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Ace25
01-24-2012, 04:13 PM
I am a newbie at this.. I have had clowns laying eggs/making babies for quite a few years now, but never attempted to catch/raise any of them until I got a bug in my a few days ago to give it a try (even though I knew I was not ready).

Friday night, 1/2 the eggs hatched (very odd, first time I have ever seen 1/2 hatch and not all). I catch a dozen or so and with no prep at all, try them in an old sump with a heater and air stone. Since I have no live food for them (which I read is 100% critical, without it they will not make it) I decided to just try what I have on hand. Well, dummy me, first attempt was a massive failure on my part. I should have kept reading the how to's to see they do not need any food for about the first 24 hours, but after that they need a lot. I put in way more "Brightwell AminOmega" (used for soaking food with) than I should have and wiped out the babies by morning. No biggie, first attempt, did so in a hurry right before bed. I was expecting failure.

Saturday night, cleaned out the sump, started over. Caught 2 dozen babies that hatched that night.. still about 50 eggs left, but at 2am I was done waiting, but morning all the eggs were gone. So I have 24 baby clowns in the tank at 11pm Saturday night. I put in just a couple drops of Vita-Chem this time so I don't foul the water. They are in about 2-1/2G of water in the chamber in the sump (this is obviously a sump not in use). I changed out 1G of water every 4 hours for the last few days, all the while putting in a lot of "coral food", frozen cubes of H2O brand food, along with Vita-Chem. The babies are EATING IT UP! They are like pac-man munching away. So I read babies usually will not make it past 48 hours unless they have live rotifers.. I have passed the 48 hour mark and some how I have not lost a single one so far. I was expecting to come home from work today and see them all dead, but to my suprise, the opposite, all alive and active.

I understand I am a long way from calling this a success, but if things work out like I hope, I am thinking I may be the first person to raise baby clown fry off nothing but "dead" food, which goes against everything I have read. If anyone knows/read of others that had success without using live foods I would love to read about it. I went from "eh, not really into that part of the hobby" to "OMG I wanna figure this out and have 100% success now if it is possible" within a couple days. LOL. I am betting at least a few people on here have tried their hand at raising clown fry... if anyone has any tips, suggestions (other than the obvious, get live foods growing) I would love to hear them.

Ace25
01-25-2012, 07:01 PM
These little guys are incredibly hard to take a picture of, especially with a point and shoot camera that was made in 2001. After a hundred tries this was the best I could get from the side. They are about 3/4 the size of a grain of rice. Mysis shrimp are bigger than them right now.

At 11pm tonight, 4 hours from now, they will be 96 hours post hatch (4 days).
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7166/6763366659_2103ac6a3d.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7158/6763366681_a4bc381a8e.jpg

Ace25
01-30-2012, 08:55 PM
Well, sad news, no one made it past day 8. Still amazing they lived that long though off nothing but dead food/vitamins. I thought at day 7 I had a few strong swimmers left but by the end of day 8 they were goners. No biggie, my clowns laid the biggest clutch I have ever seen on Saturday, got to be 500 eggs easily, seriously 3-4 times bigger than I have ever seen them lay before. Mommy has been huge since the babies hatched and I thought she would lay sooner, but is seems she held out and kept making more eggs this time. Tomorrow I am ordering a Rotifer starter pack and TDO food from Reef Nutrition/APBreed to raise my next batch properly.

http://reefnutrition.com/specialty_feeds.html

Anyone have any suggestions on what I should do when I do have success? There are only so many clowns one can give out, and really, that is my only goal, to grow them and to give them away for FREE, just like I have done for over a decade with corals, never once sold a frag, it is my personal belief that I am in this hobby for pleasure and education, not to make it a business, so I will never accept $ for anything that has grown in my tank. Even the dozens of LED lights I have made for other people I have not made 1 penny off of, actually lost $, but just a few dollars and I don't even think about it. Used equipment is different, and I take a loss on that stuff anyway, and I have probably only sold 5 pieces of equipment in 20 years, but I have given away thousands of pieces like external pumps, light setups, even a complete acrylic 60G reef setup.

I have been asking co-workers but it is hard to talk someone into getting into SW, especially if they have never had a tank, or at most a betta bowl on their desk at work. Most LFS would take some, but probably not all, and I really don't want to give them to someone else who is just going to turn around and sell them, I would rather give them to someone who will enjoy them, so the LFS option is the last option.

