raising clownfish fry

[Mark1]

Hi Everyone

My name is Mark. I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on raising a fry of true perc. clown fish. I know some of the basics. But cultering Rotifers and feeding sounds difficult? This is their second batch of eggs and will probably hatch in the next 3 to 4 days.

 

[Big Jay D]

MOFIB.com

 

[Bifferwine]

I have tried with my clownfish. You will need to culture live phyto, rotifers and baby brine. The rotifers eat the phyto, and the baby clowns eat the rotifers for the first couple weeks, until they are large enough to eat the live brine.

It took me over a month just to get these food sources to a good level (you need to make sure you have enough, or else the baby clowns will starve to death), so unless you have them going already and have a good stock on hand, you probably won't be able to raise the current batch of eggs.

And I would also caution you to let your clowns lay eggs for a while before you try to raise the fry. Mine laid every 10 days for 4 months. Of course, as soon as I got all my rotifers, phyto and brine going, they decided to stop. They went for about 4 months and didn't lay anymore, and only started up again in the last month. I want to try to raise their fry, but because of what they did last time, I'm waiting at least 6 months before I put all that money, effort and time into getting their food going!

It can be expensive to set everything up. You will need several small grow-out tanks for the fry, and several buckets and containers for the foods, lights, pumps, airline tubing for the phyto, a rotifer sieve for the rotifers, several culture bottles for the brine... I have a thread dedicated to rearing my tomato clown fry at another site, PM me if you're interested. I can also give you details on where to buy all the supplies. I have lots of the "phyto fertilizer" left that I'd be willing to sell if you want (you need "fuel" to feed the live phyto cultures).

 

[Mark1]

thanks for the info. I will probably try to raise the next batch of eggs and I found a place online to order the Rotifers. Reed Mariculter, they also carry a line of instant roflers that can last up to two weeks is you refrigerate them. I don't like the ideal of having rotifers going all the time. But that seems like the easier way to set it up if your raising them yourself. How are rotifers as a general food source for a reef?

 

[sillygoose]

[they] are crunchy and good with catsup...

 

[Bifferwine]

thanks for the info. I will probably try to raise the next batch of eggs and I found a place online to order the Rotifers. Reed Mariculter, they also carry a line of instant roflers that can last up to two weeks is you refrigerate them. I don't like the ideal of having rotifers going all the time. But that seems like the easier way to set it up if your raising them yourself. How are rotifers as a general food source for a reef?

That's a good place to order from. I got all my supplies from Aquatic EcoSystems, Inc. (http://www.aquaticeco.com/)

Keeping live rotifers in the fridge will be a lot more expensive than culturing your own. The baby clowns eat a lot (I don't know if you have done the research, but they need to be fed at least every 4 hours, and the water in their little tank needs to be saturated with rotifers because they cannot hunt. Basically there needs to be so many rotifers that they open their mouths and rotifers go in). Because of this, you need to be able to do tons of water changes on the baby clown tank. So you can't run out of rotifers or else your clowns will die. If you don't mind spending the money on them, then that may be a solution, but I'm just warning you that you will need a lot, and a lot of them will go to waste.

If you want to feed the rotifers to the rest of your tank, they make a great food source. For about a month or two after my clowns decided to be disagreeable and stopped laying, I kept the rotifers and phyto going, waiting for them to start up again. The rotifers have to be harvested daily, and a portion of the rotifer water has to be changed out daily. regardless of whether or not you have something to feed them to. So I would just dump the rotifers in my tank and target feed my smaller corals with them.

 

[itsmateo]

let me know what works out for you, id like to raise some fry as well.