For those of you who only raise clowns

[NicoleC]

A whim struck me and I pulled my clowns' nest today. It's due to hatch tomorrow night or maybe tonight. It's a fairly small nest this time for some reason, maybe 200 eggs. (Poor papa -- one minute he's grabbing and lunch and the next minute his eggs are gone. He is very perplexed.)

A preemie hatched while moving the nest. I can barely take my eyes off him. I can't believe how BIG he is! This preemie is bigger than 20 day old YWG's! Not as long, but lots more mass. I can actually SEE them!

Wow. Suddenly I am wondering how many rotifers it takes to fill his belly.

So off he goes swimming around, and I swear I'd never though I'd comment on how strong a swimmer a clownfish is. He's bobbing along at great speed toting a big yolk sac. After about an hour he got too tired and he is mostly laying on the bottom now, but hopefully he will justrest and his yolk sac will handle his needs for another day or so.

I'm just plain flabbergasted. I KNEW clownfish larval were much bigger, but until I saw them side by side...

 

[Fishboy42]

I had the same experience in reverse. After becoming accustomed to the size of clown larvae, I hatched out a neon goby nest and wondered how anyone could believe that those specs could ever become fish, and after a week, they were STILL smaller than newly hatched clowns. I'm sure YWG are even smaller than that! Clowns will definitely put a dent in a rotifer population, but at least they won't need them for as long as gobies...

-Matt

 

[NicoleC]

Yes, and I understand many can take artemia right away. I can believe it, looking at this guy!

Of course, it may be a moot point if I don't get the water flowing over the eggs right.

 

[spk]

Nicole,

Good luck with this group. Are you using a different setup for these? Give us some pics of the setup again please.

Thanks

Steve

 

[NicoleC]

Same setup, except I swapped the drilled 20g glass for a 15g acrylic a while back.

 

[NicoleC]

Holy cow, these guys eat a lot! I didn't have many hatch (60-70?) out of what I think was now maybe 300 eggs. The rest of the eggs were pale and detached easily, so I assumed they were dead and removed them. Of the hatchers, a good half were dead when I came in this morning, and only a handful seem to be eating well and are getting fat tummies.

I am thinking that the reason my clowns' eggs always hatch late is because I have moonlights over the tank. Perhaps my pair's eggs are very sensitive to light. I will have to try turning off the moonlights when I think hatch "should" happen. I have often thought the eggs looked really good and papa has been frantically fanning them after lights out, but then they don't hatch that night.

So if that's the case, these eggs were 9 days old and maybe didn't have the yolk sac they needed to tide them over while learning to eat.

So I have a handful of vigorous larvae, and they decimated the rotifers within an hour after feeding. So I harvested early the next batch of rotifers enriching and fed them again... and fed the rotifers more, too!

Some of the skinnier ones seem to have decided in the last hour on a feeding strategy. They are picking stuff off the bottom. Poop? Rotifers? I don't know, but they act like they are eating. I guess the next few hours will tell.

I can believe the big, vigorous ones could eat artemia. They are almost growing before my eyes.

 

[rsman]

WooHoo

congrats, but you know this means your a fish breeder now, you cant escape it

 

[NicoleC]

I gotta try something that may actually live.

 

[jnowell]

Good to hear Nicole. Just so you know, i have some bottom feeders as well, they seem to survive just about like the others. I also have quite a few that sit right near the edge of the glass, and pick off rotifers that are sliding along the side, those move more slowly, so I guess it may be a good strategy).

 

[NicoleC]

I've noticed that my rotifers seem to like the edges. Even if I scoop some up in a beaker, before long they congregate near the glass.

My YWG's that survive the longest are all "edge cleaners."

 

[npaden]

Nicole,

What temperature are you running your tank that the parents are spawning in? I've found that an average temp of 76 or lower will end up resulting in a 9 day hatch for my ocellaris clowns, 76 to 78 will result in an 8 day hatch and over 78 will result in a 7 day hatch. Not an exact 100% formula but pretty close.

 

[npaden]

And BTW, if you want to raise something big you might try some banggai cardinals. I think a day old banggai cardinal might be able to eat a freshly hatched maroon clownfish!

 

[NicoleC]

The broodstock tank is at 80-81. Up until now I chalked it up to an anomaly.

 

[NicoleC]

Well, hey, the skinny ones eating off the bottom are smarter than they look; they aren't nearly so skinny anymore, are cruising the tank and not hanging at the bottom much.

I did siphon about two dozen dead ones out tonight, but most of the remaining fish have full, dark tummies. I think the ones that are not as big are my bottom feeders. A few are borderline, but show some signs of eating, so maybe they are late bloomers.

You can almost count clownfish larvae. I think I have about 50.

 

[Morgman]

Cool Nicole,

Finally you are trying something that is a little easier to reach than YWG. Plus raising clowns is very rewarding. Good luck with those guys.

 

[NicoleC]

The borderline ones mostly didn't make it. I still have a few runts hanging on, but I don't know about them; I have about 30 left. The big ones are still stuffing themselves silly and cruising the tank, and it's a pleasure to be able to siphon the tank and see where the fish are, instead of squinting and worrying and then going through the water a tiny bit at a time to rescue the ones that got sucked up anyway.

Do not EVER add up how much salt mix you are using. Ugh! I nearly quit today. I use more salt in a day on my cultures and two little tanks than I use on my 140g reef system in a WEEK.

Speaking of siphons, that sucking sound is the money leaving my bank account.

 

[Kathy55g]

So, there is a school of thought that one can recycle reef water change water through the fish only tanks of larvae to good result.

I put mine thru a double layer of Bounty paper towels in a collandar(removes critters, algae, poop, etc., and dilute to 25 ppt from 35, and use for

1. water changes in my larval tank. No ammonia! and well conditioned.

2. I put it in soda bottles 2.3 full , add 8 drops of bleach, and after overnight they are ready to dechlorinate, fertilize, and propagate phyto.

3. I also use it to propagate rots.

But then I'm very cheap.

I do mix up saltwater when it is rediculous to do another water change on my 55, or I'm pressed for time, but that is a rare thing. If I'm going to mix up water, I might as well use it in my display, exchange for some display waste water, since used water is still pretty good for the larvae, rots and phyto.

But then again, if you use as much in a day as your reef needs in a week, you would have to do a water change every day, and that might be time consuming...

 

[rsman]

Do not EVER add up how much salt mix you are using. Ugh! I nearly quit today. I use more salt in a day on my cultures and two little tanks than I use on my 140g reef system in a WEEK.

hehehehe that is SOOOO funny, its when you blow thru a 200g bucket of IO and go DAMN thats a 5% waterchange that is when it really hurts....

you might consider a mini filter area a simple 10g tank or bucket with a skimmer/bio wheel and small coil denitrator will not cost a ton of $ and for a smaller setup like yours you might save.. it doesnt even need to be heated, just remember to heat or add slowly before use.

 

[NicoleC]

If I ever get this #@%^! phyto started, I will hopefully be able to ease up on the water changes in the larval tanks a bit, and just siphon and do small changes. I'm running out of algae disc. I may have to try bleach instead of the boil/microwave routine next time. This time at least I have a slight tint to the water. It just doesn't grow, and most ends up sitting on the bottom.

Kathy, for a while when the gobies were really young I was running parent tank water through 10um. But there's a limit to how many water changes I can do on the main tank

 

[rsman]

that culture that I provided pics of it was in 2 small tupperware containers, its still alive, I noticed it the other day ive done NOTHING to it in at least 2 months and that includes checking on it

so whatcha doing to your algae cultures that is causing them to crash ???