Ace25
02-14-2012, 10:40 PM
So this is my setup. Quick 10 minute DIY stand and a 29G tank I had laying around.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7013/6824489181_ba84735e47.jpg

2 babies that survived from the last batch. I went to bed before they hatched after spending many nights waiting and by morning most were gone, only caught a few and 2 made it so far. Today they are 9 days old swimming in a sea of rotifers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mXhv8yTSb8

Video of Mommy and Daddy clown making babies on Valentines day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7NwRcOKArQ

Ace25
03-10-2012, 02:17 PM
Quick video showing the 2 babies @ 1 month old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS32OgJ-7gc

Ace25
03-12-2012, 05:58 PM
New batch hatched at 3am on 3/12/12. Something else seems to have hatched at the same time. I was up from 3am-5am collecting these things thinking they were clown fish but today after some sleep they are definitely not baby clown fish. I much have over 100 of them easily along with around 30 clownfish. I think they may be peppermint shrimp (only other thing in my tank that could make babies) and they do have a shrimp tail on them, but they don't look like the pictures/videos I see of them, but maybe it is too soon to tell.

Floating specs = rotifers, bigger white specs that float down and jerk upwards are the "unknown", and the big blurry things and the day old clown fish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2r3fMSj6Yc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhOC6rLUdWc

kerry
03-15-2012, 09:47 AM
Thats very interesting, thanks for the vid.

Ace25
03-15-2012, 12:44 PM
I still have not been able to identify the "unknown" creatures. I really was leaning towards peppermint shrimp but they absolutely do not look anything like what I find on google as far as baby peppermints. The ones in my tank do not have any arms, just a shrimp tail on them and the shrimp belly (all those little legs which I see when they grab onto a rotifer, which is funny because a rotifer is only about 1/4 the size of these shrimp). So after deciding it wasn't peppermint shrimp, I had to try and figure it out... copepods.. nope (I have some LARGE copepod looking things in my tank, the size of a rolly polly so I though maybe it was them), isopods.. nope, brine shrimp... nope. I have spent hours searching scientific drawings of saltwater larval stages of things and I have yet to find anything that closely resembles what I have in my tank. The best way to describe them is they look like sperm (bodies and heads) but they have a distinct shrimp fan tail on them. And NO, I don't love my tanks THAT much. I work at a college, and we have a marine biology dept. I even asked the people there and showed them videos and none of them even had a suggestion as to what they might be. If you have ever worked for a school/college, you quickly realize the teachers are the least knowledgable people on campus for the vast majority of them (there are always a few exceptions, unfortunately no exceptions in the marine bio dept where I work), and the saying "those who can't... teach" holds so much more truth to it than most realize.

Ace25
03-18-2012, 08:04 PM
Couple more quick videos from today. The second video is a closeup and actually came out decent I thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNgcJEJnkgw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICxY5X5kRFY

srusso
03-27-2012, 11:21 AM
Wow, thanks for posting! Please keep this thread going!

Ace25
03-27-2012, 01:57 PM
I will post some updated vids tonight.

Currect Status: Clutch 3 hatched on Friday, March 23rd. BIGGEST catch ever. Over 200 fry! Only 1 problem. No where to put them. I have 2 tanks going, a 29G and a 10G for the babies. the 29G has the last clutch and just went through meta phase, turned orange and got 1-2 stripes so far. 10G tank has my first 2 babies and are full baby clown looking now, nice color, active, all 3 stripes. So... what do I do with 200 new babies? Well.. I had hoped they would get a long with the 2 week old babies. Turns out, not a wise idea. Lost almost all of them by yesterday. I think I had 3 remaining. So all weekend, every 15 minutes, I was sucking out half a dozen dead fry that the bigger ones kept biting. Sucks, but no biggie to me. All a BIG learning experience, so even my failures are successes to me because I learn what not to do next time.

So today I have 30+ 2.5 week old babies, 3x 4 day old babies (if they are still alive when I get home), and the 10G tank with 2 babies that are going on 2 months now. These little guys take A LOT longer than I was expecting to grow up to "reef tank capable" size. I think I am looking at 6+ months minimum before they are big enough to go into a tank with other fish. Sunday the clowns layed another clutch of eggs, they seem to only wait 2 days after the eggs hatch before they lay new ones now. I am going to have to skip some batches though because I am not quite setup for this type of turnover, seems I would need at least 4 different tanks to put the different phases of clowns in, which I am not really wanting to do. I am always WAAAY over my limit on how many tanks I am supposed to have in my apartment (1), I have 7 now. Since this was more of a learning experience than something I wanted to do long term I don't really want to keep this going. Maybe 1 more batch. My goal is to get positive karma.. breed enough fish and give them away in order to balance out all the fish I have taken in my lifetime. I figured I have taken about 100 fish total in my 20+ years in the hobby, so my goal is to give at least 100 fish back to the hobby.

kerry
03-27-2012, 02:46 PM
Awesome!! Thats pretty kewl. I want my clowns to start breeding, one has taken up with a goniopora coral so I hope this will encourage them a bit. I will not have a baby tank for a while so the eggs will be food for the tank until I do.

Ace25
03-27-2012, 05:38 PM
2 Clownfish 6 weeks old in 10G tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecom08oU9GM

30+ clownfish 2 weeks old in 29G tank. None of the babies made it from Friday, live and learn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT0XlQyIWkA

Zoomed in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91IF9Q3jg0

srusso
03-28-2012, 09:05 AM
You have a scrubber running these tanks? Excellent job, keep up the good work!!

