HEY BANG!!! does this look about right??

[oceana]

Originally Posted by zeke92
http:///forum/post/2697444
wow i love that tank. especially how you designed the rock, looks awesome!

thanks bud
i have added so much and changed a ton. i plan to put pics this week in the nano forums

 

[smfizz]

Very cool
i'm about to start up a new 80 gallon I got from an old doctors office.
Can't wait to buy some clowns!!

 

[sweetheart]

Hey oceana! thanks alot on the info and info about how to keep the rotifer going. I'm soon to breed clowns too, well TP clowns. I have one mini so far and soon to be getting another one. I have a 29 gallon and for the fry tank is gonna be a 10 gallon. So how old was the fry when you transferred to a bigger tank? I'm saving up lots so I can get three 10 gallons for rotifer too. Well just so you know i'm basically gonna try to do everything you did

 

[life~reefer]

That is one of the coolest things ever!!

 

[divernm]

bang, oceana,
could you please give me a little help?
my clowns have laid eggs again and I decided to try and raise them.
I found this thread yesterday and all the information here is great. you read the net and everyone seems to have a different approach.
here is my set up and what I have done.
I bought a three gallon round tank, put a three inch wide strip of painters tape down it from top to bottom then painted the whole outside of the tank flat black minus the bottom.
then removed the tape to leave a small window to see in from the side.
I added a heater, air line set to one bubble a second, ammonia alert tag, and thermometer. then I made a 580 lumen , 6500 k led light fixture (which I placed three sheets of white paper under to back the power off some)and placed it over the top. then filled it with saltwater (old water from the tank) and tested it to make sure the water temperature would stay at 78 F it stayed between 77 (night) and 78 (day) for three days so I dumped the water cleaned it and set it aside.
I also started a culture of rotifers using DTs for the feed.
I have a culture for green water coming from FAF it just has not arrived yet.
so two nights ago half of the eggs hatched (132 was the count) I placed them and a gallon of water in the fry tank, along with half a batch of rotifers and added one ml of DTs
I harvested the rotifers by running them through a 53 screen and rinsed them with sterile salt water before placing them in the tank.
yesterday evening my ammonia level had climbed to .003 ppm. so I took out one quart of water using a airline tubing to vacuum the bottom and caught the water as it left (just in case I sucked up a fry).
then replaced the water with water from my main tank filtered though the 53 screen. I had lost three fry during the night. the rest of the fry looked happy doing short (one body length) darts and then swimming slowly for an inch or so and darting again mouth wide open. their stomachs were filled with silver to the point that you could not see the yoke sak.
last night the rest of the fry hatched (53) and I moved them into the tank adding a gallon of water as I did it. I watched them for about an hour last night they were all happy doing their short burst swims and they were hanging out at the top of the tank two or three inches down.
this morning when I looked in the tank all but three were dead, and some of the rotifers were also laying on the top of the water, the ammonia is at .001 and the temperature is still 77 f. the tank water I was putting in the tank was at 80 f the rotifers when from a 50/ml to 200/ml count over the last 48 hours so they are very thick.
do ether of you have any idea what happen to cause a total crash like this. I went from over 200 fry happy as a clam nice and fat full and silver with rotifers to 3 fry, 2 of the new ones and 1 old one who is very full of rotifers but I do not expect him to live he is swimming along doing the darts then will just hang in the water drift half way down the tank then tail spin his way back to the top dart around and eat then stop and drift to the bottom just to tail spin back up and start the cycle again.
any help anyone can give would be greatly appriciated, because I would like to keep the last three alive and my clown is pregnant again. so in 8 days I will have a new hatch and do not want to have another crash.
thanks
Mike

 

[bang guy]

There are so many things that can go wrong during the first 10 days that it's almost impossible to figure it out without being there. Rod Beuhler is one person that has enough experience to say "oh, yeah, do this..." but I'm really methodical when I do it so I don't have a lot of experience with different methods.
My first thought was starvation. Even though they have plenty of Rotifers, if the Rotifers are not filled with nutritious algae then they themselves have no nutritional value.
DTs is fine but perhaps the quantity was only enough to keep Rotifers alive but not enough to gut load them.
That's all I can think of.
You should be able to get a good greenwater culture going from DTs but you need the right fertilizer for the greenwater.
I use instant algae so it's pretty consistant as far as nutrition is concerned.

 

[divernm]

bang,
thanks for the quick reply I was not sure if this thread was dead or not.
I think you hit the nail right on the head, of the three survivors they are all dead now but what I noticed was they stayed alive until they started to eat then the next day they were dead with a full stomach of rotifers.
this lead me to systematically go back and look at everything (engineer by trade) here is what I found out.
I was trying to use DTs to start green water at first, but you can not do that anymore because DTs has "reformulated our formula such that you can not culture it anymore" (direct from DTs)
this made me take a look at my rotifer tanks, one has only been up for seven days after tuning off the air pump for five minutes the bottom has lots of dead bodies, I took a sample of and placed it under a microscope, there were no cysts at all just dead bodies, as I am sure you know if a culture crashes there will be a lot of cysts and male bodies left on the bottom there were non so this makes me think that the rotifers are also dieing of starvation, since their life cycle is usually 14 days and at day 7 there is such a large amount of dead bodies. water samples taken from the culture tank all tested fine both by me and two local fish stores.
the other thing I have noticed is that the fry only died once they started eating, and all of them died with full stomachs, under the scope you can see that they were full to the brim, I can not wonder if maybe what ever DT did to stop the ability to culture green water is not also acting as a poison once eaten by the fry/rotifers. because anything that eats it seems to die within a day or so.
when I email DTs to ask if it could be used to culture rotifers I received a one word email all it said was "yes" no signature nothing else, I can not wonder if what DT did to their formula is not why everything is dieing and if this is the case and there is no nutritional value to the formula then why are people paying $21 a bottle for something that has no value to their tank, it is sad what greed has done to the American market place.
my order from Florida aqua farms still has not arrived, if anyone out there has a small bottle of green water that I can beg, borrow, buy or steal from you please let me know I have another batch of eggs and all the equipment ready and nothing to feed them but undernourished rotifers that are themselves starving to death.
thanks
Mike

 

[bang guy]

Originally Posted by divernm
http:///forum/post/2930973
I was trying to use DTs to start green water at first, but you can not do that anymore because DTs has "reformulated our formula such that you can not culture it anymore" (direct from DTs)
I didn't know that, thanks for the update.

 

[divernm]

hey bang,
educate me for a second, I called FAF today and they said they sent out my order yesterday (I ordered it last monday but it just went out go figure) so I am still waiting for green water the lady that answered told me they use roti-rich for feeding their rotifers and that it was a good way to gut load them before feeding them to the fry so I order some fiqured it would get me though the next cycle until I get the green water growing.
in your opinion what is better to gut load them with the roti-rich or just put the rotifers in a very heavy green water for two hours right before introducing them to the fry tank? is there something else that is better to gut load them with before introduction to the fry?
also I have gold pearls by brineshimp direct would that be something that can be fed to the fry it is "50-100 micron rotifer replacement" I am not suggesting using this instead of rotifers but as a supplement to them.

 

[bang guy]

IMO young larvae will not eat golden pearls. I believe they need the movement to recognize food. I may be outdated with this belief but that's what I believe.
Rotirich is fine. I usually keep the tank the larvae are in slightly green as well so that the Rotifers are constantly feeding.

 

[rod buehle]

First let me say that I am no expert, Im not bang, or oceana, but Ill jump in anyway if you dont mind . I raise fish for fun. IMO, the people that have success in raising fish are the people that go in with an attitude of "" hey, if I raise some, GREAT. if not, Oh well" . They arent trying as hard and arent over-correcting. Sometimes ya just have to chalk it up to a bad batch and no matter what you do would have made a diff..
When they die over night, I usually look into low pH/low oxygen. Especially in the winter when the furnace is running and all of the windows are closed up. Increasing the water movement/airflow will help, but even help much more if you could pull fresh air in from outside. Does the paper you used for the light cover the tank?
Starvation is possible too, though. I do keep my 5 gallon larval tanks heavily loaded with phyto.. So green that I cant even see the fry on the first day when I first add phyto. The rotifers stay nutritious and multiplying, and the baby fish also have a better depth perception. The green water will keep the fry off the edge of the glass and in the center hunting for food.
I used to use DTs with pretty good success. The only thing that DT did to stop people from using the original nanochloropsis as a starter was add 2-3 more types of phyto. I think your jumping the gun on accusations of greed and un-nutritional products. It was mostly done to provide people with a better product in a single package instead of selling 3-4 seperate phytos that people would try to culture.
I now use instant algae from Reeds Mariculture as too. I use high density rotifer diet. I have a LOT of experience with culturing phyto, and choose not to culture my own. Leave it to the pros

.
I dont gut load the rotifers, but my rotifer cultures are never clear, (usually plenty of phyto). On day 6 or so, I do occasionally add a drop or 3 of selco to my rotifer cultures for the extra hufa's. Then I swithc th newly hatched brine which has the hufa's/omega3's
I also prefer/rely on live foods for the first 2-3 weeks. I have a refrigerator loaded with many kilos of golden pearls (5-1000 micron), but my fry dont get any until they are weened to frozen.

 

[divernm]

Rob thanks for the great input, I received the same advise from a little old lady at the local fish store right down too the part about "the people that have success in raising fish are the people that go in with an attitude of "" hey, if I raise some, GREAT. if not, Oh well" I was so impressed that I ask for her phone number so I could pick her brain some more. she has been raising clowns for over 30 years and was great to talk to.
as for the comment about DT and greed you are right it was a little strong. but when they ended the conversation with "if everyone that bought our product used it to grow their own then we would not have a job" that was what came to mind. since then the lady last night gave me a "good talking too" and explained that if by adding the other forms of algae to the mix has helped the people that do not grow it then the company should be given a kudo for helping them out and I just need to get off my bum and mail order the right stuff from the people that sell what I need. and just like I thanked her I now thank you for pointing that out.
she did say that she use to use DTs for raising rots for fry but that the last two times she tried it the fry all died with full stomachs just like mine had. and then she told me to order some "instant algae from Reeds Mariculture" and "leave the growing to someone else" that is three people that have made that comment now. I am still going to try and culture it but I have a bottle of instant algae on order.
I figure I will take the next hatch and try some with rotirich and some with instant algae.
I the ph was my first thought it checked out at 8 solid my dissolved oxygen was at 6.12 which is good because by main tank only reaches 6.5 most of the time.
all the other parameters were the same all within spec.
any other things you can think of I should check?
I do have a side question for you, why does adding different kinds of algae to the DT mix make it so you can not culture it can two different kinds of phyto not co culture (yes I am showing my ignorance about the subject here).
Rob, bang thanks again for all the help.

 

[divernm]

hey bang, how do you know you are using enough rotirich? with with green water it is easy the water is green, how do you know when all there is is a faint cloud that seems to dissipate pretty fast. put in the 1/8 teaspoon stated on the bottle for a two litter culture and within five minutes it was clear.

 

[bang guy]

Experiment and see what works best for you.
I actually don't use the product. If I did I would dose it about 30 minutes before filtering out the Rotifers to be fed.

 

[divernm]

thanks, bang
I have 200 little pairs of silvery eyes looking back at me from the tank right now so we will see how it goes.
wish me luck.

 

[divernm]

Hey bang,
got a quick question for you, I was able to save 25 of the fry, me and my butterfly had a fight over them.
that was Sunday night, I have lost 12 so far, the question that I have is I started out with very little light, a small five watt florescent bulb then used two pieces of black paper to make just a small opening for the light to get through. they were all hanging out in the middle of the tank (10 gallon filled half way) I left the light that way Sunday and Monday yesterday I opened it up a little and they were all happy hanging out mid water/bottom eating away. this morning they were still fine, but tonight they are all swimming in the top inch of the tank and most of them aiming straight up.
all my water levels are fine exempt ammonia it was up around 0.4 ppm just a little while ago.
do you have any ideas on what is up why are they all hanging at the top of the tank, rotifers are around 10-15 per milliliter
as you suggested I am letting the rotifers soak in a mixture of two drops roti rich, two ml Pyto and one drop of selcon for thirty minutes before dropping the whole mixture into the tank twice a day. the ones that are still alive are nice and full and looking very active.
I have increased the light, that usually will make them go to the bottom of the tank, they are not moving from the top at all.
do you have any ideas on why they are hanging out at the top of the tank? I lost five today since this morning.
any ideas anyone may have would be greatly appiciated.
Mike

 

[bang guy]

I assume you have bubbles going to circulate the water, I can only guess but the behavior you describe sounds like they need more oxygen. The ammonia isn't good. Be sure to siphon any dead phyto or rotifers off the bottom of the tank.

