Nutrition for baby clowns

[NicoleC]

Some of you have mentioned Otohime foods, but was else do you all feed your very young baby clowns? Mine are mostly getting CE, but that's not total nutrition. (Although they are turning out to be very dark orange already!)

Tonight was the first night they took to flake with a gusto, Formula Two. I also have spirulina and F1 to offer if they like it. They really liked my fresh homemade food a lot, but that has plenty of coral-sized particles in it and big fish particles, too, so it will pollute the water too much for regular use.

Any favorite all-round baby clown foods?

 

[Kathy55g]

formula 1

 

[NicoleC]

The frozen is a bit too big for them yet. I do expect it to be their staple diet within a couple more weeks.

The other day I did mash some F2 up real good for them, but I also ended up with a lot of nutrient slurry instead of just fish food.

 

[Kathy55g]

I use F1 flake. ground up real good to feed the littlest ones. I feed them frozen sometimes if I have some left over from feeding miss piggy, my female adult clown.
I put it thru the same net I use for frozen cyclopeeze, so I don't have to siphon up big chuncks. Yeah there is nutrient slurry, but I try to decant that off into the sink first.

Mine get formula 1 flake 3 times a day with the automatic feeder, and supplements of frozen when I feel like it. I also use dry cyclopeeze sometimes, but now I am scared to, since a couple of folks have said that it killed their babies. Not worth taking a chance.

Formula 1 was designed with clownfish in mind. It is a mix of foods, so it gives them variety, and great nutrition. My preferred food, but what do I know...

 

[NicoleC]

Yeah, I know. I call it Clownfish Chow.

They really bolted down the F2 flake tonight. It was a whim -- I fed it about 1 1/2 to 2 hours after their evening feeding, fed too much, and they still ate it ALL! I don't think any hit the bottom except a couple of pieces that were too big for the runts that grabbed them. I'm sure the big boys will come along and clean up. Some of my smallest ones were the most aggressive about knicking it off the surface, but it does sink before long for the fish that don't want to eat off the surface.

Still, I'm not keen on flake. It's not as good as the frozen Formulas.

 

[Morgman]

Just feed the cyclop-eeze, formula one flake and maybe some other feed like Zeigler or Otohime(I haven't tried that yet). You can add some NHBS ever other day for fun. Pretty soon they should be taking some small pieces of formula one frozen. Flake is fine for your little babies. Just change it up. Much like you are thinking.

BTW, freeze dried cyclop-eeze won't kill your babies, unless you over feed and their stomachs explode. Just like they will do on flake, NHBS or any other food.

 

[SumoBlenny]

I've had sucess with the various sizes of golden pearls from brine shrimp direct. I train my babies with a feeding light starting as larvae and they make the transition to dry food much faster. I put a blue LED over the corner when I start to drip artemia in. After a while, they will come clambering to the corner to eat and will try anything that floats by. Some people also tap the aquarium with a pencil when feeding.

 

[phender]

I like the golden pearls as well as Vibra-grow pellets, along with the foods you are already feeding. In the old days the colors of TR clowns were very dull. Noone believed that my Vibra-grow fed ocellaris were TR.

 

[NicoleC]

Well, I guess I have plenty of variety for them. I may let them have some GP's, too.

When do they get old enough that the "I've had enough" feeling kicks in and they won't eat until their stomachs burst? It's kinda wierd that's not programmed in right away, but I guess I wasn't very bright at 3 weeks old, either.

 

[jwreffner]

Question on the GP's... do they slowly sink, float or quickly sink? Anyone have any comparisons between GP and Otohime?

TIA,
Jay

 

[NicoleC]

No comparison -- Otohime rocks. I'd feed the GP to my corals instead.

 

[FuEl]

Puree the homemade food and wash the resultant mix through a 100 micron sieve? I run seawater through it until the filtrate is rather clear. After freezing and thawing, does not really cloud the water much.

 

[Lance one]

I'm with Kathy on the F1.

My diet was:
Days Diet
1-5 Roto's
6-9 Roto's still available, Live baby brine shrimp added
10-14 50% Live baby brine shrimp, 50% Formula 1 (crushed to a powder)
14-25 Formula 1 (crushed to a powder)
25- Formula 1 gradually becoming bigger pieces as fish grow, occasional live brine 4-7 days old that have been fed Selcon.

I got Otohime Friday and have been mixing that 50/50 with F1 which the fish seem to like.

Maybe the diet could be better.

From the number of larvae I have on day one to 1 month I seem to have about 60-70% left. My oldest are about 1/2-5/8" at 60 days. I don't have anything to compare it to so I don't know if this is big, small, or average.

I expect them to be at a sellable size I see at the LFS at about 4 months. Sooner would be better.....I'm running out of tanks/space quick.

 

[Kathy55g]

Thanks for being with me, but I am not there anymore.

I am an Otohime convert. Started my latest hatch at 5 or 6 days with Oto. A along with 3 days of NHBS and rots all the time.

These fish are looking good at day 12. Almost all have headbands.

 

[Lance one]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6839480#post6839480 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kathy55g
Thanks for being with me, but I am not there anymore.

Kathy,

You didn't get away from me yet

The hatch I got last night I'm going to try on Rot's for 5 days then Rots and NHBS and Otohime for days 6 and 7. I will try to remove the Rot's by day 8 and NHBS by day 10. See how they do on Otohime and occasional NHBS. Maybe do NHBS twice a week till day 30.

How big are your fish at 60 days?

 

[jwreffner]

Ok...Otohime it is then. I will order it as soon as my setup gets going.

Thx

 

[Kathy55g]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6841179#post6841179 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lance one

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6839480#post6839480 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kathy55g
Thanks for being with me, but I am not there anymore.

Kathy,

You didn't get away from me yet

The hatch I got last night I'm going to try on Rot's for 5 days then Rots and NHBS and Otohime for days 6 and 7. I will try to remove the Rot's by day 8 and NHBS by day 10. See how they do on Otohime and occasional NHBS. Maybe do NHBS twice a week till day 30.

How big are your fish at 60 days?

I don't know. My 50 day fish are about 1/2 inch. hard to measure.

 

[David M]

All this praise for O-hime, what about Zeigler? Same thing or not as good? I only ask because that is what has been recommended to me by an experienced breeder.

 

[jwreffner]

David,
I know that Ed likes Otohime better than Zeigler. I've never seen any info on the web about Ziegler. Do you have any links to it?

TIA,
Jay

 

[ediaz]

http://www.zeiglerfeed.com/

Ed