Raising rotifers for clownfish larvae.

[AliciaP]

Any suggestions where to get them? ( Or anyone have some they can bottle up for me that I can get started with? ) I have 5 gallon buckets I plan on using to supply my babies with, jsut want to know of a good, cheap place to get a starter culture.

 

[captc07]

We have had great luck with rots from Reeds. Great customer service as well.

 

[AliciaP]

I actually have a store named "Reeds" here in my hometown, so google keeps only searching for that. Can you give me a website? You can PM it to me if you want.

Edit: I think I found it. Reedmariculture?

 

[Ciscokid]

I actually have a store named "Reeds" here in my hometown, so google keeps only searching for that. Can you give me a website? You can PM it to me if you want.

Edit: I think I found it. Reedmariculture?

That is the right one... My clownfish eggs will be hatching in 2-3 days! Good Luck.

I have also heard that you could use Roti Feast until they get old enough to use baby brine shrimp. You don't want to give them BBS too early, it will choke them.

 

[AliciaP]

What will you be trying out? Going with rotifers or rotifeast? I also read somehwere that too much bbs can cause them to have a withdrawl when you stop feeding it to them so I was going to try to skip it and add it if I saw them do poorly.

 

[Ciscokid]

I don't remember what I bought as a temporary food. I will have to check to see what the name of it is. My LFS gets regular orders from Reefnutrition so i am on the list for their next shipment. The bad thing about ordering rotifers, it requires faster shipping.. and its around $22 for shipping!

Food
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=2190+3063&pcatid=3063

http://reefnutrition.com/specialty_feeds.php#rotiferkit

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-culture-rotifers-feed-live-coral-1274543.html?cat=53


Good Reading
http://cmlindblom.hubpages.com/hub/The-Breeding-Clown-Fish
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/2/fish
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=240158
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1333809&highlight=breeding+occelaris

 

[mwilliams62]

I have never heard of giving fry's Rotifeast it has to be live foods for them to hunt.
Rotifers is their first foods to be given to them.
BBS about 7 - 10 days after they hatch.
Then start weaning them off of the BBS and onto the TDO-A, B1, so on and so forth by mixing it in with the BBS. Those are also sold by Reed Mariculture.
There are several other threads out there that has great write ups on how to raise the fry.

 

[Ciscokid]

I have never heard of giving fry's Rotifeast it has to be live foods for them to hunt.
Rotifers is their first foods to be given to them.
BBS about 7 - 10 days after they hatch.
Then start weaning them off of the BBS and onto the TDO-A, B1, so on and so forth by mixing it in with the BBS. Those are also sold by Reed Mariculture.
There are several other threads out there that has great write ups on how to raise the fry.

I will let you know if it works. Its the only thing I can get locally. I have started a culture but it will take roughly 10 days to make. I will miss the window to use them on my first batch of eggs. If they lay another batch of eggs, I will be ready.

 

[GreshamH]

Roti-Feast is not a live rotifer replacement for clownfish, sorry to tell you. There is no replacement for live rotifers for clownfish, yet.


Most people that use TDO cut out NHBBS all together.
1-3 DPH just rots
4-5 DPG rots & a smidgen TDO-A

The TDO-A is to get them used to associating the smell of TDO with food.


Gresham H
Reed Mariculture

 

[AliciaP]

I have heard of people trying frozen rotifers since that's all they could get and some clown fish fry do grow on it. I will try to find what I read again. Like I said, I've been researching for a year, so I might have a tough time finding it. I might try to grab some and give it a try on a few fry.

 

[Ciscokid]

I have heard of people trying frozen rotifers since that's all they could get and some clown fish fry do grow on it. I will try to find what I read again. Like I said, I've been researching for a year, so I might have a tough time finding it. I might try to grab some and give it a try on a few fry.

I was told the same thing.

 

[Dtech07]

Here is we're i purchase mine and my green water. Solid company with a great staff.
http://florida-aqua-farms.com/

 

[GreshamH]

I have heard of people trying frozen rotifers since that's all they could get and some clown fish fry do grow on it. I will try to find what I read again. Like I said, I've been researching for a year, so I might have a tough time finding it. I might try to grab some and give it a try on a few fry.