Ace25
03-28-2012, 09:21 AM
No scrubber on the baby clownfish tanks. That isn't even possible. A pump or overflow box would kill the babies quickly. All you can have in the tanks is a sponge filter/air pump and a heater and LOTS of cleaning/water changes, which adds up quickly. Went through a box of 200G worth of salt in just a month.

Floyd R Turbo
03-28-2012, 02:20 PM
Couldn't you draw the water out, slowly, through a sponge filter into a sump or adjacent tank with the same water level, then run the scrubber on the sump? What I'm thinking is something with enough flow to suck through the sponge filter and pump that to the second tank, and the second tank would gravity drain back to the main tank. Second tank would not even have to be that big. For that matter it could be an HOB type of system with the HOB just being the reservoir for the scrubber pump and return which would mostly cycle the water in it through the scrubber and the HOB feed pump would slowly change the water in the reservoir.

Ace25
03-28-2012, 03:59 PM
The sponge filters I have can only have an airline plugged into it. If I turn the valve up all the way on the air pump the force just from the air blows the clowfish all over the tank. The flow is too strong, just with a single air line if it isn't restricted.

Just to give you an idea how slowly things need to happen, it takes me 4 hours to change 5G of water because I have to slowly drip the water back into the tank. I tried just taking bad water out and dumping good water in (which I read not to do, but I had to try it myself) and sure enough, it caused 10 babies to die within the hour. When I slow drip water changes I don't have any deaths. They are so super sensitive at this stage to water parameter changes, even making the water "good" quickly leads to negative issues. No way a HOB filter would work for this application, even the smallest HOB filter is way to strong. Look at your pinky fingernail.. and then imagine the clownfish are smaller than that, and not developed enough to swim good. They change from the face to tail, face turns orange first, tail takes a week or 2 after the face turns orange until the tail gets the "clownfish looking tail" vs the tad pole looking tail, and that is when the 3rd stripe starts to form at the base of the tail.

Link to sponge filters I am using. They are pretty tiny compared to the large ones I see for ponds. About 3" in diameter. The riser tube you see in the picture, that is as tall as it is.. 2" tall and 1/2 the diameter if a standard under gravel filter tube (I bought a tube thinking I could extend it to the surface, the under gravel riser tube I bought was way to big in diameter.)
http://www.marinedepot.com/Ista_Hydro_Bio_Sponge_Filter_Air_Driven_Filters-Ista-AZ83147-FWFRITAD-vi.html

Floyd R Turbo
03-28-2012, 04:08 PM
I hear what you're saying but creating a flow through an HOB using one of those super tiny new eheim compact pumps with the adjustable valve sucking through the sponge and pushing that into an HOB or a separate tank, really really slowly, and having that gravity drain or dump back into the main tank, really really slowly, I would think that would work. Even if you had an overflow in the tank and covered it with something to prevent the babies from going through it like Poret foam, and still only put a really low flow through it to a separate large water volume tank, I think you would be able to make it happen. The key is having the separate tank above or on the same level as the breeder tank so that it gravity feeds and the pump in the tank doesn't cause a siphon, and a lower reservoir tank would not work as you would have a push-pull 2 pump system and that won't work. I'll see if I can draw something up, maybe I'm missing something but I see no reason why a low-flow pump on the sponge wouldn't work.

Ace25
03-28-2012, 04:11 PM
How would you suck water out an air tubing line for the sponge filter? Only thing I can think of that is made for that purpose is an Aqualifter.

Also, that wouldn't solve the main issue, which is a ton of food laying on the ground spoiling. That is the reason I have to do so many water changes.. the food falls to the floor and starts to get "fuzzy" like mold looking if left for more than a day.

Food after 24 hours. Getting ready to clean it up right now. (It is all orange looking food, it gets white/moldy when it spoils)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7043/6879118552_4d9c3b1c6d_z.jpg

Edit: There is obviously an easier/cheaper method than the way I am doing it.. use MUCH SMALLER TANKS. No need for a 29G for the tiny babies, and no need for a 10G for 2 babies. I could have partitioned the 10G 3x and it would have been fine for what I am doing and I would have used 1/5th the salt so far.

Floyd R Turbo
03-28-2012, 04:43 PM
LOL I hear ya there, but you do with what you can when something like this happens, right?!?!

The sponge filter wouldn't have the water sucked through the airline. The bubbles out of the airline create updraft which pulls water through it (not telling you anything you don't already know here just explaining) so you would get rid of the airstone/line and plug a pump intake right on to the large plastic tube, then the outlet of that pump goes to the remote tank, which then drains back into the breeder tank.

