Clownfish Breeding

clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
Hey there....
Heres the story...
Ok, I have two False Percula Clown fish and they have been biting and eating the rock in this cave near the hammer coral and I called a friend and did research and they both had said that they were going to have babes! I was very excited and couldn't wait until they came out... well the same night right after the lights went out, the fish laid eggs, tiny little orange eggs, and the male was protecting them from my other fish in the tank, yellow tang and blue damsel, and when they hatch in 4 days I need help with figuring out what to do with them! I heard that you feed them Rotifers and I have found them online and havnt order them yet but will soon... My plan is to take the yellow tang and damsel into a nano tank that has already been setup for 1 year now but hasnt had any life in it but the water is fine so im going to put them into there while the fish hatch so the Babes arnt eaten.... and after the fish hatch I will capture them and put them into a 20 gallon tank which will have the water from the main, 46 gl tank, from water changes... so when they are all in the 20 gl I will feed them Rotifers 5 times a day and let them do their thing for getting older... after metamorphosis they will be home free and so will I! What my questions are is... how much amount of Rotifers do I feed them 5 times a day? Another question is are my steps going to work okay for all the fish and corals I have? And will this work out for the baby Perculas? Is anything in the process incorrect???
Thanks
System setup....
Living Things:
Two Hammer Corals
Frogspawn
Zoos
Polyps
Two Starfishes... One sand sifter, one orange linkia
Two False Percula Clownfish
One Yellow tang
One Blue Damsel
Tank Parameters:
Amonia: 0
Nitrates: 40
Nitrites: 0
PH: 8.0
Salt: 1.25 approximately
Others: Unknown
Tank:
Overflow box for filtration
Heater
Skimmer
Metal Halides and VHOs
46 Gallon Bow Front tank
Stand
And thats it!!! I would appreciate the help guys!!!!!!!!!
Thanks again
Sincerely Clownfish4
 
rod buehle

rod buehle

Member
I have raised a few thousand onyx clowns, a few skunk clowns, fire clowns, and tomato clowns, and a lot of Banggai cardinals back in the day
After the eggs are laid, hatching will take
7-10 days depending on the temp.
I wouldnt even bother with this first batch. Take the time to note the gestation period. Get your food cultures going (rotifers). and do a little research. I highly recommend Joyce Wilkersons "clownfishes" book.
getting your rotifer cultures set up and going strong will take longer that it will for the eggs to hatch, but dont worry. Once the clowns start spawning, they usually continue to do so about every 2 weeks, so you will have plenty of opportunities.
I would try to slip a ceramic tile into their spawning spot after the first batch hatches. This will make it easier to hatch the eggs in a separate tank and your yield will be much higher. Many people prefer to let them continue to spawn on the rock, and then collect the fry after they hatch after lights out by scooping them out with a cup. That requires you to shut the flow down in the tank and also to have patience and a long night when they hatch. Others have had success building a "larval snagger" which collects the fry for you but there are reports of significant mortality rates with larval snaggers.
If you use a tile and can move it to a five gallon tank on hatching night you will have much more success. You will need an air pump, a 4" air wand, a heater, and a light source.
Your clowns will need live rotifers as their first food which are easy to culture. It does take a little time to get them going though. Your rotifers will need to be fed phytoplankton. Many people culture their own. Reeds mariculture has a phyto paste that seems to work well instead of culturing your own. I use DT's phyto.
Your fry will need enough rotifers in the tank so that the fry will not have to move more than one body length before the bump into a rotifer.
After the initial hatch, I only keep 1-2 gallons in my 5 gallon tank. I then load it up with rotifers and tint the water green to co-culture the rotifers along with the fry. Tinting the water green also keeps the fry off of the glass and in the center hunting for food. Its a depth perception thing...
Some people use artificial foods after the rotifers. I dont believe that they are having the success that they could be if they were hatching baby brine, which is super simple. At about day 7, you will notice the fry having a "bent" body, thats a sign of metamorphosis and they will need HUFAs to complete the morph. Freshly hatched baby brine will provide those HUFAs
Once they are all hitting on the baby brine and through metamorphosis, you can start to offer them frozen cyclop-eeze.. Hope this helps
Good Luck
 
clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
Originally Posted by Rod Buehle
I have raised a few thousand onyx clowns, a few skunk clowns, fire clowns, and tomato clowns, and a lot of Banggai cardinals back in the day
After the eggs are laid, hatching will take
7-10 days depending on the temp.
I wouldnt even bother with this first batch. Take the time to note the gestation period. Get your food cultures going (rotifers). and do a little research. I highly recommend Joyce Wilkersons "clownfishes" book.
getting your rotifer cultures set up and going strong will take longer that it will for the eggs to hatch, but dont worry. Once the clowns start spawning, they usually continue to do so about every 2 weeks, so you will have plenty of opportunities.
I would try to slip a ceramic tile into their spawning spot after the first batch hatches. This will make it easier to hatch the eggs in a separate tank and your yield will be much higher. Many people prefer to let them continue to spawn on the rock, and then collect the fry after they hatch after lights out by scooping them out with a cup. That requires you to shut the flow down in the tank and also to have patience and a long night when they hatch. Others have had success building a "larval snagger" which collects the fry for you but there are reports of significant mortality rates with larval snaggers.
If you use a tile and can move it to a five gallon tank on hatching night you will have much more success. You will need an air pump, a 4" air wand, a heater, and a light source.
Your clowns will need live rotifers as their first food which are easy to culture. It does take a little time to get them going though. Your rotifers will need to be fed phytoplankton. Many people culture their own. Reeds mariculture has a phyto paste that seems to work well instead of culturing your own. I use DT's phyto.
Your fry will need enough rotifers in the tank so that the fry will not have to move more than one body length before the bump into a rotifer.
After the initial hatch, I only keep 1-2 gallons in my 5 gallon tank. I then load it up with rotifers and tint the water green to co-culture the rotifers along with the fry. Tinting the water green also keeps the fry off of the glass and in the center hunting for food. Its a depth perception thing...
Some people use artificial foods after the rotifers. I dont believe that they are having the success that they could be if they were hatching baby brine, which is super simple. At about day 7, you will notice the fry having a "bent" body, thats a sign of metamorphosis and they will need HUFAs to complete the morph. Freshly hatched baby brine will provide those HUFAs
Once they are all hitting on the baby brine and through metamorphosis, you can start to offer them frozen cyclop-eeze.. Hope this helps
Good Luck

wow... ok then thanks for the post... i really want this first batch to work out though... and the Rotifers sound hard to keep.... please specify
 
rod buehle

rod buehle

Member
Originally Posted by clownfish4
help!!! Idk if the eggs are dead?!?? Its only been two days and they were orange but now they are black help

Black is normal..
Orange > Black> Black with silver tips (get ready :) ) when 2/3 or more have silver tips, you might notice a copperish color to the tips. They will hatch that night. (white = dead)
Rotifers arent hard (their actually simple) but getting them "going" takes a little time. Feeding the rotifers can be the hard part. They feed on phytoplankton. Many people culture their own phyto, but to me its not worth it.. I feed my rotifers DTs phytoplankton. Many others use an instant algae paste from Reeds Mariculture.
Dont be discouraged if your first batch fails. Your clowns should continue to spawn every 2 weeks (average) so you will have plenty of opportunities to practice. With food being the most important part, I would practice most on feeds. If you dont get the feeds right, your raising of the clowns will never be right. If they are spawning every 2 weeks, you will have a lot of practice time with those once you get your rotifers squared away
 
clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
ok thank you for the help very much appreciated!!!!!! so the black is normal... thats good! so you just buy your own.. if bought mine from a store online and get them shipped in two three days will that work? and just order them more if i run out or if i get more eggs? thanks and if you have a site for that stuff you feed the clown eggs that would be great! thank you!!!!
 
