Howdy
I've been trying to pair up and breed fish since i started reefing. finally some good news! My Clarke's clownfish have been going at it regularly for several weeks now. Dr John slurped up a few batches and now I'm giving it a go. He suggested I put a tile in there and they've been using it! So I now can just pull the tile and place in in the fishbowl. I replace it in the morning and a few days later...

SWEET Congrats James. I was soooo confused by the title at first. Now I get it.

just makes sense that the first fish i can breed is a clarke clown. I'll take a bunch of pics, but the babies are hard to catch. here's a 17 day old squirt

Outstanding!!! This is awesome. I love seeing your success. I'll be hitting you up for some tank raised when I am ready to crank the nursery back up. :thumbs:

That's great James!

It's good to see so many members starting to breed fish these days. This really is the future of this hobby and it's the efforts of our early breeders that will enrich the hobby for future generations.

Wow thats awsome. John has been a big help to me also :up:. He has definetly peeked my interest and got me wanting to start breeding.

Way to go James.

Thanks ya'll. it's been fun seeing the daily changes. In my first batch there are already some fish that are twice the size of others. all the eggs are laid within 2 hrs, but the larvae develop completely independently.

I've read that most eggs hatch at 7-8 days. mine take 10. 1.024 at 78.5
eggs right after spawn

That is really cool that they use the tile! How convenient! Well trained.

Thanks ya'll. it's been fun seeing the daily changes. In my first batch there are already some fish that are twice the size of others. all the eggs are laid within 2 hrs, but the larvae develop completely independently.

I was surprised at how dramtically different in size my clowns were too. The Bangaii's pretty much all grew at the same rate but the clowns were all over the scale. Wierd.

BZ

It's probably who's eating the most is growing the fastest. some of mine look like they are about to pop! even in the larvae tank there are a few bigger ones that are away from the pack. and post meta there are 4 larger more mature ones that control the whole tank and a pack of smaller black ones in a corner.
I wonder how long before the pecking order is established? probably hours... or maybe even in the eggs?
24 hrs

Very cool! I didn't notice the bigger ones eating more in my tank but I am sure that was probably the case. There were always some runts that just didn't develop very fast. Keep the updates coming.
BZ

48 hrs

oh my, how exciting! Congrats "grandpa"!

yeah I feel like a grandpa. probably what mine felt like when we came and stayed with them for a whole month in the summer. The little buggers have taken over my house!
eggs day 3

Yes, the Clarks Clowns are well known for spreading development. They are even capable of remaining larval for up to a month. Probably one reason why they are one of the most widespread clownfish species in the Indo-Pacific.

Let me know if there is anything that you need.
John

I'm having a hard time getting good pics of the larvae and fry, but it's amazing the difference in size and development. even at 1 week some are more than twice the size of others. this would be one of the larger, but not the most mature at 8 days

This is an awesome thread, keep the pictures coming! :thumbs:

here you go
day 4

hahaha wow, they have eyes now!

I love it! Great pics, keep them coming!

day 5

Day 6

day 7. most clowns would hatch tonight, but these clarkiis have a few more days to go

day 8

day 9. looks like they are thinning out.

day 9. looks like they are thinning out.
James,do you know where they went?Are they swimming around?
I love watching this progress!

Looks like some hatched last night. Very cool!
BZ

day 10
some did hatch last night. I saw one swimming this morning. I had to work this weekend, so didn't have time to finish setting up the next grow-out tank.
plumb like the wind...

James,
I was using the two gallon goldfish type glass bowls for the larva that John had suggested to me. They worked great to keep them until I was able to move them to the growout tanks in a few weeks. Made it really easy to watch and see how they were doing and how the rotifers we being consumed. Greenwater helped tremendously as well.

BZ

I too am using the bowl. I just set up another growout and moved the 13 day olds to it. cleaned the bowl and i'll drop the tile in there tonight:thumbs:

Way to go James! Love the daily progress reports and pics. :up:

OMG! So excited for you!!!

Oh man! You are killing me! Now I really miss my breeding setup. Keep us posted. I love this thread.
BZ

dropped the tile in the bowl and killed the lights. this morning there are still unhatched eggs attached. normally i would replace the tile, but dad will just eat the eggs, so i'll leave it today.
some of the 13 day olds still have not hit meta.
the 26 day olds look great. note the white stripes that continue on the dorsal and tail fins. not like mommy. we'll see if they stick.

James, I would love to see some more pics of the setup as well. What are you using for the juvenile grow out tanks, how are they plumbed, etc? Are you using a UV on that system and is it seperate from the main display or the "love shack". :D

no UV, just bioballs in the sump and the mrc 3R skimmer. salinity at 1.020 and going down with water changes. 80-82 degrees. i'm feeding BSD GP reef and larval diet starting with 50 microns. the 3 weekers are up to 300 microns and are fat as piggies.
My rotifers crashed and they didn't restart from a slurry, so this hatch will be no live food. If they'll eat the food, it will surely make it easier for others to breed without all the extra equipment for live foods.

Day 2 of the larval stage and all is well. I filtered the green water where the rotis used to live and got some plankton, but not a lot. feeding the 50 micron food and they seem to have something in the gut. I still haven't mastered the larval pics.
but hey, the folks already spawned! they attacked that tile when i returned it and eggs were laid 4pm today:yay:

Thanks for the update! Good luck with this batch. Hopefully you can get them thru meta.

day 5 and all is well. moved up to 100 micron food
still can't get a good pic of them so here's the other 2 batches.
19 day old and the first batch is a month:yay:

I think I have seen some of your handy work in an Athens fish store. They look very good if so.