Taking your above pic into consideration, and using the aqualifter concept (didn't think of using one of those...) you could use an aqualifter to siphon off the food/waste into a filter sock in the remote tank, thereby not changing the water volume, then you pull and change the filter sock. Then the remote tank you make a huge reservoir compared to the breeder tank. Like you said, probably a 5g tank would have done the job to house the clowns, then the reservoir could be say a 40 breeder, then you could set that tank up on a constant water change system too or something like that if the scrubber wasn't enough.

I'm trying to think of a way to reduce your need for PWCs that you need to do because you can't use a scrubber, but with a remote tank system you would and therefore no PWCs or at least less reliance on them.

Heck I could build a one-piece tank system out of acrylic for something like this, sounds pretty cool actually...

scrubit
03-28-2012, 05:15 PM
i've been using two 10gal tanks, both like the one in the pictures to raise bangaii cardinal fry. Both are on very simple scrubbers made from $5 plastic trash cans. The pump is controlled by a ball valve, and the suction thru the plastic canvas is very minimal. I've seen the tiny fry swim right by the canvas with no problem...flow in the tank is very low. Each tank has a couple pieces of rock from my main sump that had plenty of pods, snails etc to work on left over food. The first tank was set up about 4 months ago and i feed the fry 5-6 times a day, and not one water change has been needed in that time...
Don't have any experience with clowns, but for what its worth these setups are working great for cardinals

Ace25
03-28-2012, 08:32 PM
Thanks for the tips. Looking at the pictures I think clownfish fry would easily go through standard plastic screen if used as a barrier between the pump and tank. If you put some filter bag material over the mesh that would work. The biggest difference between clowns and bangaii is that bangaii grow up in the fathers mouth and get to a sufficient size where they can handle the flow when they leave dad. With clowns they come right from the eggs and have to fend for themselves from the first second of birth. I think it would take about 1 month before the clownfish get to a comparable size to bangaii's.

I will say I do envy you, Bangaii's were the fish I REALLY wanted to breed because of their endangered status. But one of the turning points for me trying the clowns was when I read that our hobby has actually OVER harvested clowns from the wild in the last couple years. I really don't like our hobby having any real negative effect on the oceans, to me one of the education parts of this hobby is learning and practicing conservation. So since clown fish, even common ocellaris, are being harmed by our hobby I thought I would do my part and try and give back a hardy fish that will benefit the hobby.

(Old article but recent news I have seen, but can't seen to find on google right this second, has stated the problem has only gotten worse in recent years)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2008/07/demand-for-nemo.html

My setup was certainly "fly by night" though, but so are most of my "first" projects. My LED experimenting, ATS's, etc etc.. so while I don't plan on continuing to breed any new clowns for the rest of this year, I have learned some valuable methods and thought of quite a few ideas on how to incorporate and build a proper "breeders station" that has everything from multiple tanks/partitions to sections for growing and easily harvesting rotifers and phyto. So while I may not use any of these filtration methods you guys are mentioning on my current setup, I am listening and taking notes for ideas when I do build a better setup so I appreciate ALL the comments.

I just counted all my babies now that they are big enough to get an accurate count. The total today is ..... "the answer to everything". :D See if there are any geeks here that know what that means. Google will give you the answer quickly, just curious if anyone knows the answer without googling it first. ;)

Floyd R Turbo
03-29-2012, 08:18 AM
42!!!

scrubit
03-29-2012, 08:53 AM
Thanks for the tips. Looking at the pictures I think clownfish fry would easily go through standard plastic screen if used as a barrier between the pump and tank. If you put some filter bag material over the mesh that would work. The biggest difference between clowns and bangaii is that bangaii grow up in the fathers mouth and get to a sufficient size where they can handle the flow when they leave dad. With clowns they come right from the eggs and have to fend for themselves from the first second of birth. I think it would take about 1 month before the clownfish get to a comparable size to bangaii's.

I will say I do envy you, Bangaii's were the fish I REALLY wanted to breed because of their endangered status. But one of the turning points for me trying the clowns was when I read that our hobby has actually OVER harvested clowns from the wild in the last couple years. I really don't like our hobby having any real negative effect on the oceans, to me one of the education parts of this hobby is learning and practicing conservation. So since clown fish, even common ocellaris, are being harmed by our hobby I thought I would do my part and try and give back a hardy fish that will benefit the hobby.

(Old article but recent news I have seen, but can't seen to find on google right this second, has stated the problem has only gotten worse in recent years)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2008/07/demand-for-nemo.html

My setup was certainly "fly by night" though, but so are most of my "first" projects. My LED experimenting, ATS's, etc etc.. so while I don't plan on continuing to breed any new clowns for the rest of this year, I have learned some valuable methods and thought of quite a few ideas on how to incorporate and build a proper "breeders station" that has everything from multiple tanks/partitions to sections for growing and easily harvesting rotifers and phyto. So while I may not use any of these filtration methods you guys are mentioning on my current setup, I am listening and taking notes for ideas when I do build a better setup so I appreciate ALL the comments.

