Our first attempt at raising Perculas

[edandsandy]

After reading several threads and asking many questions about raising clown fish.. we decided to give it a try... I have Sport507 to thank over and over again, for his thread and personal advise....

We received our rotifers last week from Reed Mariculture followed all the rules and on day 4 harvested my first batch of rotifers... So I decided to start another culture just in case our first culture crashed. Both batches are doing fine.

We set up a 10g fry tank, took water from our reef tank/parent tank, placed a boat load of rotifers in the tank along with green water, air stone and heater.

Tonight is day/night 8 and as I type our baby Percula's are hatching...
Ed is guessing we have about 200 eggs, most of the fry are swimming towards the light. Just a few our out side of the larvae catcher....

This is so exciting!

 

[edandsandy]

Let's see if this short video works:
The fry in the collector. I didn't want to blind them so it's only a 10 second video.

<a href="http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/?action=view&current=E6D92490-481C-4930-B35B-619387E1117F-2260-00000173490F4505.mp4" target="_blank"><img src="http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/E6D92490-481C-4930-B35B-619387E1117F-2260-00000173490F4505.mp4" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

 

[Jaypilot]

good luck I will be following along. I have three pair of clowns all about a year old. so I hope to see some eggs soon.

 

[edandsandy]

We've moved over two batches of fry so far.
Still more coming. I'm starting to get worried about my tank being off for 3+ hours.
But here is another short video of the parents working hard to make the fry hatch.

<a href="http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/?action=view&current=396E8FDA-0124-44C3-8900-74EF02B5D93F-2260-000001781DA2AAB4.mp4" target="_blank"><img src="http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/396E8FDA-0124-44C3-8900-74EF02B5D93F-2260-000001781DA2AAB4.mp4" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

 

[edandsandy]

We stopped collecting the larvae around 1:30 am...
We removed the larvae in 3 different batches.
This morning all the larvae seem to be swimming and eating just fine.
I noticed there were still eggs on the rock last night when we stopped collecting and
They are still there this morning. I guess these babies will either hatch tonight or they were non fertile eggs...

Here's a picture of the larvae this morning...
<a href="http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/?action=view&current=683D6676-0CDB-45CF-86BE-5FACE92EB1F1-2326-000001808D235C90.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/683D6676-0CDB-45CF-86BE-5FACE92EB1F1-2326-000001808D235C90.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

 

[edandsandy]

Lets see if this is a better link to the videos...

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/...0-B35B-619387E1117F-2260-00000173490F4505.mp4

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/...3-8900-74EF02B5D93F-2260-000001781DA2AAB4.mp4

 

[Sport507]

Congratulation!! Sandy"¦"¦you go girl. That's a nice clutch, let the learning begin. If you need anything let me know.:thumbsup:

 

[saltyjo]

Congratulations and best of luck to you with your new babies. Keep good notes for yourself and enjoy the process. Looking forward to your updates.
~Jo

 

[edandsandy]

Congratulation!! Sandy"¦"¦you go girl. That's a nice clutch, let the learning begin. If you need anything let me know.:thumbsup:

Thank you so much Sport! You have been a great mentor. :beer:

 

[edandsandy]

Congratulations and best of luck to you with your new babies. Keep good notes for yourself and enjoy the process. Looking forward to your updates.
~Jo

Thank you! Yes, keeping good notes is a key factor.... I'm a bookkeeper, so I've been keeping a journal on "everything" we've done so far.....

Plus keeping a personal journal here helps too

we have had a great time looking at the babies all day. :fish1:

I think we lost 10 babies and it's really difficult to actually count how many larva are in the tank, so we will guesstimate ~100

We we try to catch the rest of the larva tonight, if nothing hatches, we feel like we have at lease tried, and will know better next time.

PLUS we have ~60 Bangaii babies 4-7 weeks old.

 

[Sport507]

Here is what I use to remove the dead larva with. Hope this helps too. You have done your home work well.:thumbsup:

 

[edandsandy]

Great idea for removing the larva and detris on the bottom of the tank.

