Thanks. I am pretty excited about my prospects with this batch.
First let me preface that I don't breed very much. I have a pair of spawning GSM that I tried to raise fry from early last year. My first batch made it to 23 days before I did something with a water change, not sure what, but the next morning they were dead... I haven't tried again, since my Allardis started to spawn in August. That being said I still have A LOT to learn about rearing clownfish.
I'll start with the parents:
They live in a 120g mixed reef with six other fish including their pal a beautiful A. melanopus and two RBTAs. They have a diet of mysis and marine cuisine along with nori when I remember as well as some CP. They spawn on a rock covered by their RBTA; you can see pictures of them spawning here
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1061408
They have been very regular, spawning every 12 days and the hatch on the 8th night.
Collection:
My first two attempts I used a larval snagger similar to the one in Wilkerson's book. I used the moonlight from my Tunze to attract the larvae. I only shut off half my tank (a Tunze and return pump) on the side of the nest in an attempt to minimize the disruption to the rest of the tank mates this yielded about 50 larvae on my first attempt. I shut the entire tank down the second time and my yield was about 100. I transferred the larvae the next morning. I had tremendous die off in the first two days and I figured it could be damage from the snagger. For this batch I shut the entire tank down and used a sample cup from my Salifert Nitrate test kit to collect the larvae and transfer them to Tupperware containers then into the rearing tank. I used a mini maglite to attract the larvae my wife and I collected for nearly an hour and yielded almost the entire nest of about 1500 larvae.
Rearing:
The tank is a 10g with two micro bubble air stones (white) with minimal flow on either end; the heater is on the back wall. I did not see any adverse effects with the micro bubble air stone, the larvae generally stayed away. I initially had only 4 gal in the tank and then raised it to 8 gal by day 4; previous attempts I only used 4 to 5 gallons. As I mentioned above I had tremendous die off of about 80-90% in the first two days with my first two attempts. Besides the snagger I thought some could be due to entrapment, so this time the air stones are suspended with suction cups and the air lines and heater cord are not touching the sides of the tank. Another potential was light, three sides were covered, however, this time I covered the front with construction paper during the day time. I am using a standard NO bulb, not sure the wattage. This time I used three pieces of screen mesh under the light until they were four days old and then removed one a day. My final thought was food, my previous attempts I used "L" Strain rotifers, this time I used "S" and added rotifer diet to the rearing tank to keep them full. One thing I did notice is the larvae seemed to become more active after the rotifer diet was added to the tank... Why all this seemed so strange to me is that I did everything the same on my first two attempts as I did with my GSM and I did not see nearly the percentage of die off. The only difference was the GSM hatched in the tank, which is why I started with the snagger as a main culprit. With all the precautions and changes, by day 4 I only had about 130 larvae, but they were much stronger then any of the larvae in the previous attempts.
Feeding:
I introduced BBS on day 8 and by day 10 or 11 I started to include some GP. I stopped the rotifers on day 14. Also on day 14 I started to add some frozen CP along with some pulverized spirulina. Day 16 they received no BBS. Currently they are on BBS and spirulina.
Water Change:
10-20% per day. I did not change any on day 9 and 10. Now I am doing 25% every other day. I used parent tank water until day 8 and from then on I used freshly mixed.
Calvin
