Enjoy.

48 hours before hatch.
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/clown-eggs.jpg


24 hours before hatch
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/clown-eggs-2.jpg

Those pic are awesome....can't wait to try and raise a fry of my Maroon clown if they start laying again.

uhh...how did you take those?

That's insane!

uhh...with a camera. :)

Or did you already know that and were looking for more specifics.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D.
Lens: Sigma 150mm Macro + Kenko 1.4x Teleconverter + Canon 500D diopter.
Flash: Canon 430EX on a modified Newton Flash bracket.

Camera settings: 1/200s - F/16 - ISO 100 - FEC +2/3 - Mirror Lock up
Camera was mounted on a tripod and triggered via a wired remote.

On the computer: Adjusted white balance in ACR. Then adjusted contrast and sharpened in PS and then finally cropped to 1200px then resized to 600px.

That is sooooo awesome!

Wow man, that is excellent. Are those your fry or are those someone elses?

I'd love to see other developmental pics along the way.

i have a lot of egg's about 5 days old anyone like to try to hatch them?

Wow man, that is excellent. Are those your fry or are those someone elses?

I'd love to see other developmental pics along the way.

They are mine. Sorry, no more pictures - this time - the first picture was the state they were in when I found the nest. 24 hours after the second picture they were hatching and I did not want to disturb them. Next time I am going to be paying closer attention and can hopefully spot them on day 0;

i have a lot of egg's about 5 days old anyone like to try to hatch them?

Yes, I would love to give it a shot. What species are they? Are they on a rock that can be removed? I was not ready for this batch, I did not have any rotifers - but I have corrected that problem.

wow those are great pics, thanks

Very Nice.

Joe

That would be a sweet shot of the fry. Please try to get one, those are amazing!

thats really really cool!

good work trying your hand at raising these in captivity so we don't have to yank so many out of their homes :)

Those pics are awesome. And good luck with the fry raising. Maybe between you and Bobz and a few others here trying to breed fish, we will soon have an ARC supply of captive bred fish.

Awesome! Please post your system info and share details on your fry setup.




Thread move to Breeders Corner per discussion with OP.

Now that this got moved from the photography forum too the breeding forum, I must insist that people start using proper terminology.

For those who do not already know this here are some definitions.

Egg = I think everyone understands this one. But it is baby fish that has not hatched yet. At this point it is inappropriate to call it a larvae, a juvenile, or a fry.

Larvae = Baby fish that is very different from an adult. At some later date it will undergo a metamorphosis into a very different form that is similar to an adult. Both internally and externally they are very different from an adult fish. e.g. A caterpillar is a Butterfly Larva - both inside and out they look completely different.

Juvenile: A baby fish that is very similar to and adult - just smaller.

Fry = A tiny juvenile fish that was never a larvae.

Most freshwater fish and a few saltwater fish are direct developers that is they go directly from being an egg to being a juvenile. Common SW examples of this are Bangaii Cardinals and Sea Horses.

However most saltwater like clownfish fish hatch into larvae. They do not resemble adults at all. They are lacking most of their internal organs, fins and other bits and peices. They are pretty much just a mouth, gut and eyes. They will grow the rest later. And not all larvae have thouse pieces either. Most pelagic spawning fish hatch into larvae without eyes, a mouth, or a gut. They are just a head and a tail.

Now compare that to a bangaii cardinal. When it is born it is visually and morphologically identical to an adult.

As you allready know, this makes a huge different. Just about anyone can Raise Bangaii Cardinal Fry with little to no effort. While clownfish larvae take a lot of dedicated care.

So back to these pictures. In both pictures the fish are still eggs. It is inaccurate to call them fry or larvae. And when they hatched they became Larvae.

I assume that you have a system dedicated to raising fry/larvae/juvinilles?

Can you share the details on this fry/larvae/juvi setup?

As far as my breeding setup. I'll talk more about the larval rearing part of that some other time (like after I have some larvae). This thread was about the eggs, so I'm going to only talk about that setup up to that point.

The parents are Gold Striped Maroon Clowns. They share a 20 gallon aquarium with a pair of Allen's Dottybacks. The tank is painted black on all but 1 of the short sides. It is bare-bottomed and only decorated with a 6" square tile (for the clowns), and some PVC pipe for the dottybacks.

I feed the parents at least 6 times a day. Often more than that. They get mostly Formula 1 and Formula 2 pellets, plus one feeding a day of frozen seafood (shrimp, squid, scallop, salmon, snapper, or lobster) depending on my mood.

Water parameters are Temp: 84, NO3: undetectable, Calcium: 325 - 450ppm, Alkalinity: 2 - 5 meq/l, Specific Gravity: 1.025. (yes I know those are huge ranges for Ca and Alk but I am lazy and it really does swing that much from day to day)

I have a new batch on the way. This time I caught it at the beginning. So I can do a full sequence.

12 Hours Post Fertilization

http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/eggs-12H.jpg

This is going to be an awesome thread seeing the different stages....thanks!

36 Hours Post Fertilization.
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/eggs-36H.jpg

very cool indeed.

That's awesome!

Very Cool.

right on!

Hi William
I love these pictures, show off!:tongue2:

Great meeting you finally, rots and algae still doing well?

Good to see that another batch is on the way. This time I would like to see pics of the fish leaving the egg!
Really, even if you don't raise a single fish, the photo record of development is of great merit.:thumbs:
John

Thanks John.

