We have babies (Onyx Percula that is)

[OrionN]

I keep on thinking that I shold try my hand at raising the babies of my Percula. IMO, the pair that I got from Rod B. years back when he is still selling and befor he lost his female are very nice. Anyway, I decided to try my hand at it. Last week I buy some rotifer and a small supply of frozen Phytoplankton from my LFS. I have started the rotifer culture a week a go but only have 1 gallon going at the time. Saturday, I got back from going out of town, the fish will hatch that night so I threw sometning together. Use a 5 gal salt bucket, heater and the air bubbler. I was thinking this will be the first run and not expecting much from it. Anyway, the fish hatched Sat night. I don't have enough rotifer to raise the 200+ babies but I tried. First night I think a lot died but I was not able to see down to the bottom of the walt container (I added rotifer but also added phytoplankton to the container).

Petco is having the 1 dollar per gallon sale so I got three 10g tanks. Pictured below is I have it set up right now. Two of the aquarium are used for rotifer culture and the third for the babies. After transfer to the aquarium, I got about 50 by then end of Sunday, and only one did not make it overnight. This I think is a minor miracle.

I raise one end of the aquarium to make it easier to suck out wastes and sediments. 10 g is light so I don't expect tank leak from setting it like this. I will cut some archylic this evening to cover all the tanks.

All pictures are today pictures, took right befor I went off to work.

Parent:

The rest of the pictures

 

[Tmoriarty]

Good stuff You may find you have better luck with the rotifers in a 5g bucket instead of a tank. While I have not tried raising them in a tank I have heard of a lot of people having their rotifers crash in the tanks (not sure why).

As for having that many fry survive through a couple days.... thats pretty good . You are doing something right. A lot of the initial survial rates have to do with how the parents are fed leading up to the spawn. Strong eggs come from more varied and consitant feeding of the parents. The stronger the fry are when they hatch the better chance they have to make it through the first 48 hours.

Normally when I remove fry I can tell which ones are strong and which ones are weak before I even remove them from the tank. Another spot for losses is transfer from the tank to the fry setup (unless you hatch them out there, which gives much higher yeilds).

 

[Lou Young]

Very cool anemone and clowns. I am following along. great job and good luck in raising theg

 

[OrionN]

I think I will cut some archylic to cover the tank. This will give morecover and more stablility plus less chance that something all into it. I like the ease of cleaning glass. For 10 dollars per tank, I cannot beat that.

I hatched them in the fry tank. I got my pair to lay on tile .

I certainly know what you mean by be able to tell which is strong and which is weak. When I move from bucke to the tank I did not try to move the weaker ones. maily because I don't have enough rotifer to raise more than about 50. I only have a full 1 gal rotifer culture. From what I read, this is way too little to try to raise too much. Rather than have they all died from lack of food, I just try to keep about 50 or so. This next patch I whould have everything rep up to full production (that is if my rotifer doesn't crash). I took your advices and have two rotifer culture instead of one. I always belive in variety in food for the clowns. They got four dry food mix, plus bits of salmons shrimps and mysis also. The parents are very helathy and fat.

I will go a large water change this evening befor feeding with water from the reef tank. They seem to be doing great with full stomach at noon today when I went home and peek at the fry tank.

 

[Tmoriarty]

Make sure the PH on the fry tank and the parent tank match, and do a slow drip when adding the water back in.

PH is a big killer of fry. If I don't have to many fry and the ammonia levels stay very low, I do not perform a water change until they are a little older.

 

[OrionN]

I don't have anything to take care of any of the ammonia in the tank, not even a sponge filter. I don't even have an ammonia indicator (I could not find them). I think I need to do sme water change. Only 50 fry in about 2.5 gof water. I don't have enought rotifer so I did not want to have too large of a water volume.
Tyler,
You don't think I should do some water change? All the water in the fry tank was from the reef tank Sat. I suck some out and added several cups of water to relaced it the last few days. I think I will keep doing this for now instead of do large water change. Thanks for warning me about the pH change cause mortality for the fry.

 

[velvetelvis]

:dance: Congratulations! Will be following along to watch them grow; good luck!

 

[phender]

Hi Minh,

If you are worried about the amount of rotifers you have, you might want to put a small amount of live phytoplankton in the fry tank. I used to use DT's phyto. The live phyto feeds the rotifers in the tank and keeps the ammonia levels down. My fry tanks usually had a better rotifer culture going than my actual rotifer cultures. I always over harvested or under harvested and made them crash. The fry seemed to keep the rotifers in check and the rotifers kept the phyto in check.

I would put in just enough phyto to make the white paper I put under the tank just barely have a green tinge to it.