I just counted all my babies now that they are big enough to get an accurate count. The total today is ..... "the answer to everything". :D See if there are any geeks here that know what that means. Google will give you the answer quickly, just curious if anyone knows the answer without googling it first. ;)

Fly by night for sure, as you can see by my pictures!:) Didn't occur to me that the cardinal fry are a bit more mature when they arrive, they are so tiny. Having a scrubber on the fry tank was the only way i would do it...without one the constant water changes and water quality issues would wear me out in no time.

Ace25
04-04-2012, 03:29 PM
Few more videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-dbXYTd6BA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maezufOMEo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jfzoiKCcG0

joelespinoza
04-05-2012, 10:10 AM
Well if you are willing to ship them I would CERTAINLY take some off your hands. If you dont want payment for them I could at least pay for shipping...

joelespinoza
04-05-2012, 12:07 PM
Get a divider for the 10 gallon tank, just a solid piece of plexi, drill a handfull of holes (5-10 maybe) with the smallest drill bit you can get, then put the pump pickup (going to an ATS) and return on one side and put the clownfish babies on the other. Even passive diffusion should be plenty of watermovement without causing any significant turbulance on the side with the babies. You could even add 2 dividers, with the pump pickup and return in the middle and different hatches on each side.

For cleaning the bottom get a handful of Narcissus snails or some small shrimp like these guys: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/th_GulfShrimp.jpg (http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/?action=view&current=GulfShrimp.mp4)

The shrimp in that video are going a bit nuts because they just got thrown in the tank, from the Gulf of Mexico, without any acclimation. But normally they are very calm, they seem to basically be the saltwater version of freshwater ghost shrimp. They seem to work good as a clean up crew or lunch for larger fish =)

Ace25
04-05-2012, 03:28 PM
Thanks for the tips, those are very helpful and I will probably use that method next time. Ya, I tried a few astrea and cerith snails in the tanks, unfortunately they don't eat anything I want them to eat but I had a feeling that would be the case. I agree, nassarius snails are probably the correct snail to use to clean up the food, but my only worry is if they can't bury themselves like they normally do, will they end up eating the baby clownfish when they go to sleep? The clowns seem to all huddle up into a ball in a corner when they sleep and seems like they would be easy pickings for a nassarius snail to eat during the night.

joelespinoza
04-05-2012, 04:07 PM
Thanks for the tips, those are very helpful and I will probably use that method next time. Ya, I tried a few astrea and cerith snails in the tanks, unfortunately they don't eat anything I want them to eat but I had a feeling that would be the case. I agree, nassarius snails are probably the correct snail to use to clean up the food, but my only worry is if they can't bury themselves like they normally do, will they end up eating the baby clownfish when they go to sleep? The clowns seem to all huddle up into a ball in a corner when they sleep and seems like they would be easy pickings for a nassarius snail to eat during the night.

I have never seen any signs of Nassarius snails going after anything alive... If you are worried about it, feed the babies some Nutri Mar Prawn Roe, I bet the babies will love it and Nassarius snails go CRAZY for that stuff. If you feed them some of that, there is almost no chance they will eat anything else.

Also I dont see why you could not have a thin (1/4-1/2") layer of fine sand in the bottom. It would probably help with the detritus and give the bacteria more surface area.

BTW if anyone has a ton of Nassarius snails snails in your tank, at least once you have to get some prawn roe to feed them, my girlfriend giggles everytime we feed it to the tank, because they all come up so fast it looks like the snail version of night of the living dead.

kerry
04-06-2012, 06:15 AM
Nassarius will take live if the opportunity arises. I have seen mine try to get my sleeping wrasse while he was in his hole in the live rock.

Ace25
04-09-2012, 10:21 PM
Updated video from tonight -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAeLKmFFxYQ

Ace25
04-16-2012, 08:49 PM
35 days old. -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlhfHhJt-f8

kotlec
04-17-2012, 02:24 AM
Ace,

Thats really awesome . Nice family :)

Ace25
04-17-2012, 07:30 AM
They are certainly coming along and starting to show some personality. There are a couple "shy" guys that like to stay away from the rest and stay on the other end of the tank. I will say this, this adventure was waaaaay more work that I was expecting, and about 100x the cost I was expecting. These are going to be some very expensive clownfish, looking right now at around $40 per clown just going off what I have spent and how many I have. Of course that is all my fault, not doing enough research, not having proper breeding tanks setup, not raising any more batches right now, etc. If I were a clownfish hatchery and did this right, I am sure I could get them down to 5cents each. Oh well... I am still going to give them all away for free. It was never about making any $, it was always about the learning experience for me, which for me the education was worth the $ I spent.

joelespinoza
04-17-2012, 03:30 PM
They are certainly coming along and starting to show some personality. There are a couple "shy" guys that like to stay away from the rest and stay on the other end of the tank. I will say this, this adventure was waaaaay more work that I was expecting, and about 100x the cost I was expecting. These are going to be some very expensive clownfish, looking right now at around $40 per clown just going off what I have spent and how many I have. Of course that is all my fault, not doing enough research, not having proper breeding tanks setup, not raising any more batches right now, etc. If I were a clownfish hatchery and did this right, I am sure I could get them down to 5cents each. Oh well... I am still going to give them all away for free. It was never about making any $, it was always about the learning experience for me, which for me the education was worth the $ I spent.

