My clowns are spawning, so why not try to raise them?
- Thread starter Cook
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It’s hatch night. Since the power outage, I haven’t had good luck with fry hatches, they have eaten the last two. The parents are little homewreckers throwing my fancy sps frags off “their” rack and expanding their turf, so I am a little less enamored with them this week.
To avoid larvae being eaten by Mom and Dad have you ever tried collecting the eggs early on the evening they are to hatch? Cut a sharp edge on a straw and attach airline tubing and syphon the larvae into a fish bowl. Then apply flow so the larvae will tumble in the fish bowl.
Thanks for the suggestion. I should be a little more clear on what is happening. The parents don't eat the hatched fry. The last two batches of eggs failed to hatch, that's when they eat them and start over. I've read it could be diet among other causes. They are getting Reef frenzy and Fertility frenzy frozen food with some supplemental pellets.
I could remove the pvc pipe and place it in the fry tank ahead of time with an airstone also or try your technique. We like watching the clowns do their thing to take care of the eggs, well until they start moving my frags around, but even then it's still pretty interesting and it brings my family to the tank everyday to see what is going on. There is also a point as a hobbyist where I can be too successful with this. I have been in it for the nature aspect, the challenge of raising them, and letting my son help with the process. I have 19 clowns that are 45 days old and they need to be 90 days old from what I have read to sell. So there is the potential to have a hundreds of clowns by the time 90 days rolls around.
I could remove the pvc pipe and place it in the fry tank ahead of time with an airstone also or try your technique. We like watching the clowns do their thing to take care of the eggs, well until they start moving my frags around, but even then it's still pretty interesting and it brings my family to the tank everyday to see what is going on. There is also a point as a hobbyist where I can be too successful with this. I have been in it for the nature aspect, the challenge of raising them, and letting my son help with the process. I have 19 clowns that are 45 days old and they need to be 90 days old from what I have read to sell. So there is the potential to have a hundreds of clowns by the time 90 days rolls around.
I lost all of the last batch of fry because both my rotifer cultures crashed and it was too early to get them on TDO A. I was lazy and I did not maintain the rotifers well enough during the down time of the last few weeks. I found a rotifer cysts supplier and I have started a new culture. I have some parenting news, the ocellaris clowns in my 90 gallon tank have laid their first clutch of eggs.
My rotifer culture from cysts wasn't successful. I ordered in some more live L strain rotifers last Thursday through Reed's Mariculture for Friday delivery to save the current fry in the fry tank that hatched out Wednesday night. I'll have to me more diligent with the rotifer maintenance. It's too cold in the garage now to culture them very well without adding a heater which I may go ahead and do for redundancy. I wanted to also move over to Rotigreen omega frozen algae for green water tinting instead of live nanno. I should be able to shut down my algae culturing operation now, I have almost 3 gallons of aged nanno still bubbling away and another 1/2 gallon in the fridge. It's hatch night for the 90 gallon clowns. I'm not sure what will happen, as there is a lot of incidental light in the room after the tank lights turn off. The tank is in the den and that is where the family watches TV. If I were too successful though, I'd have too many clowns.
@bobz , I appreciate it. I'm good for now again rotifer wise. If anyone needs some in the Roswell area let me know. My clowns have decided they forgive me for chasing them down with a net and moving them from their 10 gallon home to a 20 gallon long. It took a couple of days though. It's too bad they don't stay this size forever, it's fascinating to watch a school of them. I have two mis bars that are among our favorites. Most of these cluster together at night when they go to sleep also.
So on February 15th, my most successful hatch will be 4 months old. They can't stay here, so I will be putting them up for sale. @90gDreams has first pick since he's been interested for quite a while now. Now, these are probably $600 ocellaris clownfish, $300 of my cost is from Reed Mariculture alone, but obviously they can't sell for what my little experiment cost me in time and materials. I'm thinking of asking $10 each except the misbars, which will be $15 each, I have two of those. If someone wants more than 2, I'll discount. I can't say I know the ocellaris clown "market", so I'm open to discussion. This hatch was October 14th, 2020. Once these are gone, I won't have any large batches like this for many months. For whatever reason, I haven't been able to get more than 1 or two clowns at a time through to meta lately.
46cobraguy
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Nice job! Has to be a good feeling now that you are at the point of selling them off.. not necessarily for the money but the fact that you got this far! Pretty cool!
The kiddos have decided they want normal guys.
I'll shoot yah a PM. Thanks, and congrats on being able to raise these guys. Looked like a ton of work.
I can see the babies again! I have just 3 small clowns at the moment and three weeks ago I experienced a bacterial imbalance. The tank had a very large copepod population that crashed, so I don’t know if this was the cause or a symptom. Regardless, I borrowed a UV sterilizer from @ichthyoid and a week later the tank is clear again.
I have been taking a break from raising any fry, one pair quit spawning when I rearranged the tank, my frag tank pair are still going.
I’m going to pull some rotifers out of refrigeration and see if they are still viable now that I can keep them in the garage again with the warm weather returning.
I have been taking a break from raising any fry, one pair quit spawning when I rearranged the tank, my frag tank pair are still going.
I’m going to pull some rotifers out of refrigeration and see if they are still viable now that I can keep them in the garage again with the warm weather returning.
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Beautiful Clowns; especially the mis-bar ones in 2nd and 3rd photo! Congrats! On your success of tank breeding clowns. Many don’t realize the hard work and dedication it takes to get to where you are now. Thank you for making a difference!
- wannabee
Hey cook can you tell when your done raising I would like to by a pair
The female killed the male yesterday, so it's a rather tragic ending to their story. I have a pair of phantom clowns that I purchased from @angel , that I will move into the frag tank instead to replace her once I have waited a few days to make sure no other fish become ill incase I have drawn the wrong conclusion. I did not get to see what happened, but the males fins were frayed when I found him and he was fine when I fed them the night before.