We set up the larva catcher again tonight, the parents are working the rock pretty good,
We can see the larva hatching and swimming towards the light.

Do you think it will be ok to put them in with yesterday's larva?????

 

[edandsandy]

Well we tried to save the remaing eggs from the parent tank.... The larvae were incrediably small.... So lesson learned... If they don't hatch on night 8, don't try to save them tomorrow.

This morning there were appx. 20 larvae on the bottom of the tank

So I siphoned them out, cleaned up the bottom of the tank a little and replaced appx. 3/4g of water one drop per second.

There is still a large amount of rotifers in the tank, so..... I don't know if there were to many rotifers in the tank and they gorged themselfs to death, or if too many rotifers caused oxygen depletion/carbon dioxide build up... or if my light was too strong for a few minutes, if they were just the weak ones......

The ammonia level is normal, tempertaure is steady at 78..... I have not turned off the light for more than a few minutes since they hatched.
My plan is to leave the light on for the first 48 hrs. I'm using 2 paper towels as a layered filter for the light, and planning to remove one layer today.
Then lights on for 15 hrs, off for 9.

A picture of the tank after I cleaned the bottom.... I should have taken before and after pictures of the bottom..... oh well, next time...... can you count how many there are???

<a href="http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/?action=view&current=4DE0FC8C-6225-4EEC-AD9B-4B60EADF68EC-3035-0000022A8BBC54FA.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/4DE0FC8C-6225-4EEC-AD9B-4B60EADF68EC-3035-0000022A8BBC54FA.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

 

[ernieq]

How much water do you have on your larvae tank? If you keep the volume low, it is easier to manage amonia with water changes and you also don't have to put as many rotifers to keep a desired density. My 8dph batch is in a 10 gallon tank about 2/5 filled. I also notice you have the heater "exposed" with no bubbles around it to keep the fry from getting cooked. I like to put a bubble wand under the heater and place the heater horizontally over the bubbles so the fry have no chance of getting too close to the heated water. Just a thought.

 

[westohooligan]

Great idea for removing the larva and detris on the bottom of the tank.

We set up the larva catcher again tonight, the parents are working the rock pretty good,
We can see the larva hatching and swimming towards the light.

Do you think it will be ok to put them in with yesterday's larva?????

Not a problem. I incubate mine and sometimes takes 2 nights to hatch.

 

[edandsandy]

How much water do you have on your larvae tank? If you keep the volume low, it is easier to manage amonia with water changes and you also don't have to put as many rotifers to keep a desired density. My 8dph batch is in a 10 gallon tank about 2/5 filled. I also notice you have the heater "exposed" with no bubbles around it to keep the fry from getting cooked. I like to put a bubble wand under the heater and place the heater horizontally over the bubbles so the fry have no chance of getting too close to the heated water. Just a thought.

ernieq,
We are keeping about 7g's in the tank. For the picture I removed the air stone, but normally the air stone is next to the heater.

Thank you for your tips, I'm still learning......

 

[edandsandy]

Not a problem. I incubate mine and sometimes takes 2 nights to hatch.

Thank you :fish2::fish2::fish2:

 

[edandsandy]

Day 4 and no losses today, I guess we are rolling right along into meta..... Not to much to say other than everyone is eating and growing so fast.

 

[Sport507]

Day 4 and no losses today, I guess we are rolling right along into meta..... Not to much to say other than everyone is eating and growing so fast.

Day 4 is a milestone and you have just cleared your first hurtle. If you lose anymore it would be during Meta but I predict you will have no losses during that time either. You are a prime example of someone that has done extensive research and has paid close attention to detail. At about day 6 or 7 you will be able to feed a healthy batch of newly hatched BBS. It not a must but I found that it pushed them through Meta much quicker.

Fantastic job Sandy.

 

[edandsandy]

Thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement. I have a great mentor.:wavehand: