Jenn's Grandbabies

[courterbobby]

So here we are, finally got some eggs (thanks to Jenn at Imagine Ocean If you haven't visited...go). I have been raising rotifers, nannochloropsis, and tetraselmis. It has been a doosy just raising the rotifers and the algae, but I am looking forward to raising these fry.
Today at about 4pm I went up to Imagine Ocean to meet jenn for the clown eggs, and after the male defending his territory (bighting Jenn) the eggs were transfered into a critter container. Since the eggs were on a piece of PVC pipe, we cut smaller pieces of pvc to hold the one with the eggs in place.

I got home with the babies about 4:45 and made sure salinity and temp were matched between the critter container and fry tank I have set up.
As for my fry tank, I decided to go with a 1.5 gallon cube from wal-mart. It is actually for glow fish, but it included everything I would need down the road (filter,led light, bubbler), so I decided to go that route.

So now I have the eggs placed into my rearing tank with a bubbler in front of the eggs to keep them in motion. I also have rotifers in the tank with some green water to keep them alive also. The rearing tank is also covered with brown painters paper on three sides to keep light out. The only light they will get from now is what comes in through the closed winder shades. For an estimate, there is about 15 to 20 rotifers per ml based on looking through a pipette. I have learned so much from the breeders on here and hope to have a successful run. I am not going to cry if I am not successful, since this is my first time, as I am sure I will have more chances in the future. Any advice is always welcome.

I plan on keeping the fry in the cube till they go through meta, then start setting up for a larger tank. A week from now, I will start adding bbs. Heater is a bit big, but I am buying a smaller one tomorrow for that size tank.

I also want to thank Jenn for allowing me the opportunity...
So without further a-due here are the pixs (lights are off so everything looks brown bc of the brown paper on the sides)

[Assault]

Lookin' good

[Shrimpy Brains]

Very cool! There's nothing better than raising your own babies. It's great fun watching them grow!
Looks like you have a nice set up!

I am sure there are a lot more experienced peeps on here than me. The only thing I might mention is, I start feeding my fry bbs about day 3. I add the bbs and rotifers for several days. At the end of a week, I start adding frozen rotifers and frozen cyclopeeze with the bbs.
After a couple of weeks, I start dried cyclopeeze with crushed flake, occasionally adding the bbs, frozen rotifers and frozen cyclopeeze.
I figure the more variety, the heathier they will be and faster they grow. Also, I get tired of hatching bbs twice a day.

My 2 cents!

[courterbobby]

Cool thanks for the advice. I feed my rotifers DHA that has fatty acids yatta yatta yatta... you know all that "enrichment" stuff in addition to the algae, so I am hoping for some very healthy babies. I did not know you could add bbs so early and I may give that a shot. I will have some bbs up and going tomorrow at some point.

[Rasbora]

Probably a lot of work, but it would be cool to see a day by day, or even a week by week slideshow of their growth.

[JennM]

I'm curious to see if our guessing was right and they've hatched overnight.

I didn't see when the eggs were laid, I discovered them last Tuesday so they were laid either last Monday or earlier on Tuesday, so we were kind of wondering when hatch-day would be.

Perhaps later this morning we'll see...

Thanks, Bobby for taking them, I'm just not equipped (nor have the time/energy) to try to rear them, so I'm glad to see somebody give it ago.

The parents seem to have already "forgotten" about their "missing" eggs. We'll see if we have more in a week or so.

Jenn

[bobz]

very nice! good luck with the first batch. Looking forward to watching the progress. I just wish I could quit traveling for work and get back in to tit!

BZ

[courterbobby]

Thanks guys.
The eggs did not hatch last night, still a bit to early so hopefully tonight will be the night they spring out. Ill get some pixs up later today. I am going to try to take some pixs everyday because I want to keep log of their growth as well and watch my progress.

[courterbobby]

So a rough count on the eggs ... I counted 326 excluging the circled area... so I would guess around 340 eggs

[JennM]

I've been looking for more info on incubation time. There can be variations due to temperature etc. Our temp is usually 78-79, but there is a bit of a drop at night... so maybe that's why it's a bit slow.

Everything I'm finding says from 7-10 days. Yesterday was the 7th day *for sure* unless they were laid on Monday before I noticed them (which is possible since I wasn't here).

Hope they do hatch OK...

Jenn

[Barbara]

Mine always hatched around the 9-10th day when I had my breeding pair of false percs. I think it might depend on water temps and possibly flow.

[courterbobby]

Here are the eggs today... they are more silver than yesterday... Don't know if thats a good sign or bad, but I am taking it as they are finishing up baking Maybe a hatch tonight?

[Shrimpy Brains]

On the bbs, I have always started adding them on day 3, because that is what I had read when I first starting raising them. You do need to overlap them with the rotifers till you make sure they are eating the bbs. So, say day 3 thru 7, I feed rotifers and bbs twice a day. Then go to just the bbs. Always overlap when changing to different food.
At some point, I started to worry about the lack of nutrition in bbs.(only nutritious for first 12 hours while they have yolk sacs) I used to throw in rots. occasionally. Then I started playing with adding frozen and dried items. I just keep trying different things and see what they will eat.

On the hatching, You may already know this, but you will find they are very shy and will only hatch in complete darkness. (generally about 1 hour after lights out. I know it's tempting, but shining a light to check, can scare them and postpone the hatch. I generally wait at least 2 hrs after lights out to check.
I didn't think they looked ready to hatch in your first post, but it's hard to tell from pictures. It's hard to describe, but when they are ready, you can barely see the egg (shell) and they just look ready to pop. Silver is a good color, if they start turning white(milky) you most likely lost them.
Looking at your latest pic, I would think(hope) they will hatch tonite.

[courterbobby]

I do know temp got down in the tank last night to about 72 degrees and hopefully that did not take them out... They do not look "milky" when I look at them, but it did concern me that the temp got that low. I took the heater out bc it was rated for a 60g aquarium and I did not want it to over heat them in a 1.5g cube, but I hope I did not freeze them :(
We will see how they do tonight and I will update tomorrow!
Thanks

[courterbobby]

Oh and I did pick up the right heater for the tank today also. Its one of the automatic heaters, so it will keep temps around 78 degrees. I have no idea why, but the room they are in, the tanks run colder than my display tanks which usually run 80 to 82 degrees with a vent over them.

[JennM]

I think they should be OK, might slow the "baking time" a bit.

Who'd have thunk they'd be so slow to hatch!? Back in the day (in my 120, which ran a bit warmer) it was 7 days like clockwork.

Temperature really makes a difference, apparently!

Jenn

[courterbobby]

So no hatch last night... Im starting think I might have froze the guys to death, but I am hoping I just stunted their hatch date a little. Here is a pix of them from today

[JennM]

Hmmm... hard to say. They are definitely "late"... maybe someone else who's been there, done that can tell...

My female is starting to get a round belly again - so hopefully they will spawn again.

Jenn

[courterbobby]

Originally Posted by JennM

Hmmm... hard to say. They are definitely "late"... maybe someone else who's been there, done that can tell...

My female is starting to get a round belly again - so hopefully they will spawn again.

Jenn

Sweet! I am going to bring your container back to you this weekend

[JennM]

I hope those hatch for you. Next time maybe we need to wait a few more days...