Yes, people have... with less then a 3% survival at best I'm afraid. Its really not a viable alternative.

You'd think if I even had a glimmer of hope our product would be useful, I'd be all over it Its not every day a manufacturer tries to talk a customer out of buying a product

 

[AliciaP]

Yeah, I know it's not promising, but what if I found something that worked? Not saying I will, or that I will even try, just stating, what if no one tried?

 

[Ciscokid]

I ordered the roti kit from ReedMariculture.. It will take 2 days to get here. I hope I won't have to try to feed my larvae the Rotifeast. Hopefully I will get more than 1 batch of eggs. I expect them to hatch in 1-2 days... I will keep you posted.

 

[GreshamH]

Yeah, I know it's not promising, but what if I found something that worked? Not saying I will, or that I will even try, just stating, what if no one tried?

This is not a case of people not trying though, people have attempted this countless times in a pinch By all means try, I don't mean to sound so pessimistic, its just I've been down this road enough to know the odds are highly against you.

We have sent Roti-Feast out to quite a few hatcheries since our primary business is aquaculture, not the Reef Nutrition product line. The fish that have the best success with them tend to be ones that you can culture with more aggressive aeration which lends movement to the dead rotifers. Cobia seemed to be the greatest result, but even then, it was in the low teens in terms of success.

FWIW this topic is close to my heart given 7 years ago I was the one that pitched to the company our rotifer culls could be a product for Reef Nutrition... its my baby so to speak

 

[Ciscokid]

This is not a case of people not trying though, people have attempted this countless times in a pinch By all means try, I don't mean to sound so pessimistic, its just I've been down this road enough to know the odds are highly against you.

We have sent Roti-Feast out to quite a few hatcheries since our primary business is aquaculture, not the Reef Nutrition product line. The fish that have the best success with them tend to be ones that you can culture with more aggressive aeration which lends movement to the dead rotifers. Cobia seemed to be the greatest result, but even then, it was in the low teens in terms of success.

FWIW this topic is close to my heart given 7 years ago I was the one that pitched to the company our rotifer culls could be a product for Reef Nutrition... its my baby so to speak

I understand where you are coming from. I have also heard that when you are not using live rotifers, it doesn't teach them to hunt for food. This kind of confirms the reason why very low numbers of larvae survive.

Every forum i read so far, people shy away from making the cultures themselves because they think its hard to do. Of course they never tried it either...They will waste alot of time/money trying stuff that wasn't designed for that purpose. My opinion is that it doesn't seem that hard to do.

 

[mwilliams62]

It is not hard to culture rotifers. You pour the bag that you get from Reed and add 1 gallon of saltwater 1.016 or maybe 1.018 then you can feed them either Rotigrow or RG Complete about 2ml morning and night put an airstone to airiated it. I put mine in a 5 gallon bucket and add a gallon of water to the culture once I see it really dense.
If this is your first batch of eggs I would let them go and wait till your culture is nice and dense. They will lay eggs very soon as the batchs hatch. Mine are laying eggs two to three days the eggs are all gone.

 

[mwilliams62]

Raising rotifers for clownfish larvae...

Raising rotifers for clownfish larvae...

GreshamH is the TDO product considered to be perishable or non-perishable?

Roti-Feast is not a live rotifer replacement for clownfish, sorry to tell you. There is no replacement for live rotifers for clownfish, yet.

Most people that use TDO cut out NHBBS all together.
1-3 DPH just rots
4-5 DPG rots & a smidgen TDO-A

The TDO-A is to get them used to associating the smell of TDO with food.


Gresham H
Reed Mariculture

 

[Lou Young]

Roti-Feast is not a live rotifer replacement for clownfish, sorry to tell you. There is no replacement for live rotifers for clownfish, yet.


Most people that use TDO cut out NHBBS all together.
1-3 DPH just rots
4-5 DPG rots & a smidgen TDO-A

The TDO-A is to get them used to associating the smell of TDO with food.


Gresham H
Reed Mariculture

@Gresham- Which one of your products do you recommend for green water for clowns and why that one over the other choices? Thanks