

holy shi@ what are the long white things on the bottom left of the rock???

ps, awesome live rock!!!

did you order this from ocean? or does your lfs just carry the good stuff?

I am not sure if I am going to take the rock out or try and catch the little guys. I think the thing you are referring to is my green bubble tip anemone that moved on me. I am not sure where the live rock is from it is at leat 5 years old.

 

[rkelman]

For the Rots I would use 2 pails. Fill them half full with water. (match the sg of course) Put half of the Rots you get in one and half in the other. Add food. When the water clears feed again. I would as mentioned above keep one warm so it grows faster. As they multiply slowly fill the pails with water until you have 2 full pails. It takes 3 pails to keep my guys in food. If one crashes I can scrape by until it gets going again usually. The salinity can vary a large amount. I would guess they will come in at about 1.020. You don't want the rotifers to ever go through more than a +- .007 change. They will go dormant on you. I keep everything at 1.020 except the dt of course. As the larvae get older I slowly drop the sg. It saves some money on salt. Which gets quite expensive with all the water changes.

 

[gotfrogs]

Sounds good. As for feeding the rotifers, would you recommend that I start off with QTNannochloropsis 3600 or the Rotifer Diet (or both at the same time)?

 

[rkelman]

Either is fine. I use Rotifer Diet but the Nanno 3600 is fine. I think it may be more cost efficient. I'm not sure as I've never used it. That would be a good question for a more experienced breeder. I keep buying the Rotifer diet because I know it works and I'm having great success with it. Its a "if it ain't broke" thing

 

[gotfrogs]

Sounds good, I will do at least one batch with each.

I got all of the Reed Mariculture supplies in the mail today. I was worried that the algae and rotifers were going to overheat in the 95deg weather. I had everything overnighted but by 2:00 today it still was not delivered. Once it was delivered I rushed home from work to make sure it was not sitting in the sun baking. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised! Reed did an AMAZING job of packaging everything and FedEx followed my instructins and put the package in the shade.

 

[rkelman]

Yes Reeds is a great company so I'm not surprised they packaged it well. That's nice the Fex Ex guy made sure it was in the shade for you too.

 

[gotfrogs]

I got the rotifer and fry tanks setup. I am checking the pH of the rotifer buckets as I type. The instructions say to match the pH of the culture tanks with with sample. Can I use vinegar to lower the pH?

Still need to add an air valve to cut the flow back. Heater and thermometer will be here on Thursday.

How sexy is that? =)

 

[gotfrogs]

There are at least 219 eggs, I marked each one with an orange dot to count them.
link to picture

 

[gotfrogs]

What do you use to collect the rotifers? I have read that people use a 50 micron mesh and coffee filters. It sounds like coffee filters are difficult to use.
I think someone recommended the BB-PCN1063 Plankton Collecting Net from Florida-Aqua Farms but I am not sure if I should get it. Seems to be on the expensive side at $68.

 

[rkelman]

Looking good Gotfrogs. I dont' worry too much about ph. In fact I've never tested it for my Rots. Your setup looks great. Vaguely familiar
You could just tie a knot in the hose to slow the flow while you are waiting for the valves. Make sure you lift that air pump above your pails though.. You don't want it backfeeding on a power failure and draining your cultures / creating a shock hazard. Of course you have a GFCI right?! I use This to harvest mine. I'm sure someone in the US sells them cheap but the ReefCrew guys will ship to you no problem.

 

[gotfrogs]

Thanks for the link, I was finally able to find the 53 micron screen on Florida-Aqua Farms. You have to search for "PLANKTON COLLECTORS". It was only $11 and they are here in the US so shipping should be faster and cheaper.

 

[rkelman]

Yes it should be. They are much closer to you.

 

[ctenophors rule]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15200706#post15200706 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gotfrogs
I am not sure if I am going to take the rock out or try and catch the little guys. I think the thing you are referring to is my green bubble tip anemone that moved on me. I am not sure where the live rock is from it is at leat 5 years old.

i didn't mean catching the after they hatch.

the day before they hatch, you can cut s straw, at a 45 degree angle, fit it to some airline tubing, and cut them off of the rock, no harm done.

 

[Rare Angels]

Rotifiers are rather tough little guys. I culture mine in a couple buckets and change the water every few weeks. When changing the water I drain the entire bucket through the 53 micron screen, clean the gunk out of the bucket. I then put nice new water in the bucket and dump the rotifiers back in from the screen.

As mentioned before, heating up the culture makes them reproduce faster but also can cause crashes as waste seems to accumulate even faster.

Hope this helps.

Dave