I saw a post on RC about a chick who had a anemone tank with 20+ clownfish. Was pretty badass, and apparently you can only do that if they are raised together.

kotlec
04-18-2012, 11:05 AM
Put away all $$$
You have initiated new lives to come to this world ! That's invaluable.

Ace25
04-19-2012, 06:07 PM
Got an issue and I am not sure what is going on. Fish are ok. Last 2 days the water has gotten very very cloudy and green (like a bacteria bloom + phyto bloom). I have no idea why. This never happened before. I did a 50% water change on the 29G yesterday and today it is worse. I even put in a bag of purigen this morning and took out another 10G and "swapped" the water with water out of my 60G (because I ran out of salt). I have put in 10ml of Amquel+ as well to detoxify any ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. Nothing seems to be helping. The only thing I can think of is last weekend I did a good cleaning on the tank and removed all the cyano that was growing on the walls (thick sheets). Maybe the cyano was doing a lot of filtering and when I removed it the problem arose. I am just confused by why the water is green, I am not putting anything green into the tank, there is nothing in the tank other than a heater and sponge filter, and the food that goes in is red. There is no algae growing anywhere but the tank looks like a phyto culture at this point.

I think my plan of action tonight is to try and do a 90% water change and do it between my 2 reef tanks. Take out 25G and put 10G in my 60G and 15G into my 75G. The 10G water change I did earlier seemed to feed the corals in my 60G (judging by the coral polyp reaction), and both my tanks have mature screens (and full, Saturday will be day 14 between cleanings) so the filtration in my reef tanks should be able to handle any possible issues (like ammonia, but I don't think there is any with the amquel I put in, plus the fish seem fine and not having ammonia related issues). My corals should all feed on whatever it is in the water as well. The 29G is just looking so bad I know I have to do something about it tonight or else bad things may happen by morning.

Any guesses, no matter how silly they may sound? One thing is for certain, next time I try this I will definitely be using some type of filtration setup like the others have posted in this thread.

Edit: Just did a 75% water change, now I have 3 cloudy tanks. Even diluting the clown tank 75% and filling with clear water it still has a very noticeable green tint. My corals are loving it in my other tanks though but it is going to take a few hours to filter through all that nasty water. At least I can see the back of the tank now, it was so bad I could only see 9" into the water, tank is 18" deep.

kotlec
04-20-2012, 01:09 AM
If all happened fast , then this can lead to answer. What in tank can breed that fast ? Bad bacteria ? If so what can help ? good bacteria?
May be something else can increase that fast , but bacteria is fastest I know .

Garf
04-20-2012, 04:05 AM
Got an issue and I am not sure what is going on. Fish are ok. Last 2 days the water has gotten very very cloudy and green (like a bacteria bloom + phyto bloom). I have no idea why. This never happened before. I did a 50% water change on the 29G yesterday and today it is worse. I even put in a bag of purigen this morning and took out another 10G and "swapped" the water with water out of my 60G (because I ran out of salt). I have put in 10ml of Amquel+ as well to detoxify any ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. Nothing seems to be helping. The only thing I can think of is last weekend I did a good cleaning on the tank and removed all the cyano that was growing on the walls (thick sheets). Maybe the cyano was doing a lot of filtering and when I removed it the problem arose. I am just confused by why the water is green, I am not putting anything green into the tank, there is nothing in the tank other than a heater and sponge filter, and the food that goes in is red. There is no algae growing anywhere but the tank looks like a phyto culture at this point.

I think my plan of action tonight is to try and do a 90% water change and do it between my 2 reef tanks. Take out 25G and put 10G in my 60G and 15G into my 75G. The 10G water change I did earlier seemed to feed the corals in my 60G (judging by the coral polyp reaction), and both my tanks have mature screens (and full, Saturday will be day 14 between cleanings) so the filtration in my reef tanks should be able to handle any possible issues (like ammonia, but I don't think there is any with the amquel I put in, plus the fish seem fine and not having ammonia related issues). My corals should all feed on whatever it is in the water as well. The 29G is just looking so bad I know I have to do something about it tonight or else bad things may happen by morning.

Any guesses, no matter how silly they may sound? One thing is for certain, next time I try this I will definitely be using some type of filtration setup like the others have posted in this thread.

Edit: Just did a 75% water change, now I have 3 cloudy tanks. Even diluting the clown tank 75% and filling with clear water it still has a very noticeable green tint. My corals are loving it in my other tanks though but it is going to take a few hours to filter through all that nasty water. At least I can see the back of the tank now, it was so bad I could only see 9" into the water, tank is 18" deep.