 

[OrionN]

Thanks Phil. I will see if I can get some live phytoplankton tomorrow and keep it handy.

I actually got plenty of rotifers now with the two tanks pretty much in full swing. I will add any rotifers not use to my reef tank.

 

[OrionN]

Past 48 hrs this AM and I still have about 50, no death over night. It seem like there are three or four swimming erratically last night and the same number with the same swimming pattern but they were full and survived the night.

I do have plenty of rotifers now and should be able to keep them well fed. The rotifers start and some frozen phytoplanktons I got from the LFS will run out soon. I ordered the one liter bag of Rotigrowth + should be coming this week, along with Otohimes A and B. I plan to skip brine shrimp step in the feeding. Just straight from rotifers to OtoA. One less thing to do, plus other people have reports of very good results with this.

 

[dc]

Very cool! I can't wait until mine start laying eggs. I won't try and raise them, but they're fun to watch develope. Good luck getting them to adulthood.

 

[HurricaneCaleb]

What are your plans for those good lookin youngins

 

[OrionN]

What are your plans for those good lookin youngins

Have not plan out that far yet. I guess I will sell them sometime when and if they get bigger .

 

[D-Nak]

Our clowns must be on the same cycle. Mine just had their first clutch. Good luck raising the babies!

 

[OrionN]

PHD #3
No further death the last 48 hrs. I have 56 fry. I transfer all the fry to a 5 g high and count them as I transfer. I got this used at one of the LFS. Essentially it have the same footprint of a 2.5 g tank but double the height. It take less space and I am able to keep a higher column of water why I think is helpful in keep the fry swimming well. I transfer all the fry to this tank and is about to turn out the light. I got plenty rotifers, much more than the fry can eat. I feed one of my reef tank with it. I think the clams and SPS will benefit from this feeding.
All the fry are swimming well and eating well. Some are fuller than other but all have budge in their stomach and should all survive the night.
My Onyx pair is busy again and lay a large nest of egg this evening. I snap a picture just right before the light turn out for the night. Sorry about the dirty glass. I did not have a chance to clean the glass this week, and I did not wanted to disrupt the clowns tonight as they lay their eggs. Next week will be full production, not practice run anymore.

 

[phender]

I'm not sure you want to go away from the 10 gal tank to a tank with a 5 gal tall.

The more surface area the better for exchanging oxygen without having to create much turbulence with an airstone.The larger water volume also dilutes the waste produced by the larvae and the rotifers. Since you have enough rotifers now, I would put the babies back in the 10 gal and gradually fill it up completely with water, if it isn't already.

 

[OrionN]

End of PHD#4 and start PHD#5. I still have 56 fry and expect them to do well overnight.

Phil,
Right now I only have 56 fry in about 3 gal of water. In a 10 g tank, the dept of the water is too shallow for proper oxygenate with the air pump. The surface area is too large and the bubble agitation is not enough to keep the water surface clean.
Aeration with air pump works much better at a deeper dept. The SA is small enough to keep the surface of the water clean.
After transfer them last night, I think they look better and seem to eat and swim better.

Once they grow a little more I will transfer them to larger tanks.


I wonder what metamorphose is going to be like. Don't know how fast the process go and whether or not it will change the fry significantly. I guess I will find out over the next several days.

 

[OrionN]

Start of PHD#6, all fry accounted for and doing well. I added Otohime A, just a small amount today. Will see how they take it. I think there are too much rotifer in the water and they are too full to go after the Oto A.
I need to prepare for the hatch next week. Need another heater. The sponge filter I ordered arrived. I think I will need to get some live phytoplankton (have not got them yet) to add to the fry tank. This (the phytoplankton and the sponge filter) will keep ammonia down. I am thinking of add a small LR with Macro algae in it also. I don't think this will impede cleaning of the tank and will go a long way in keeping ammonia down in the fry tank, especially if I have several hundred instead of 56 fry.

 

[OrionN]

Well, this morning I got the office and confirmed that my Onyx and Snowflake pair got their first spawn, a puny little nest of 50 eggs or so eggs only. If the eggs develop normal, I will try to raise these but I am sure the number will increase the nest few spawn.

 

[garygb]

Great looking clowns and anemone. I've always got batches of eggs, but have never once tried to raise a baby. I used to keep cichlids, and although I didn't try to raise them, there would sometimes be babies that survived and got large. I thought perhaps this would happen with clownfish babies, but it never has in all the years I've had them spawn. I've seen many babies hatch after the lights go out, but between filtration and other pitfalls, like anemones, I've never had a single baby grow up in my tank. Obviously they require the specialized efforts to raise them that you're providing. Best of luck with them. Maybe someday I'll decide to make a project out of raising them. It looks kinda fun.