Time needed to induce Clowns to spawn

C

chris melb

Member
I Have read the recent thread 'Inducing clowns to spawn how did you do it?', i would be interested to find out how long it took people to get there clowns to spawn? most people say that it depends on the actual pair that you have, i have heard that some may never spawn, and some reports that other pairs have spawned in a month since introducing them into their tanks. Assuming that they are a mature pair, and you are following the conditions which encourage clowns to spawn, how long did it take for them to spawn? If people can respond indicating how long it took to get your mature pair of clowns to spawn, when providing the appropriate techniques for inducing clowns to spawn, we can hopefully come to some average consensus of how long it actually takes for a pair of mature clowns to settle in a new environment, given the perfect conditions?
 
I think you're not considering that some species are more willing to spawn than others as well. I've had my Onyx Percs for over a year now, they've been "Cleaning a nest" for 6 months now, yet still no spawn.

FWIW,

Matt
 
sure it may well be that different speices are more willing to spawn than others, but if people could post the species and time taken for them to spawn, then we could come to some general conclusion, i am still not convinced that the current held theory 'they will simply spawn when ready' is valid, There just seems to be such a wide range of time needed for some to spawn while for others they may spawn instantly(within species), what do others think?
 
tomatoe clown pair
6 months to spawn
male was a juvenile when introduced so took time to mature.

My experience in enducing spawning is limited to this one pair but here is what I did just the same:

) got them multiple small anemones (3 BTAs)
) increased feedings and food quality
) waited till they fattened up a bit
) increased photo period 2 hours/day
) increased water temperature 2 degrees
) simulated algae bloom by adding BBS twice daily for three days

I didn't really figure any of this out however. I simply read a lot about it and got one tip from one place, and another from somewhere else.

Getting things to breed in my tank seems pretty easy. Its the getting the baby whatevers to live that is the hard part. Everything in my tank that has male and female, has mated and produced offspring (crabs, snails, hermits, shrimp, clowns, seahorses, cardinals). Until recently I have not been able to raise anything past 2 weeks. Now I have Banggai Cardinal fry starting to eat frozen and living right in my reef tank.

AS for my clowns, they lay eggs about every 12 days. I continue to feed with high quality foods (Hikari Mysis mostly) but I have dropped the temp down to 76 for the seahorses. This has not affected the clown fry production in the least. I plan to feed the next batch of clown fry to my baby banggai if they will take it.

The BTAs make the clowns very happy so I recommend getting one or more than one from a fellow reefer who has had them split. Much hardier that way. Feed them well and they will grow and multiply for you.

Good luck, Kevin
 
Interesting info on BTA thanks, from my readings i have been told not to put a BTA in i have a pair of tomatos also, jsut recently purchased them, i have noticed from the past that percs seem much happier with a BTA, but have been told from the past that BTA or any anenonme are not necessary for them to breed, but im wondering if they would help to induce a spawn- as they do seem much happier, interesting
 
In the past reccommendations were made that anemones werenot necessary for clowns to spawn, mainly in good attempts to keep poeple from killing anemones ! The past several years anemone husbandry has improved, but, as far as I am concerned there are only several species that should be sold as the bulk of the others are killed off. BTA's are probably the hardiest and best species, and virtually all species of clowns will adopt them as well as many damsels. All other things being equal, which they hardly ever are, clowns will do better with an anemone or two.
 
Just a note about BTAs in spawning tanks.

If you are going to try to get your clowns to spawn on a removable substrate like a tile or in a pot then maybe without an anenome is the way to go?
My BW clowns spawn in a ceramic pot happily without an anenome nearby.
I have had a BTA in the tank and it just causes trouble when you come to removing the eggs. Also settling the clowns can be difficult if you cant settle the BTA as they tend to follow it around. Given that my BTA was a traveller and not really content with anything I could throw at it then it is probably more hassle than anything.


Just MHO for those interested. You definately dont need a BTA or other anenome to make them spawn.
 
Oh and incidentally it took me 8 months to get them to spawn but when they did..... on the pot right where I planned it!.... Maybe they have read the clownfishes book too?
 
Interesting infor, and i agree that BTA are the hardiest and should prob be the only ones to be used, its obvious that they will spawn without a BTA, but still not clear why it is that people are like your saying will spawn in 8months and others have had to wait 2 years, ive read they wont breed until they are settled and it makes perfect sense to me that they would be much happier with a BTA, and this would make them feel more settled and would probably spawn sooner. I plan on testing this, I have recently setup 6 pairs of clowns i will expose 3 pairs of clowns to BTA and 3 pairs without and see what happens. All conditions will be controlled only variable will be the BTA. I think experiments like these need to occur in order to weed out alot myths.
 
Seems to me, that if its taking your clowns 2 years to spawn, either
1) They werent even close to sexual maturity when you got them (or)
2) Theres something thats keeping them from spawning (lack of something, or a predator or something)

My clowns live in a BIG (16-18") sebae anemone, I've moved tanks a couple of times, and they start back up within 2 or 3 weeks.

They started spawning before I could tell them apart. Theyre ORA occellaris.
 
