We have babies (Onyx Percula that is)

[Tmoriarty]

Be careful moving the babies around to much, moving is another big killer of the fry prior to 20+ DPH.

You should start seeing meta around days 8-12 depending, you will notice when the fish stop darting around like little bugs and begin to use their caudal fins to move. It will start off eratic and then move on over a couple days to a swimming motion.

You can use rotigrow+ to tint the water in the fry tank and keep the rotifers fed if you didn't want to use live phyto. I feed a 5g tank 4.5 gals full of water with 30 rotifers per ML .625 ML of rotigrow+ every 12 hours. Other methods may work as well but this method has worked well for me.

Continue to offer the otoA, You want to overlap your rotifers and OtoA by at least a few days (longer if you have fry not taking to them). At that point I normally keep my rotifers going until most fish have gone through meta. What has been explained to me and has worked for me as well is that OtoA is much better for the fry and therefore helps them get through meta much easier. Many people have a lot of losses through meta but fry weened onto OtoA early don't seem to have that same issue.

Fry are looking good and gratz on your success so far.

 

[OrionN]

Tyler,
i am really afraid of ammonia build up cause eath of my fry. The live phytoplankton I wanted to added is really

Live phytoplankton I wanted added are for taken care of the ammonia, in addition to multiply and feed the rotifers.
I use an oriental soup spoon to transfer the fry. They seem to tolerate it well without problem
I added a lot of rotifer now due to having excess of rotifers at this time. I even change 1 gal out of the fry tank (total voulme of fry tank is shy 4 gal). They seem to tolerate tihs well without any problem.

 

[OrionN]

Tonight my babies are going to be a week old. They are all doing well. Last mortality was one on the second night, otherwise all 56 are still with me. One or two have reach meta and start to swim like an adult fish. I am not convert them to OtoA very well. I only half-heartly add the OtoA the last several day and always with plenty rotifers in the tank. I can't tell if they are eating the dry food yet. Some observation:

1. Rotifer eat day and night. Light is not needed. They clear off the phytoplankton like you would not believe
2. Most of the mortality for this patch was the first night. Some breeder keep the light on 24 hrs for the first night, after they hatch of course. The eggs would have a difficult time to hatch if it is not in total darkness. I think I will do this next patch. Of course this would likely mean that whatever not hatch the first night likely will not hatch. I will make sure the rotifers density is high that first night.
3. The fry don't look much different pre and post meta (right after) other than the swimming pattern
4. Several of my fry are just not good eater. They don't look much larger than newly hatch fry. Other always gorge themselves and are much larger.
5. Off to Petco today sometime and get a few 5 g tanks. I think this will be the size I use for hatching fry. I am spending a lot at Petco the last few weeks. Their price beat LFS prices hands down.
6. Got to cut the acrylic today to cover the tanks. It will keep dust out and keep the surface of the water clean


One question to whoever read this and have personal experiences at raising clowns:
When is it OK to remove the cover on the side of the tank?

 

[OrionN]

The babies are looking good. More than 50% finish metamorphosis and have the first band. There are some stragglers but on a whole I am happy with the hatch.
This weekend I am out of town for 2 days. I think I need to arrange for someone to come by to take car of them or else, they will not do well. We will be gone for two days, one night.

 

[OrionN]

Tyler or Phil,
How soon can I remove the side cover? Pictures are a lot better through the glass rather than top down.

 

[this is me]

Excellent Minh!
Congrats! Beautiful parents. Can't wait to see them babies get bigger!

 

[Tmoriarty]

7+ or so days or after meta should be fine. I pulled the cover off the side of my 5g on Sat, babies were born the same day as yours.

Because your fish are perculas you may see some things take longer, for example you may not see signs of the first head stripe until around day 12/14 or so. Second stripes can take up to 60 days.

My fish being hybrids develop for the most part similar to ocellaris, I get stripes starting around day 10 and mostly full body stipes by day 30.

To combat ammonia I does amquel+, it detoxifies the ammonia. Be careful using to many rotifers, while it is nice to have constant food, to many rotifers will decrease the concentration of oxygen. It is one of the primary concerns for flared gill, something that I am sure you want to avoid. At 40+ DPH I can see one of my older juveniles does have flared gill (Mostly because I did not try to reduce rotifer population on that batch). These defect is thought to develop during and through meta due to poor oxygen levels in the water.

It is awesome you are having success so fast, that is something a lot of people struggle with

 

[OrionN]

Thanks, I already see some fish with first stripes on their heads.

 

[OrionN]

PHD #12. Still hav e not seen any dead yet, but I have not count the babies since 9 or 10 days ago. All have when though meta. most have their first stripe when look top down. Sideview the strip is not as clear. Picts today

 

[GSMguy]

Looking good, thanks for the update.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

congrats!

congrats!

lookin' great

 

[OrionN]

PHD 20.
The fry continue to do well. They all have 1st band of white, about just over 1/4 inche in lenght. They look like adult Pink Skunk. Looking at them, I think Skunk clowns are "regular clowns", (as a non reefer would says), with color development arrested at the fry level. They really look like tiny pink skunk clowns. I will try to post pictures this weekend.
They started to eat Otohime A. I am out of the house all day, so I cannot train them as well as I should and they still depend on rotifer for a lot of their nutrition. Hope I can get them off of rotifer this weekend.

I did not try to hatch the first patch of my Onyx X Snowflake because the spawn was so pitiful. The second patch of about 150 eggs or so, still small but much better should hatch Monday of Sunday. I will try to raise these. I tried to hatch my last patch of Onyx pair but accidently let the tile fell face down on the bottom of the fry tank. I think this kind of crushed the eggs. Only two or three hatched and all died that night. The next patch hatch will be tomorrow night.

So, basically, I have two spawns that will hatch this weekend, one of which should give unusual fry and the other is another Onyx batch. I think I will try to hatch brine shrimp to see if I can wean them off to Otohime A a little quicker. Something to think about the next few spawns.

 

[OrionN]

My observation regarding my Snowflake Ocellaris: He is a great male. The spawn is a little small but that is not his fault. He attends the eggs well. The important thing is that almost every last eggs were fertilized and developing. My other pair, around 1/5 of the eggs were not fertilized and never start to develop.

I have had clowns spawned for many years but never pay attention to how well the male fertilize the eggs. Any breeder out there likes to chime in and comment on this?

 

[MurphysLaw]

Subscribed! Awesome thread! I am excited to watch your progress. Best of Luck.

 

[OrionN]

Here are the pictures that I took this PM with my cell phone, PHD 20

One of a better image of my babies.

A picture of my 5 gal tank that I have my 50+ babies in included some macro-algae

 

[OrionN]

I just move the fry to another tank and count them in the process. I have 55 babies. Most eating Otohime A. I think I will continue to add rotifer for a few more days.

 

[velvetelvis]

I love watching these little guys grow up. Great work. If you can ever get your mags to start splitting on a regular basis, you could start selling onyx/mag "trios" (yes, I'm daydreaming out loud...).

 

[OrionN]

I am so happy. My babies are all actively eating Otohime A. They even strike at the largest of these food. At his stage I think, I am home free. They are much easier to care for. I even got my wife to agree to feed them every 2 hrs when I am at work.

 

[JohnniG]

What happens if you dont remove the young?

 

[OrionN]

What happens if you dont remove the young?

They get kill by the filtration system or eaten by the other fish.