New to raising clown fish

[BrianMac]

My Clownfish just started breeding.


I am trying to catch the fry and I read somewhere between 1/2 hour and 1 hour the clown fish eggs would hatch. I thought last night was the night and it appeared that only two of the eggs hatched. Tonight I'm doing the same and as of right now, I have only four eggs that hatched.

Is it normal to have only a couple of eggs to hatch at a time?

 

[saltyjo]

If you are trying to catch the fry out of your DT i would recommend that you turn all of your lights out to include any light in the room. Once I turn all my lights out on the 8th night I wait appoximately 30-40 minutes. I also make sure my pump is off and all power heads so there is no movement in the tank.
Then all I do is shine a little pen light inside a white plastic bowl at the surface of my tank and the fry are drawn to it and swim right in my catching bowl. Be patient but most of them should all hatch together. Of the three times I have "gone fishing" the longest it took to catch them was an hour.
Good Luck
~Jo

 

[BrianMac]

Thanks Jo

So tonight (hopefully) the eggs that are left will hatch. I only caught five last night.

I am curious how are you catching the fry with the white bowl?


thanks,

Brian

 

[saltyjo]

Brian,
Make sure all your lights are out prior. Get a real small pen light and dip the container (white plastic containers like yogurt containers work real well) half way in the tank. Shine the light toward the bottom of the container. This will be the only light around the tank or in the room. As the fry hatch they are drawn to the light. Be still and watch for the fry swim over the lip and into the container. They are attracted to the beam of light like moths to a flame. Once I get 10 or so to swim in I gently lift the container out and pour them into the fry tank. I try my best to count them at this point cause once all mixed together in the fry tank it is real tough to count them. :uhoh2:
This method seems to inflict the least amount of stress to the fry, but it is a test of your patients. I hope this helps.
Jo

 

[BrianMac]

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[spieszak]

are you completely unable to just move the whole batch of eggs to your fry tank?

 

[BrianMac]

The fry are attached to a rather large rock. I intend to place a tile where they lay their eggs after this batch hatches.

 

[spieszak]

The fry are attached to a rather large rock. I intend to place a tile where they lay their eggs after this batch hatches.

Ahh, ok.. I was just hoping to save you a bit of the trouble for this round. Always hard to read how experienced folks are on the site, so I tend to answer with what I know aimed at beginners, and figure anyone who knows their stuff will just read past it.
Good luck with the fry!

 

[BrianMac]

I don't have any experience raising fish. I have just spent the last couple of weeks reading everything I can about raising clowns and asking a couple of local reefers about their experiences.

 

[Sport507]

Brian,

From the looks of the amber/copper color in the eyes you full hatch should be tonight. Probably don't need to ask this but you do have a thick batch of rotifer to feed correct?

 

[BrianMac]

I'm still trying to master raising rotifiers. But I do have three buckets going at this time.

I've got a lot of green water in the basement at this time, rotifiers I'm not too sure

 

[Papadoum]

If you want to do it for fun as a hobby just hatch baby brine shrimps everyday for the frys
Survival will be extremely low but out of 200-300 eggs you'll get at least 10 perfect clownfish. BBS older than a day will be too big.
Worked for me on 2 consecutive nests

 

[BrianMac]

I was under the impression that BBS were too big.

Well the rest hatched yesterday, it's disheartening when you hear a splash in the water and you know that's one less clownfish you will catch. So now I have around 10 hanging out in the fry tank. Hopefully I will be able to raise a few

 

[westohooligan]

You and I have opposite problems: I can raise rotifers no problem, fry not so much.

 

[BrianMac]

Well I'm not having luck with either at this time

I lost all of the clowns...

 

[saltyjo]

Sorry to hear Brian. Losing them is tough. Read up more on different techniques about raising them. A book that helped me alot is called Clownfish by Joyce Wilkerson. I found a copy on Ebay as it is now out of "publication".
About your rotifers-make sure your salinty is low enough (between 1.007 and 1.014) and strain them before you put them in the fry tank.
I switched from trying to grow tons of green water to buying Nanochloropsis Algae paste though Brineshrimp direct. So all I have growing is my bucket of rotifers and my fry tank. For me it simplified the process a bit. And from everything I have researched the most sucessfull way to raise clown fry is starting out with rotifers. Newly hatched brine shrimp is fine after the first week but not at first. My second batch I skipped over baby brine shrimp entirely and around day 7 I started feeding powdered Otihime A and Top Dressed Otihime.
I hope these few things I learned can help you with your next batch.
~Jo

 

[BrianMac]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I ordered the Rotifier starter kit from Reed Mariculture and hopefully I will have better luck next time.

I also placed a tile in the tank where the clowns lay their eggs. Hopefully the fish will cooperate and lay the eggs on the tile so I can avoid having to fetch the fry out of the display tank.

 

[westohooligan]

Hang in there. I kept 1 alive on my first attemp. I have 4 alive going through meta from a batch of ocellaris. I'm trying something different with tonight's/tomorrow's hatch of ocellars: I will continue feeding the rots with RG Complete, but I also ordered some RotiGreen Nanno to tint the water with, less messy than the RG Complete and I also think I was not tinting the water in the fry tank dark enough. Brian, as mentioned Joyce Wikerson's book is good, but I also picked up The Complete Illustrated Breeder's Guide... By Matt Wittenrich; a very helpful book.

 

[BrianMac]

Hang in there. I kept 1 alive on my first attemp. I have 4 alive going through meta from a batch of ocellaris. I'm trying something different with tonight's/tomorrow's hatch of ocellars: I will continue feeding the rots with RG Complete, but I also ordered some RotiGreen Nanno to tint the water with, less messy than the RG Complete and I also think I was not tinting the water in the fry tank dark enough. Brian, as mentioned Joyce Wikerson's book is good, but I also picked up The Complete Illustrated Breeder's Guide... By Matt Wittenrich; a very helpful book.

Best of luck with your next hatch.

There is a ton of information on the web and RC has been great also. There is also a member of my local club that has been a tremendous help.

I am sure if I didn't kill off the rotifiers, I wouldn't have lost the fry. It was my mistake and hopefully I don't repeat it

 

[BrianMac]

Round number two has started

I'm much better prepared this time. Rotifers are going, spare tanks are standing by