ACE25 - SILLY ANSWER No. 1 - can you get your hands on live rotifers. Seems as though they eat both phyto and bacteria. Your fish are too big to bother with them and after seeing how quick they can clear a phyto culture, they might do the trick on your rearing tank, plus give you some rotifers for your next brood. I would however point out that I have no experience in raising fry.

Ace25
04-20-2012, 04:12 PM
Ya, it seemed like it was a combo 1-2 punch of a bloom of both phyto and bacteria. The tank is about 50% cloudy today, still looks terrible. Clowns are all being VERY active today though and are swimming all over the tank. First time they have moved away from the surface and in a corner since they got all their color and stripes. I am thinking I could put a HOB filter on the tank now with fine mesh bag around the intake of the filter, and set on low. I have a Rena Smartfilter for a 30G tank that I can use.

The lighting is just too intense over the 29G tank. I have a 2x 24w T5HO fixture with a 10k and actinic in it and it is resting on a piece of glass directly on top of the tank. My 10G has a 13w CFL fixture (coralife, made for a sump) and it is hung about 12" above the tank and I have 0 issues with the tank. No cyano at all, just a little bacteria from the food that settles on the ground but the water is crystal clear. There is only 2 babies in that one though vs 40 in my other one. I am just going to do daily 50% water changes with water out of my other tanks until my salt order arrives, it doesn't seem to negatively affect my reef tanks, the opposite actually, so everything gets a helping hand by doing the water changes between tanks.

Still not quite sure where the phyto came from though. I had put a tiny amount in the first week when I was feeding live rotifers, but since then nothing and I have done a lot of water changes since then. Rotifers that were in the tank at anything that was there, and it has been rotifer and phyto free for at least 3 weeks now.

Garf - I did have a rotifer culture going for a couple months. I went through a lot of phyto and saltwater in that time. The cost of maintaining everything the way I had done it was not going to work for me which is why I stopped catching the babies. The parent clowns have laid and hatched 3 more batches since the ones I have in the videos but I have just let them go. They were laying eggs for many years before I started catching them so I am not worried about it. So the short answer, I don't have any live rotifers anymore, and there is no place locally I can get a cup full, and I don't want to order anymore online at this time, so for now I am going to use other methods to clear the tank... but thanks for the suggestion, it is a workable solution to fix the issue.

Garf
04-20-2012, 04:57 PM
I would like to say "good luck", but I think it should be "good biology". Surely there is a predator to consume your bloom. Are you planning on nuking your water with chemicals?

Ace25
04-20-2012, 05:19 PM
I would like to say "good luck", but I think it should be "good biology". Surely there is a predator to consume your bloom. Are you planning on nuking your water with chemicals?
No, I plan on nuking the water with corals. ;) Doing water changes between my tanks, taking 50% of the green water out of the clown tank, then filling back up with water out of my reef tanks, then putting the green water into my reef tanks. I just need to do that a couple more times. The corals will eat both the bacteria and phyto and so will any small pods in the reef tanks, which there are many. I also have a bunch of live rock, I can toss a few pieces in the clown tank (which I have been debating the last couple days) to add to the filtration.. well.. create some filtration because there really isn't much to speak of right now. I will put on a HOB filter as well so hopefully it is cleared up by the end of the weekend.

Garf
04-20-2012, 05:23 PM
Biological magic!

joelespinoza
04-21-2012, 07:59 AM
No, I plan on nuking the water with corals. ;) Doing water changes between my tanks, taking 50% of the green water out of the clown tank, then filling back up with water out of my reef tanks, then putting the green water into my reef tanks. I just need to do that a couple more times. The corals will eat both the bacteria and phyto and so will any small pods in the reef tanks, which there are many. I also have a bunch of live rock, I can toss a few pieces in the clown tank (which I have been debating the last couple days) to add to the filtration.. well.. create some filtration because there really isn't much to speak of right now. I will put on a HOB filter as well so hopefully it is cleared up by the end of the weekend.

Sounds like a plan to me, phyto springs up on me from time to time. If I clean both my algae screens at once (instead of a week apart) I often get a small phyto bloom, I just recently got a terrible one when I cleaned both at once (had to take apart the scrubber and get out about 30 snails....) and the next day I added all the livestock, rock and sand from a mature 25 gallon reef tank. Even though neither tank had any detectable N or P before (or after) I dumped everything into my 55 I had a HUGE phyto explosion, I could not see 6" into the tank for days, I could not even arrange the new critters because visibility was so terrible. That was like a week ago, even with leaving my display lights off for 2 days, shortening the timing after that, and turning off the sump lighting, my water is still slightly cloudy with it.

Anyway, sometimes it clearly grabs a foothold in the smallest of circumstances (possibly scraping off existing algae) and then can quickly bloom before it burns itself out.