clintjj

clintjj

Member
Where are you located? I also raise clownfish and have a 300 gal. tank full of rotifers. If you live close enough I'll give you the rotifers to feed the baby's but I highly recommend you read the book clownfishes!!!! I saw you said they were hatching after 4 days how hot is your water?
 
rod buehle

rod buehle

Member
If you are going to continue your attempts to raise clownfishes, you will want to culture rotifers yourself (its easy).. Not order new ones for every batch
It will take a few days to get the cultures up to a density that you can harvest every day, but once you do, you should harvest about 1/3 to 1/2 of you culture every day.. Top off the culture vessel with new salt water (1.015 - 1.020) and then top off with some phytoplankton (enough to tint the whole vessel pretty green. The next day, your rotifers will have consumed all of the phyto (clear water in the vessels) and doubled their population.. HArvest 1/3 1/2 ... top off with salt water.. top off with phyto...
Below are a few pics of my vessels. One of these should be more than enough for your single pair


At harvest time, I open the valve for a very brief second to flush any of the crap out that has settled... Then I hold my rotifer sieve under the valve.. open the valve to let the water /rotifers out, the rotifers will collect into the sieve, and the water into a bucket. when you have drained about 1/3 of the water, close the valve.. top off, and feed
Then feed the rotifers to the fry.. tint tthe fry water green with phyto
AGAIN.. Clownfishes book is a must!
 
clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
your 80 years old? and ok thanks for the help and i never said that i was going to stop breeding i really want to but what is wrong with just getting a batch for every breed?
 
clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
ook thanks! i just checked on the eggs and they have silver tips!!! i dont have any equitment yet i was suppose to get the equitment yesterday and i didnt get it today and if they come tonight they dont have a chance! i dont even have rotifers yet! i havnt even order them yet either!!!! is there any other food they can eat wile they are this small until i get rotifers!? please help!!!!
 
rod buehle

rod buehle

Member
Originally Posted by Rod Buehle
I wouldnt even bother with this first batch. Take the time to note the gestation period. Get your food cultures going (rotifers). and do a little research. I highly recommend Joyce Wilkersons "clownfishes" book.
getting your rotifer cultures set up and going strong will take longer that it will for the eggs to hatch, but dont worry. Once the clowns start spawning, they usually continue to do so about every 2 weeks, so you will have plenty of opportunities.
(part about tile was removed.. but I still recommend it highly)
Good Luck
You could try some golden pearls or othomine but wont have too much success. You will spend (waste) a lot of time that could be used setting up rotifer cultures. If the size of my culture vessels are too bulky, you could use a 5 gallon tank, Or even a five gallon bucket (but a bucket would be just as bulky)
 
clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
Originally Posted by Rod Buehle
You could try some golden pearls or othomine but wont have too much success. You will spend (waste) a lot of time that could be used setting up rotifer cultures. If the size of my culture vessels are too bulky, you could use a 5 gallon tank, Or even a five gallon bucket (but a bucket would be just as bulky)

what about cyclopeids?
 
clownfish4

clownfish4

Member
the eggs have very silver tips now! and i think they will hatch tonight.... i still havnt done anything new but have gotten the other fish(tang and damsel) into my nano tank for now. i dont know what to do will cyclopeids work? i have that!
 
rod buehle

rod buehle

Member
I havent ever played with the freeze dried stuff, but the frozen will be too large
I wouldnt even bother with this first batch. Take the time to note the gestation period. Get your food cultures going (rotifers). and do a little research. I highly recommend Joyce Wilkersons "clownfishes" book.

getting your rotifer cultures set up and going strong will take longer that it will for the eggs to hatch, but dont worry. Once the clowns start spawning, they usually continue to do so about every 2 weeks, so you will have plenty of opportunities.
 
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