Yes, I dropped off 6 at both LFS. Just hatched out my largest batch last night, so we'll see how they work crowding. I noticed my first batch was already fighting and beginning to damage fins, so I thinned them out.

james, any new updates???? come on! I am living vicariously through you guys these days.
BZ

my bad, I know how the little fishies are addictive:)

just hatched out another batch last night. they didn't hatch right away so i removed them from the tile and bubbled them in a 2liter. looks like a good bit. i've still had some bad losses though. lost a batch in transit to the big growout system. they were too small. i've gotten a second fishbowl since they've been spawning every 10 days. so at 20days I'll move them to a 2.5 or 5g with a sponge filter. I've taken down the growout system since I've sold all the babies.
my last 4 are at home in a 5g.
had a massive dieoff at 2 weeks, so I'll probably just have 3 make it from that batch. The batch with no rots didn't make it, of course. i can get a feeding response by day3, but w/o a belly full of rotis they won't make it to day 5.
I have to hold off on bbs til 7or8 days because they eat too much and explode.
so I'm still learning. hopefully I'll have it figured out before another pair starts spawning:eek:
I'm so spread out all over the house that it's not very elegant the system I've got going. i'm really getting sick of spilling water all over the livingroom floor:blush:

Just do a whole floor breeding setup like Bob had hahaha.

I will someday, but now i've got a dozen tanks scattered all throughout my tiny home. lots of siphoning into buckets and moving water around manually

I hear ya man! I was lucky that I could contain most of the larva tanks, rots, etc in the basement. I would have loved more space too. Good luck with the next batch.

Any new updates James?

I'm just getting ready for a hatch tonight! i was using some old IA that someone gaveme ,and i'm afraid it was past it's prime. i lost the last 2 batches. I opened a new bottle and the rotis and larvae seem better. i have 1 bowl active with around 30 at day 11. they look good, so hopefully i won't loose too many at meta.
I've started leaving the lights on in the lovenest on the day of the hatch, and pulling the tile before i go to bed and letting them hatch out in the fishbowl. i get a good amount and return the tile in the morning. they've been spawning again a day or 2 later.
I tried rearing the few little ones i had in 5g tanks, but they didn't grow and eventually died one by one.
this next batch will go to the 20g qt now that the percs are finally in their new home.
I had tremendous growth rate when the babies went out in the grow-out tanks i set up on the back porch, but it's so cold i'm hoping i can get them happy inside now that i have some smaller tanks to work with.
my first pair of oscelaris are now spawning, but eating the eggs right away. i thought that nothing was coming out, but momma is a cannibal!
and so is daddy bangaii. he's eaten the last 2 batches. i plan to move them in with the percs in the new set-up ( the old 58g with a 20g fuge,30g frag and a big sump ,uv all together.)
i'm still learning the hard way, but that's really the only way i get it.

Hang in there man! Sounds like things are starting to go right again... I have two pairs of Bangaii holding again too.., hoping I am home when they are ready to release.
BZ

I'll be needing some advice on the bangaiis too. I moved them into the new tank, which has some many caves i never see them. I'm having to retrain them to come out and eat.geesh. no way i'll catch the male, so i may have to try the larval snagger?

The nitrates in the fish bowl are off the chart by day7, so i'm moving them out earlier. I think that the poor water quality is my problem with the clarkiis. not really sure why it worked out the first times? I probably was cleaning the tank twice a day and keeping the nitrates at bay til i moved them at day 12.
I moved this batch at day 8 and they seem to be doing fine. We'll see in the morning.

good luck with the new batch. Hope they make it. My Bangaii would usually come out at night and stay towards the back of the tank during the day as well. I can usually catch my male by turning the tank lights on late at night...it sort of stuns him and I can net him out. He usually spits out all the babies in to the net and I transfer all of them including the adult male in to a 5G tank with water I just took out of the display. I usally leave the male in the 5G overnight and then move him in the morning to another tank to let him recover. I feed him heavily for a couple of weeks before moving him back in with the female. The snagger may work depending on what else you have in the tank. If it's just the pair of cardinals, you might try just putting in a fake urchin and see if they find it. When I had the live long spined urchins in the tank with the bangaii, the newly released juveniles would find it pretty quickly.
good luck man!
bz

well luckily the bangaiis can go straight to bbs because it seems like my plankton has crashed. the clarkiis just spawned again after a 2 month break, so John will harvest this batch. I have about 50 at 2 months old now

13 weeks old and doing great! They've got Bangaiis for company.

This is just the coolest thing, isn't it?

James is gonna need help, He's runnin' a daycare:D

I do need help! It's not just the fish, I have a farm outside too. I'm looking for an assistant if anybody knows of someone dying to pull weeds, milk goats and clean fish tanks!

Wow... and I thought I had my hands full when I was raising them! This is sooo coool! Keep the updates coming.
Z

I guess the clarkes were missing my attention. they spawned yesterday too

I'm retiring the clarkes and GSMs and concentrating on the percs and Os and bangs because I should be able to keep them all together. I did keep 2 Clarkes that have a bit of the pearl-eye pigment. They look so tiny in the DT, but they're kicking butt. My original Os do not like the company at all, but I think they'll work it out. These are from 2 different batches over 5 months old.

I just miss the clarkis attitude, so I've started hatching them again. Such an awesome fish : fully barred at 2 weeks and reef-ready at 2 months

Anyone wanting to see a truely addicted breeder?
Go visit James, been there last weekend and if he lets me - I'll be back soon to chat and talk salt...

anytime Robin. You can see I'm always here....feeding and suckin the fish muck!

Robb let me know when you go I'll ride with ya!

there's the smart one! have a DD so you can try my beer! I'm making a british ale today.

nice

I will be there for some true percs in about 2 weeks...