Spawning help......

[All6Fish]

OK so we have had our clowns for about 6 months I guess, I reset my rocks yesterday (creating a better viewing of the tank IMO) but before I did the female squirted out an orange cloud which I guees would have been part of the spawn. Today she is digging a hole near the front rocks, is this a sign she plans on spawning there? Should I keep doing my 20% water changes weekly? or should I leave it be. My salinity is a little off from what I have stated below it stand at.030 but normally it remains .028. any help is appreciated.

 

[All6Fish]

ok so I been reading more posts, seems like im in for some education. I see you take the eggs out on the evening of the 7th day, but what if she spawns on sand?

 

[ernieq]

Clowns don't spawn on sand. They are demersal (substrate) spawners. They will always lay eggs on some type of surface after they carefully cleaned it. My clowns spawn on the silicone in one of the corners of the tank. On hatch night, I turn off all filters before lights out and wait 1 hour for them hatch. Then I scoop them up and put them on the larvae tank. I've never heard of a clownfish squirting out an orange cloud before, clownfish eggs are pretty big compared to pelagic (release eggs into water column) spawners and are laid one at a time through a little tube that comes out called the ovipositor.

What you describe doesn't sound like spawning or pre-spawning behavior. Digging holes is something clownfish do all the time to re-arrange their surroundings to their liking. If the rocks are small enough, they will move them around. I tried to build a specifc kind of rock formation for aesthetic reasons, but my 5 inch clarkii clown doesn't like it and keeps knocking it down. I gave up after 3 tries.

 

[All6Fish]

They have hosted the rock formation instead of one of our anenomes, two are atlantic and I know they wont go there but one is a small red one which I thought they would host. (pic included) Should I place something flat in there they can spawn on?

we have substrate not sand sorry.

 

[ernieq]

You can try a piece of ceramic tile close by. But typically if they are ready to spawn, they will spawn on one of your rocks. I tried to get mine to spawn on a removable object, but they keep spawning on the glass. You can tell they are ready to spawn by their behavior. If they start chasing everything that gets near them and meticulously start cleaning off a spot in the rock, then you know something is about to happen. Also note the female toward the rear of her body, it should be unusally large if she has eggs. If the "fat" is toward the front right behind the gills, then they are probably not ready to go. Also you say your salinity is .028, do you mean 1.028? If you do, seems kind of high? I keep mine around 1.022.

 

[All6Fish]

Yes 1.028....I was told, and this may vary im sure that salinity should remain between .1.025-1.028. Am I incorrect with this?

 

[All6Fish]

You can see where they are in this picture, and this is where they stay !

 

[ernieq]

Clowns are not "long range" type guys. This is what makes them ideal for smaller aquariums. They don't need much room because as you can see, they pretty much stay in the same area all day and venture a bit out for food. The salinity for clowns should ideally be 1.020 to 1.026. I don't think there's any kind of adverse effect keeping them a 1.028, but ideally you want to be a bit lower, unless you have other things in your tank that require a higher salinity level. I usually try to stay in the lower part of the range as it saves on salt costs over time, especially when you are caring for young fry that require very frequent water changes. My fry are kept at 1.022 same as the parents tank. I top off daily with RO/DI water to a "fill" line that I have.

 

[All6Fish]

I do a 20%water change faithfully every weekend. Hopefully that keeps param's in check

 

[ClownfishSushi]

Yes 1.028....I was told, and this may vary im sure that salinity should remain between .1.025-1.028. Am I incorrect with this?

This may be good advice for a reef system or other biotype but it will virtually gaurantee you will fail with your fish breeding project. Here's why...

You are going to feed your clownfish fry rotifers. If your rotifers die, your clownfish fry die.

You are going to keep your rotifer culture at 1.014-1.018. If you place rotifers into water that is 0.007 greater, they go into osmotic shoke and die. Again if your rotifers die, your clownfish fry die. You can't mathematically feed your clownfish fry if they come from water that is greater than 1.025.

This is also why I believe some clownfish breeders, including Joyce Wilkerson, suggest lowering salinity in the fry tanks but I'm not sure that they ever made the connection between the salinity and the health of the rotifers.

Lower your salinity gradually over the next month to 1.022-1.024 if you are serious about attempting to breed. Make sure to keep track of everything else you do and post it here because you are going to do a lot of stuff wrong at first.

Good luck!

 

[reefstew]

I keep my reef tank at 1.025 but the fish room is 1.020 for breeding clownfish, breeding seahorses, grow out fry, & cultures, all in different systems.

 

[All6Fish]

Ok perfect, Thanks for the tips. Ill start to lower this weekend during my 20% change. Ill post all my param's so if theres something else going on. Im thinking of a 5 Gal. for fry tank, heater, air pump, small whisper HOB filter. does that sound like a plan?

 

[ernieq]

You can't use HOB filters in fry tanks until after meta around 12 to 14 Days Post Hatch (DPH). You need to care for the ammonia by doing partial water changes and using something like ChloramX or Amguard or Amquel Plus. (Some people report bad luck with amquel, but I haven't had issues that I can attribute to it). I like to use a Marina S10 or S20 series, they have a prefilter sponge in the uptake tube, which keeps the fry from getting sucked by the filter. I also recommend you get a Seachem Ammonia Alert badge to keep an eye on your ammonia level. I also use a digital thermometer to monitor the heater's performance, if you want to be really careful, you get a controller for that, but I haven't had any issues yet. Just make sure you get a good quality heater.

 

[AliciaP]

My clowns squirt orange like that when they poop. it's not so much a squirt thoug, they poop and it's pretty much dissolved. Kinda like a cloud of dust?

 

[ClownfishSushi]

Ok perfect, Thanks for the tips. Ill start to lower this weekend during my 20% change. Ill post all my param's so if theres something else going on. Im thinking of a 5 Gal. for fry tank, heater, air pump, small whisper HOB filter. does that sound like a plan?

You can always try my slow-drip fry tank method. I've had outstanding success with it. Basically you piggy back a 10 gallon tank off your reef tank. As long as the reef tank is healthy, your fry tank will be healthy. You still need to scrape and siphon daily but this removes the need for any chemicals and filtration all together. Here is a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLVDyjDNtOQ