Tomatoe Clowns just spawned - Help

diane4

diane4

Member
My Tomatoe clowns spawned last night. I have been reading about the care of the eggs/larvae and then the fry. The whole rotifer, green water culture thing sounds very overwhelming and certainly I don't have any cultures started.
Is there another way to feed freshly hatched Clownfish eggs. If I remember correctly, they will hatch within the first couple hours of tank darkness on the 8th day after they were laid. Then, you shine a flashlight at the top of the tank, where the larvae will migrate and then collect them with a plastic cup and move to the fry tank.
From there, I have read that you need to keep the temp stable 80-84 range and I also read you have to put some form of black paper around the tank. Preferably a round tank with no seams.
Isn't there a simpler way to rear and feed baby clownfish? I already have 7 tanks on my main living floor of my house and it sounds like making your own rotifer culture and maintaining it is a daily task.

I need suggestions please. Anything that is simpler than the 7 soda bottles of rotifer cultures, hopefully? Could they be fed cyclo-peeze as a food source, or is that not small enough to fit in their mouths?
In advance, thanks.
 
oceana

oceana

Active Member
the cyclop-eeze is too big,and they seem to search out live prey until they get a little older.
I have been doing the whole greenwater/rotifer thing since I started trying to raise clowns then 3 days ago I found out that my lfs sells live rotifers (like $10 a bag) had I known that before It would have been alot easier to just pick up a bag for each batch of larva-call your local fish stores,you might get lucky
 
oceana

oceana

Active Member
there are also frozen rotifers and gloden pearls 50-200microns (I think) I have never tried any of these approaches -but the websites that sell them claim that they are used by hatcheries (although I've never heard of anyone on the boards using them )
 
diane4

diane4

Member
Hi Oceana - thank you for your reply, I was anxious to hear from someone about it.
In your fry tank, did you put the dark paper around the tank or what was your process? And, running the live rotifer cultures, is that a daily chore? I will ask around to see has live rotifers, I have been trying to find someone on the internet that sells them and ships them, but haven't been lucky with it.
Have you been able to raise any baby clowns? I do hear it is very difficult to do unless you have a big hatchery and someone is minding the batches full time. I work full time outside of my home. My husband is home full time, but I am the primary caretaker of my fish tanks. He feeds them and watches them, reports things he sees, but he is not as into it as I am.
Any advice is appreciated. The eggs are about 2 days old now and starting to loose some of their orange color. Almost a dark pink color, hard to describe - but I do see the color change already. I know to watch for the purple color, then silver then look for the black eyes to appear.
And, yes - I will try to get a pic of them.
 
oceana

oceana

Active Member
hello there. yes i have and i am currently raising black and white clowns.
rotifers are not "hard to keep going. they are just a pain. yes its every day you must feed in most cases twice a day. you must keep green water cultures going as well in order to feed to rotifers. i dont find it hard just time consuming. you must feed and clean the tank of the frys every day and keep EVERYTHING on a very good schedule. Are they in your display?? if so you will need to pull them out at the right time and get them into a rearing tank. otehrwise they will be lost to your filtration. not to mention the fact that it would be very hard to keep food source levels high enough to work in a large display
here is a link to my set up that i have had going on this board for awhile now.
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=172108
 
oceana

oceana

Active Member
Originally Posted by sweetdawn
oceana did the rest of the eggs hatch read the thread and dont know the end of the story
its in there
yes they all hatched except a few which is expected. new eggs should hatch by monday.
 
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