The Iso is doing great. The Tet is going (I think) but much slower. Rotifers: I don't really know - they are not growing as quickly as I expected they would. And they are much bigger than I remembered them being which makes me worry that I am actually growing rotifers. I wish I had a microscope.

I have a nice microscope at my house and I happen to live in Decatur also....want me to bring it tomorrow so we can verify that you have rotifers?

Thanks John.

The Iso is doing great. The Tet is going (I think) but much slower. Rotifers: I don't really know - they are not growing as quickly as I expected they would. And they are much bigger than I remembered them being which makes me worry that I am actually growing rotifers. I wish I had a microscope.

William
I have fund that Tetraselmis is slow on the upstart (lag phase) then has incredible growth once it gets started. Probably best to half the culture even if you do not think that it is ready, seems to accelerate the growth.

Rotifers, a cheap magnifying glass should do it. Or a very good camera that is capable of taking those high resolution shots of fish eggs.

Not to worry, I have more of all.
John

I have a nice microscope at my house and I happen to live in Decatur also....want me to bring it tomorrow so we can verify that you have rotifers?

Thanks for the offer, but I no longer live in Decatur. I now live in Alpharetta, but have not been able to figure out how to change the location info in my profile.

William
I have fund that Tetraselmis is slow on the upstart (lag phase) then has incredible growth once it gets started. Probably best to half the culture even if you do not think that it is ready, seems to accelerate the growth.


Well I have split the Tet into 4 bottles already. They are growing, just nothing like the Iso. The Iso, I have split into 5 bottles, feed a third of a bottle to the rotifers and I still have 1 bottle I could harvest now, and 3 more will be ready to harvest tommorrow night.


Rotifers, a cheap magnifying glass should do it. Or a very good camera that is capable of taking those high resolution shots of fish eggs.


The shots of the eggs are as close as I can get with my camera. So no rotifer shots. And my magnifying glass (which is probably not all that powerfull). Doesn't give me enough either. I have no troubble seeing even with just my naked eyes that there is stuff in there swimming around. I just can't tell if they are rotifers. They probably are, I just wish I could Know they are. I suppose it is time to start shopping for a microscope.

This time I would like to see pics of the fish leaving the egg!

Me to but I'm not sure how I would do it. To get these shots I am blasting them with my flash.

I doubt they would hatch if I was blasting them with my flash every 30 seconds hoping to catch the moment they start to break out.

The last picture in this series will be 24 hours before hatch. I don't know, or want to find out the hard way(at least on my first batch of eggs that I have any chance of raising), what happens with you blast a newborn (or nearly born) larvae with the flash. I know if I flashed my eyes with as much flash power as I am hitting the larvae with, I would take days for the burnt in image of the flash tube to go away.

William
Isochrysis has a doubling time of about 14-18 hours under optimal conditions. Tetraselmis is somewhat longer at about 24 hours. Tet also has a longer lag phase. They will take off and you have more than you can possibly deal with. Feast or famine!

Rotifers swim in a spiral or corkscrew movement, like veliger larvae of bivalves and snails. Copepods swim in rapid jerking movements. The difference is easy to see with the naked eye.
Incidentally, this movement similarity is why many larval fish species take so readily to rotifers. They key in on that movement when targeting their prey.

60 Hours Post Fertilization
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/nest-60H.jpg
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/eggs-60H.jpg
file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/William/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpgfile:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/William/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg

[quote=acroporas;232727]60 Hours Post Fertilization
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/nest-60H.jpg
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/eggs-60H.jpg

That is completely amazing! Thanks again for sharing this with us.

Wow..what is the material you are having the clowns laying their eggs on?

Wow..what is the material you are having the clowns laying their eggs on?

looks like the backside of a ceramic or terra cotta tile.

This is a great thread. Bookmarked it and watching with interest. Thanks for sharing!!

Yes the eggs are on a 6" square ceramic Tile. Here is a picture of the tank. The female is very shy and hardly ever leaves the cover of her tile.

All the pvc is there for the dottybacks. And the basket (in the back top) is where the female dottyback as the male and female don't get along that great.

http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/broodstock.jpg

And just in case you were wondering the eggs are on the bottom of the tile (which is why you can't see them in the picture.)

very cool. Nice little set up you have going on there.

Thanks John.

The Iso is doing great. The Tet is going (I think) but much slower. Rotifers: I don't really know - they are not growing as quickly as I expected they would. And they are much bigger than I remembered them being which makes me worry that I am actually growing rotifers. I wish I had a microscope.

I have 2 very nice microscopes for my biology class. I can bring one over to let you use. Unfortunately, I can't leave it with you. I need them for class.

Your pics are awesome. I'm learning so much from this thread!
Sheryle

84 hours post fertilization
http://web.willandsam.com/mofib/eggs-84H.jpg

:)

:)
Do you notice how similar this picture looks to the first picture in this thread. I think I can now predict when this nest will hatch.

yup, almost identical. Very cool. So whats the typical time frame from fertilized to hatched?

Well that's it. They hatched tonight. So much for my theory they would hatch tomorrow night.

Well how are the little fellas doing? Are they eating? This is the coolest thread!

Sheryle

amazing stuff!
so what happened?

After seeing this, i think we could possibly get some mandarins going. Nice shots by the way.

I got the mandarin eggs tonight. Come meet me tomorrow.

awesome!

great thread!!.....so what happened? no baby pics?

Can we see the new little guys just after the hatch?

Where are the babys pics?

that is so cool. how big is your tank with the breeding pair? im thinking of trying my luck with breeding clowns or some other fish