Tomato blues...

David M

David M

New member
Another 100% total wipe out on the tomato clowns, they started dying at first light. The last two hatches larvae were huge. They take ten days to hatch. I was adding rots when I thought they seemed big enough to take bbs. I added a few and right away had orange bellies, so I added more, they were eating them just fine. I literally watched them die one by one. No struggling for life at the surface or gasping at the bottom, they just swim along looking perfectly normal and out of nowhere simply drop dead. I have never seen something like this, I'm not kidding, they just die in mid water while swimming, eating, whatever. One second they are cruising along and the next they are head down drifting to the bottom stone cold dead. At least 100 died like that while I was watching over a 1 hour period. When I got home from work they were 100% gone. I roughly counted them, about 500. I have no clue what I can do about this, parental nutrition??? It's certainly not a water quality or larval nutrition issue. I used to manage a few survivors from each hatch but now it's 100% mortality on the first day every time. I'm not here to watch but my gues is they are all gone in the first few hours. I can raise ocellaris side by side with every conceivable parameter exactly the same. I can't raise a tomato or gsm to save my life.
:confused:
 
really sorry to hear of this trouble.

I am a bit confused. Did you add bbs and saw orange bellies, or rots and saw orange bellies. I have never seen orange after feeding rots. Hence my misunderstanding.

If bbs as a first food, it may not have the right nutrition. At 10 days post spawn, they will not have much yolk, so immediate nutrition is important.

That's my only inexperienced guess. Especially if you are successful with the same technique with ocellaris, it may be the tomato breeding stock. really a mystery here.
 
Re: Tomato blues...

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6975049#post6975049 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by David M
Another 100% total wipe out on the tomato clowns, they started dying at first light. The last two hatches larvae were huge. They take ten days to hatch. I was adding rots when I thought they seemed big enough to take bbs. I added a few and right away had orange bellies, so I added more, they were eating them just fine. I literally watched them die one by one. No struggling for life at the surface or gasping at the bottom, they just swim along looking perfectly normal and out of nowhere simply drop dead. I have never seen something like this, I'm not kidding, they just die in mid water while swimming, eating, whatever. One second they are cruising along and the next they are head down drifting to the bottom stone cold dead. At least 100 died like that while I was watching over a 1 hour period. When I got home from work they were 100% gone. I roughly counted them, about 500. I have no clue what I can do about this, parental nutrition??? It's certainly not a water quality or larval nutrition issue. I used to manage a few survivors from each hatch but now it's 100% mortality on the first day every time. I'm not here to watch but my gues is they are all gone in the first few hours. I can raise ocellaris side by side with every conceivable parameter exactly the same. I can't raise a tomato or gsm to save my life.
:confused:
Click to expand...

Since you are having all kinds of problems anyway, aka not the norm and not recommended for anyone else, but this experienced breeder can handle it!

1) As soon as you transfer the eggs, turn off the heater. Let it drop to <76Ã"šÃ‚°F. Kepp the temp steady, but low. Keep it there for the first three to five days. Then slowly over a couple of days, crank it up to 84Ã"šÃ‚°F.

2) Get a new tank for them. Brand new, go buy one. Clean it with hot water and vinigar.

3) Use fresh (but aged) salt water, skip the parents water. Match up SG and don't worry about pH unless it is totally off from parents.

4) If you can, rig something up so that you can heavily oxygenate the water without tossing the larva to death. Something like a fine mess screen on one end with heavy air in it. Maybe two screens to help kill the flow.

5) NO BBS until day 4-5.

6) Drop the SG over the first few days to 1.012 to 1.015.

HTH
 
No burst stomaches. They just die, whether I feed the bbs or not (this was the first time I fed bbs on the first day. I only tried it because they seemed large enough to eat them, and they were). They hatch at ten days and are very large.

John, I tend to pull as close to hatch as possible, usually that night or the night before. Are you suggesting I should pull the nest right away after spawnig? The low temp would be difficult as the fishroom is heated, it will not go below 78. Maybe a fan would drop it another degree or two. I'll try anything. If you are thinking low 02 I'd think I'd see some "suffering" before death, I'm telling you these guys just drop dead in an instant. If it wasn't so sad it would be comical, they swim along and suddenly just fall out of the water column like a bird hit by shot. But what the heck, I'll try it.
 
David,

did you every try a different salt brand? A friend of mine had to switch to low cost salt (no trace elements added, no additives for corals etc) and only with that he could solve a similar problem. You might give it a thought.
 
No pull them as usual. Just get that temp down as soon as pulling as possible, move the tank if need be.

O2 is a possible, but less likely, but a very high O2 tends to give them more gusto than normal levels.

My #1 suspect is some bactria or fungus in the parents water. You are filtering with a screen when you fill the rearing tank right? Might be a parasite too.
 