There was an interesting thread about anemones and breeding clowns,but I can´t find it right now:(

BW meaning Black and White as in Darwin clowns?:confused:
 
Hmmm Hang on you missread me Chris, Took me 8 months to get my fish to spawn..... doesnt mean that yours will take that long. Took me 8 months to figure out everything and get all the conditions right.
Now if you are a fast learner or you listen to all the wise heads on here then you may achieve success sooner??...
All I was saying about the BTA was that it got in the way a bit.
but as long as you are aware of this then you will be ok!


And just for the record Luis my B and W clowns are the Darwin Black and white osc.
Pretty common here in Adelaide!
 
HI Chris

Good to see a fellow aussie on here!!!, Luis black and whites are darwin clowns.

Chris personally we have a slightly different set of rule to breeding onset than they do in america, aside from black ocellaris, most of the clown species avaliable can be purchsed as wild pairs, something the americans give their right arm for!!!

this creates a situation where instead of waiting for maturity to set in (which i would estimate creates the 18m month old fish spawning theory, due to juveniles developing ot adults) you have a pair of wild fish that just need to be settled in a tank, i personally believe as i poste dint he other thread Luis linked to, that you will get a faster onset of spawning with an anemone, and when i did try i cfound this to be true.

Fish release dopamine i think it is that is a sex hormone inhibiter, this occurs when the fish are stressed (no home = anemone) if you reduce stres as fast as possible you will create a fish more likely to spawn, i think this along with environemntal ques as stated earlier (temp, light, food etc) then come into play.

If your experiment is on black ocellaris , you shold make sure they are all the same age, and make sure you know the age. Where did you get them from?

Since that thread Luis linked to, i have tried anemones (BTA and Haddoni) with perc clowns, and had great success, gave me a spawning pair of tank bred fish within 18 months or a bit less, whereas other pairs take forever, also seemed to help 1 pair of wild percs spawn withing 6 months, having said that i have had a constructed pair of wild solomon percs spawn well withing 6 months of purchase and pairing (no anemone), so the rules are all over the show.

I dont htink youll ever find a great rule, but i think less stress = faster spawning fish (aside from sexual development).

Christian
 
In regards to Noof, i have read most of the forum here relating to breeding clowns, its seems 8 months is very good, from some of the comments on this thread suggest that having an anemone or not does not seem to decrease the time taken for them to spawn.

Luis i thankyou for that interesting thread, it seems you were posting similar question to mine here. From that and from what others are saying, especially Christian, i agree that reducing stress plays an important part when inducing clowns to spawn whether or not it helps them spawn or settle quicker is still yet to be answered. In Luis's posted thread, an interesting comment was made by Luis saying that adult compatible fish spawn in a matter of weeks/months, why not clowns?

If you look at clowns in the wild, they rarely leave there host (anemone), and when hosting very rarely move far from, so they may need more security than other fish, to encourage them to spawn.

Christian, great to also see an aussie on here as well, im not sure where exatacly my B & W come from, they are still Juveniles, but the BTA experiment will be mainly on my mature perc pairs, and also tomato clowns. In Melb im looking for a pair of GSM been looking for the last few months, LFS say that they are hard to get, would you agree with this up in QLD?
 
Sorry one more thing i have been thinking about is that obviously the ceramic pot or tile that we use, is used as a surrogate anemone, and from people's comments placing an anemone in the tank should reduce stress, but im also wondering, what effect placing more than one anemone will have? this might sound a bit ignorant but when we buy a house we dont buy the first one see do we? clowns may do the same when roaming the reef - Just a thought

I still think that there is something we might be missing, given the appropriate conditions, food, ligthing, water quality, and fish being mature, it may well be possible that anemone's or some other variable we havent thought but obviously happens in our tanks at some stage prompts clowns to spawn. It seems that when conditions are good most of our other inhabitants in our tanks work like clockwork.
 
Once we have a spawning pair of clowns,they are a clockwork fish producing machine.Nothing stops them breeding and the fry are very easy to raise,born very big and with a very short and easy larval phase.
The problem is that many (most?) mated clown pairs never spawn in our tanks,under the same conditions we keep our spawning pairs.
Trying to find the reason of that was the purpose of my thread and this one.
Assuming almost all pairs in Nature spawn successfully,it is logic and common sense,that providing the more natural conditions we can to our fish (large reef tanks with anemones)they will feel happier and spawn better than if kept in a small bare tanks with flowerpots.
It is logic and common sense (and nice to the fish)but,is it true?I´don´t know.Finding out is the thing.
It might be also relative to species,IME frenatus,clarkii or biaculeatus are much easier to spawn than ocellaris which I find difficult to start spawning.
I keep small bare tanks.I´ve never been lucky keeping anemones alive for a long time and I don´t have the space to set a reef tank with lights and so.But I had that gorgeous large B&W clowns which looked they were so close to begin spawning,cleaning the substrate and so.I decided to upgrade the "furniture"of their tank.Light was upgraded with a PC,and I put a BTA,some LR and Caulerpa.The small boring tank became a small paradise:p .The fish took to the anemone soon and showed happier.Yet they never spawned and I lost the anemone some months later:(
 
hi chris,

where in melb. are you?

we might be able to help each other out a bit, if i ever get things working, right christian :D :rollface:
 
yeh damer will get it going one day, hmmm the question is the year!!!! :P

seriously, if you 2 are down there, checking out damers system would be a great idea, give you a few tips you might have missed.

Christian
 
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