Surprise in my tank

[Joshjohnson]

Woke up this morning, went and turned on my lights and to my surprise there about 100 baby fish swimming around. The only pair of fish i have are green chromis. Can anybody tell me what to do with the baby fish have.

Thanks

 

[gobind]

sell them!

 

[GregDoug]

Can you take pictures of the babies by chance? What fish do you have in the tank (not just pairs)? If they are damsels, most likely they will be eaten within the next few hours if your tank is a typical reef.

 

[bcobra]

Do you have any emerald crabs in your tank? I have a few that spawn and the babies were swimming around like fish. I thought they were fish until I actually saw one on a rock releasing the fry and my clown having a feast.

 

[coralfarmer84]

thats pretty cool. when my seahorse had babies they only lasted about a day and then all were eaten good luck

 

[Joshjohnson]

The only fish I have are two chromis one scooter blennt one pepermint shrimp and one strawberry crab that it and also some snails

 

[cschweitzer]

If you want to raise fry, you need to do a lot of reading. Frank Hoff has a book about the conditioning spawning and rearing of larvae in saltwater reef with emphasis on clowns, but should be a good start.

If you are not trying to raise them, they will become a good live food source for your animals.

 

[GregDoug]

I agree with Cshweitzer, if you want to try your hand at raising them, check out the fish breeding forum here on RC and read Hoff's book along with Joyce Wilkersons. Both are about clowns but clowns and damsels are in the same family i think and the process should be identical for the most part. Also, you will find information limited on damsels bacause of their low cost, which prevents a commercial interest from doing the research. Tropical Marine Center has done a little work with damsels but I think I read they had problems feeding the batches given that damsels have like 1000 eggs several times a week. Pictures would be cool though, I have never seen a damsel spawn before.

 

[Joshjohnson]

When I get home from work I will and take some pictures that is my scooter blenny does it eat them all

 

[Joshjohnson]

What a mess i have now, i waited as long as could but my freind still has not showed up(he has a better camera than i do), so i went ahead and tried to remove the fry. I set the 10 gal up went out to petco bought a small sponge filter and heater set it all up in the 10 gal. Then got my siphon out and tried to siphon water and the fry out. It was going very smooth until my dog decided to attack the 10 gal that was sitting on the floor next to my display. Here is how it went, my dog grab the drain end of my siphon and also put both front paws in the 10 gal, then commenced to shake the end of the siphon resulting in pulling it out of the 10 gal. so now i have water beening siphoned out of my display on to the floor along with the fry. So i drop the end that is in my main tank to grab the end my dog has and get it back to the 10 gal, trun around and my siphon is now sucking up all my sand in the tank (which is very fine), so i pull the siphon up and out of the main tank and sand is now everywhere it is covering everything, plus now the water is so cloudy it looks like that a huricanie just hit my tank. also about half of the fry that i did get out are now no longer with us.

i still have hope to maybe raise a few of them but i think the stress of my dogs feet and everything else may do them in.

 

[BlitzK]

what you need sir, is a video camera! hahah

 

[GregDoug]

That's too bad Josh... if it makes you feel any better, you should get more babies next week or sooner. The sand will settle too with time too You should keep a catfish in your tank.. or maybe a dogface puffer

 

[moongoddesss007]

yes that would have made a great one for funny home videos