When my tomatoes first started laying I had the exact same problem, someone suggested neomycin and it worked for me.
Dropping the temperature and the salinity are sound ideas as lower temps allows higher O2 saturation and lower salinity requires less energy for osmoregulation, DO NOT go below 1.012, 1.105 is safer.
 
Peter, here in San Diego we have access to nsw courtesy of Scripps Institute. It runs through large sand filters and it's free :) Locals are able to maitain pristine sps reefs with it and I have had dozens of fish pairs spawn it in, so I have to be believe the water is at least, well... OK ? :) So that is my primary water source but I do also use a lot of mixed water for convenience. I have an RO/DI unit and primarily use AquaCraft Meersaltz , it's their public aquarium formula used by wholesalers and retail stores, you won't find it retailing at lfs's. Recently I got a 200g box of the new Ocean Pure to try out. The system is 850 gallons and a random & fluctuating mix of all of the above.

John, I fill the hatching tank with system water run through a 36um screen and then bleach sterilize it ( credit Edgar). This has totally eliminated past problem with egg loss to fungas and also prevents hydroids from getting established in the larval tank (system is plagued with hydroids).

I have another big gsm hatch comming up, I will try a few of these things. Larger volume, new water, lower temp, lower SG and more air. Maybe even the noemycin ?

Anybody played with ozone? I have a friend who is convinced it is the silver bullet of fish keeping, not sure it would be any benefit to breeding though.
 
Not much UV yet, working on it. I have one unit that feeds what I call my "clean tank", basically a 50 gal custom tank (60X18X14)that holds juvies and is used to take water from the system.
 
Be careful with public aquarium formulas or zoo mixes. They are meant to be used at once, a 300 or 600 gal. bag has to be used whole, the "ingredients" are not mixed. I use TMCs Zoo mix, thats heavy! and I have to get the 300 gal. going in drums.Ask the manufacturer.

The antibiotics could be the answer, make sure you don't get any of that water into the main system and be careful handling it, if a powder, gloves and mask. Even if that is not the answer it won't hurt them.


Ed
 
Should I really go out and buy neomycin? I have Gentemycin from NFP but it's a couple of years old, shelf life?

The Meersaltz is packaged in 50 gal bags & has the same instructions as any other retail salt. I think it is OK to be mixed in small batches. The new product, Ocean Pure, is in unmarked bags 50 gals ea. 4 per box. I am mixing it that way (50 gals) just to be sure. So far I like it, dissolves quickly.

Tomato's laid again & the gsm's will hatch tonight or tomorrow. I'm gonna take one more shot at each. If I don't see any improvement I may give up for a while & go back to messing with the orchids.
 
:D Thank you JHardman and all, 1000 praises for your generosity :D This is far and away the best frist day I've ever had with the gsm's, some loss but nothing compared to what I'm used to. I pulled the nest about 5 minutes before lights out. I had prepared a 12 galon round black tub with 10 gals system water bleach sterilized and treated with amquel (standard practice). The nest hatched perfectly with nearly 100% completion within 30 minutes. Easily 1000+ larvae. I did not add a heater as usual. I set up a drip of 1 gallon fw to dilute slowly overnight. I fed Ration Hufa to one of the rotifer cultures and just for kicks & grins I dosed the larval tank with the gentamycin. In the morning I siphoned out the dead (maybe 75) and added rots and a little IA, then I set up another fw/IA solution to drip slowly throughout the day. I set the air about 4X what I'd normally do. Got home from work expecting the worst, low and behold there are very few dead :rollface: Some but not bad at all. SG is 1.016 and temp is right at 76f.

thank you, thank you, thank you ...

SO- should I continue to drop the SG or leave it? The temp should stay where it is, the room is insulated and heated, it won't vary much if at all.

Even if they all drop dead tonight this has been a huge improvement and I'll keep trying. There is a new tomato nest due on the 30th, if these gsm's get that far I'll try this again for sure.
 
Start SLOWLY bringing the temp up after about day 5. Do not let the SG drop below 1.012, and it is fine to keep it low until they morph, then you can slowly bring it up to whatever you normally growout at.

You might consider redoing the meds on day 4 or 5 too.

Breeding clowns is easy right? ;)
 
Yea I'd say so, much shorter headache period for sure. It seems to me that with clowns once you get through met you are pretty much home free. You sweat horses for months. Typically 8 weeks+ to wean them off live foods and that process can take a week or two as well. Then there are all the specal contraptions you need to make up (kreisels and the like). There is no "nest" to pull so timing is everything. If you pull the male there is risk of stress, etc, if you don't you have to collect fry which is a royal pain. Having done both I think clowns are a piece of cake by comparrison. :) Of course with erectus you don't need rots and that is a big plus ;)
 
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