Otohime or BBS for Clownfish Fry

[billsreef]

300+ fry are a lot of hungry mouths. I would set up an additional rot culture (back up is good) and harvest about 50% of each culture on successive days. i.e. harvest from culture 1 on Monday, culture 2 on Tuesday, and culture 3 on Wednesday. By Thursday culture 1 is nice and dense again, and so forth. A rotation like this with heavy harvesting keeps water in good shape via water changes and keeps the rots in a nice exponential reproductive state. In the lab, I take it a step further and maintain 4 seperate cultures, cleaning out the oldest culture vessel and thereby restarting one culture every week. Leaves me with excessive rot production, but if a culture fails it just doesn't matter

 

[rkelman]

"Thx. guys. So I've got 300+ true perc frys still alive after day 3. I'm worried that I'm going through my rots at too fast a pace and don't want to deplete them. Ive got 2 x 5g cultures going. Should I be worried?"

As Bill said, I would start a 3rd. If you want to jumpstart your cultures add a heater to each at about 75degrees and feed twice a day (once before bed and once in the am) to get you through this hatch. I don't recommend doing that long term but it will give you alot of Rots in a hurry.


"1)What's everyone's suggested schedule for feeding and on what days? eg. 1-5 days rots / 5-8 days rots + BBS or /and Otihime / 8 + days just BBS and or only Otihime? I know a lot of the respected members on this board suggest just Otihime which I have a starter kit from Randy at Reed already."

I feed Rots exclusive until about day 4 or 5 then start with a bit of Oto A. After 8-10 go with Oto A only. Keeping the Rots going for a couple weeks won't hurt them either.

"2) What's everyone's cleaning and water change schedule for the fry tanK?"

I don't touch it until they are through meta. Maybe vac the crap off the bottom. That's about it.

"3) When's the best time to put a sponge in the fry tank at what day? I've got one cycling in my main tank for 5 days now."

I add the sponge after Meta (7 days in my case) Is the sponge filter running? I had one in my sump for 3 weeks and it never colonized. I had to have the filter running to get a usable amount of bacteria built up.

 

[Katowoo]

Thanks Guys! I'll start a 3rd 5G culture right away.

RK - why do you suggest in the long term not feeding them twice a day and keeping the temp at 75 degrees? If I went say 78 degrees would that speed the process up even faster? Yes - I keep the sponge filter running.

Thx again guys for the help!

 

[mobert]

I also want to know why it is not good long term to feed twice a day and keeping the temp at 75. Is it because of the increased rotifer waste and therefore more maintenance??

Katowoo, one thing I realized when I was running low on rotifers is if I returned the sieved water back to the rotifer bucket, I would probably be returning baby daughter rotifers back to the bucket. I was previously dumping the water in my tank and topping off with filtered tank water. This probably really slowed down my rotifer production.

Also, a few of my Clarkii larvae accepted Otohime on day 3-4 but most of them accepted 50-100 micron Golden Pearls on day 3-4. Very small feedings every hour or so and constant bottom cleaning though.

 

[rkelman]

Sorry Katowoo I didn't see your message.

The problem with feeding twice a day and keeping the temperature up is they reproduce really fast / create waste really fast and the water goes south really fast. I don't do this unless I'm dangerously low on Rots. Which doesn't happen too often unless I have a crash.

 

[GreshamH]

Are you using Cloramx when dosing IA products? Your water quality should be fine if you doing the recommended 30% daily change as well as dosing the proper amount of Cloramx:IA.

 

[rkelman]

Cloramx.. no. 30% daily change... no...

 

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605030#post15605030 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rkelman
Cloramx.. no. 30% daily change... no...

me neither. I was running out of rotifers on day 2-3 and most of the dead food ended up on the bottom of the tank. No chemical is going to keep old food from getting funky and fuzzy.

btw, Gresham, I got the RotiGrow Plus yesterday and I really think it is leaps better than Rotifer Diet. This morning I was able to feed some of those skinny, "I only want rotifer" lavae. Plus the rotifer water seems to have less fouling with a heavy feeding. Thanks for a great product!

Question. I divided it up and froze most of the RotiGrow Plus as it is said that it is OK to do so but since it is made of 5 different algaes, will all but two types of algae cells burst and render it similar to Rotifer Diet??

TIA,

Mona

 

[GreshamH]

It is fine to freeze. It is sold frozen in fact. All I can say on that though.