 

[divernm]

Bang, thanks for the input, turns out the ammonia test were off,
I have a small alert badge on the front of the tank and it was only reading between the .02 and .05 levels. so I broke out the good testers to see which was off my levels were .03 ppm. but with that stated I added one gallon of water from the tank then vacuumed one more out of the tank then replaced it.
what I have been doing is I started with a 10 gallon tank filled half way with water, then every morning I add half a gallon from my main tank and then ether add more rotifers or take some out of the tank and enrich them, then place them back. in the evenings I come home and with an airline hose I siphon off a gallon making sure to clean the bottom real well, then I replace the gallon, this way I can change one gallon of water a day and also add half a gallon (this obviously only works for the first 10 days) then after that I was going to start a foam filter in the corner and keep exchanging a gallon a day. does this seem like a good Idea?
as for air flow I have an air line placed under the heating element of my heater which is stuck on the back wall in a horizontal position, I am running three bubbles a second from the line with no air stone. this seems to keep the water in the tank moving but not so much that the fry can not fight it. they just seem to drift in it until they see a rotifer then dart settle, drift and then dart again.
last night I did increase the light output by opening the slit between the black paper by a 1/16 of an inch or so. this seems to have made them move down to the middle of the tank again, but they are still swimming/hovering head up, they will dart, eat, then swim back (horizontally) to where they started then turn head up, float, sink,dart, eat and repeat. they look like yo-yos

the one thing that I noticed is they only seem to do this to eat when they decide to check out the tank, or the alert badge (they love to swim around it) they will swim horizontal just like a normal fish.

as always thanks for the comments and help.
by the way I did not lose any last night they seem to be growing and very happy.
considering that tonight is day four should I start hatching brine shrimp and start feeding them brine on Friday?
Mike

 

[divernm]

hey, bang
thanks for the advise, I checked my o2 levels they were down so I increased bubbles from the air line, it seems to have helped a lot they are still being yo-yos but they look a lot more alive and are moving a lot more.

still no new losses from last nights so it looks like I may be out of the loss zone at least until morph time.
thanks again for the help it always seems to be the little things that make a huge impact.

 

[divernm]

bang, rod,
I took what both of you said to heart and let few hatches pass, to change my system
after thinking about it (bad thing I am an engineer by trade) I took a 10 gallon tank, put a black acrylic divider in it about six inches from one end and then drilled a whole in the middle of it then installed an all plastic coffee filter into it, and added heaters and a bio wheel pump to the tank on the six inch side, then from the back of the bio wheel I ran a .375 hose to the other end of the tank, fill tank start wheel, and water flow through the hose and you have a great controllable flow in the fry side with a water fall and heaters on the bio wheel side O2 levels are the same as what comes out of my protein skimmer and there is no measurable ammonia.
I took my first hatch out of the main tank on a tile and placed it under the water coming out of the hose. they all hatched that night, the first night I had a big die off about half of them but since then six days in I have only lost one.
went with only plyto to grow the rotifers, and added rotifers and plyto "enough to make the water green enough to not be able to see the fry" thanks rob.and am still feeding them twice everyday I remove a gallon of water and replace it with the main tank water (screened through the rotifer screen) add am adding selco to the gut loading process.
all is well and the little guys are very happy and swimming the way they should be nice fat and happy.
now for a few questions:
I added baby brine shrimp to the tank this morning along with the rotifers how long do I keep using the rotifers?
also I am still leaving the light on all the time, at what point do I start cycling it off at night?
thanks ahead of time for you help you guys have really helped make this try successful.