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605030#post15605030 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rkelman
Cloramx.. no. 30% daily change... no...

Well there is the problem right there. You are not actively removing the ammonia build up from the feeding of the rots. It's very simple to use Ditto on 30% daily harvest. By doing that you keep the culture you and strong, plus you're helping keep the water clean. You really can't use algae paste like you would live, additional steps are needed, easy steps though

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605160#post15605160 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mobert
me neither. I was running out of rotifers on day 2-3 and most of the dead food ended up on the bottom of the tank. No chemical is going to keep old food from getting funky and fuzzy.

btw, Gresham, I got the RotiGrow Plus yesterday and I really think it is leaps better than Rotifer Diet. This morning I was able to feed some of those skinny, "I only want rotifer" lavae. Plus the rotifer water seems to have less fouling with a heavy feeding. Thanks for a great product!

Something is really wrong if you have food going to waste and your running out of rots in such a short time. Sounds like you need to take a hard look at your procedures to find out just where the problem is. Probably a combo of over feeding and ammonia build up which stresses and kills the rotifers. No feed should build up on the bottom. Your wrong about no chemical helping I hate to say. By removing the ammonia your removing the highest stress factor besides lack of feed. We sell it at near cost so I don't post about using it to push sales, I do it to help you better culture rotifers and to be successful at it.

 

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605244#post15605244 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Well there is the problem right there. You are not actively removing the ammonia build up from the feeding of the rots. It's very simple to use Ditto on 30% daily harvest. By doing that you keep the culture you and strong, plus you're helping keep the water clean. You really can't use algae paste like you would live, additional steps are needed, easy steps though

Oh, you were talking about the rotifers not the fry tank. I have been flushing 1/3 into my reef tank and topping off with filtered tank water. No Chloramx though.

 

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605282#post15605282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Something is really wrong if you have food going to waste and your running out of rots in such a short time. Sounds like you need to take a hard look at your procedures to find out just where the problem is. Probably a combo of over feeding and ammonia build up which stresses and kills the rotifers. No feed should build up on the bottom. Your wrong about no chemical helping I hate to say. By removing the ammonia your removing the highest stress factor besides lack of feed. We sell it at near cost so I don't post about using it to push sales, I do it to help you better culture rotifers and to be successful at it.

Thanks for your help Gresham, I forgot to order some Chloramx with my last order. I don't think my rotifers are dieing. I had a huge clutch, maybe 800-1000 live larvae and only 5 gallons of rotifers at 50 per ml. So they ate them all and that was why I ran out of rotifers and started feeding dead food...ie Golden Pearls and Otohime A. The larvae were mostly too young to know how to eat the dead food so I had to keep dropping minute amounts in as once it hits the bottom of the tank, they are no longer interested and that is why the bottom of fry tank has dead food. I only got the rotifer starter kit a week before the hatch so I didn't have time nor did I know I should have had three buckets of rotifers going before raising this clutch. I probably have 300 larvae left but they are voracious eaters.

 

[GreshamH]

50 per ML? That's close to 0 an ML

 

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605648#post15605648 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
50 per ML? That's close to 0 an ML

I wouldn't say it was close to 0 as that was the count per ml that I got in my starter kit.

 

[GreshamH]

Not from us. Our smallest bag is sent out at 600K per 750ml = 800 per ML.

 

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605736#post15605736 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Not from us. Our smallest bag is sent out at 600K per 750ml = 800 per ML.

Not the kit I got from you guys a couple weeks ago. I counted.

 

[mobert]

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Reeds products are great and my rotifers came well packed, lively and plenty for a starter culture. Not close to 800 per ML but plenty.

 

[rkelman]

I know what I need to do to keep the rotifers going strong. Its a lack of time / effort on my part. I really do need to order some Cloramx and re vamp how I'm culturing them.

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605956#post15605956 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mobert
I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Reeds products are great and my rotifers came well packed, lively and plenty for a starter culture. Not close to 800 per ML but plenty.

OMG because you may have gotten a bad bag (pretty much unheard of), you are stating we send out less then 800 per ML? Sorry that is really stretching

We ship billions weekly and I have never heard of such a low volume going out. Why didn't you call if you found such low numbers? We always put more then the listed amount in as the hatcheries we sell to need the right numbers.

Please email us so we can resolve this.