Ace25
04-25-2012, 02:00 PM
44 days old today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v52lpcE6XFs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0kuynraA6s

Found the only solution I could do for my phyto bloom, 100% waterchange. I tried up to 90% and it doesn't help, 24 hours later it is thick green again (which is to be expected, when you grow phyto/rotifers your supposed to replace 50% of the water daily). My 75G tank seemed to suck up 25G worth of "phyto" water over night. I did a water change at midnight with that tank, couldn't see into the tank at all when I did it, by 6am the tank was clear so it cleaned up the phyto quickly.

Ace25
05-06-2012, 12:18 PM
54 days old:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hNAwVi7zTQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w46_HXC6qC4

First pair at 76 days old, now 82 days old today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4bJ3GrbYx0

Garf
05-06-2012, 01:10 PM
Are they old enough to be considered a success yet, or are there still challenges ahead? Congratulations, this must have been stressful to the max. Are you gonna do this again?

Ace25
05-06-2012, 01:30 PM
They are old enough to be called a success. Once they eat normal food is when you know your out of the woods, and they are eating spectrum pellets and frozen cyclops now.

Stressful, ya, and expensive. I won't be doing this again for quite a while. I got it all out of my system for now, but I learned quite a bit so the next time I decide to do this, years from now, I will be able to setup a nice breeder setup and hopefully by then there will be a lot of new breakthroughs in breeding other types of fish like dwarf angels and leopard wrasses.

Ace25
05-27-2012, 09:33 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il2IH49QN9o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onn7KLnpdh8

mangobusa83
05-29-2012, 04:15 AM
so when are you selling some of those babies...and will u ship?

kerry
05-29-2012, 07:39 AM
Very nice job!!

Ace25
05-30-2012, 05:34 PM
so when are you selling some of those babies...and will u ship?
Unfortunately I don't see it to be cost effective to ship them. If someone was local and wanted some they are free to grab as many (within reason) as they want for their personal tanks. Even if the fish are free, I just don't think it is worth it for most people to spend $40 shipping fish that would cost the same at a local fish store, on top of having to worry about shipping stress. The only thing going for my fish is if someone really wanted a fish that they know the exact birthday of, I have that (which is rare to know the day a saltwater fish was born).

Ace25
09-06-2012, 06:47 PM
Just wanted to give a 'finally' to this thread. Since trying to give away 40+ clowns to locals was impossible (not that many locals, and even fewer that wanted normal clowns because most people that want them already have them) I traded 1/2 of the clowns to a LFS for store credit. I got a couple bucks each in store credit which didn't come close to the $1200 I spent to raise them, but I knew going in I would never come close to recouping my $, I always considered the $ was spent for the learning experience, not to make a profit, which I immediately used to stock up on food. Most of the other 1/2 went to locals, gave away the last dozen at a local frag swap a couple months ago. I ended up keeping 5 for myself and I put them in my 75G (away from the parents so there were no problems). They spent a few weeks in the top corner of my tank but last week they finally discovered my Duncan colony and have called it home ever since. The 2 largest have been fighting it out for dominance it seems while the other 3 just hide on the other side of the coral away from the fighting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5yG4FzfUrc

sklywag
09-06-2012, 08:23 PM
Very cool. One looks like a mis-bar. Those are becoming or were popular. There seems to be so many types now.

Speaking of types. I saw these and bought them for some reason. Made an offer to the guy and he said yes. $27 for the pair. It's a little mom n' pop shop about to close. No business. Although you only see one in video the other hangs out in some mushrooms. This one moves back and forth. They too like yours are fighting for position. I have a pair of regular clowns too. I tend to like them better than all the others for some reason. I have done a search and can't find any like these.
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/th_clowns001.jpg (http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/?action=view&current=clowns001.mp4)

Ace25
09-06-2012, 08:26 PM
From the little I can see, yours looks like a clarkii clownfish.

Garf
09-07-2012, 08:12 AM
Ace, what a great vid, looks like there dancing to the music, posers !!

Ace25
09-07-2012, 11:28 PM
LOL, I had to watch it again to see that.. some reason I didn't catch the dancing the first time. I am weird, I always think my fish like classical type music, they seem to 'dance' to that in my eyes, not techno. I am always getting laughed at for my selection of 'youtube' music so I thought I would pick something different with this video. This vid was taken with a 720p webcam instead of my cheap old camera I used for all my other videos. Actually the camera cost $500 back in 2001, but by todays standards a $30 webcam beats it for videos. So if you click the gear button on the bottom right and pick 720p and the box icon next to it to make it full screen it actually looks somewhat decent on my 22" monitor.

Ace25
02-17-2013, 03:59 AM
Last year I said I wouldn't do this again, but I got the itch again to raise some more fish and since my Orangespotted filefish aren't showing any mating signs yet it will have to be another batch of clownfish. Eggs were laid on Feb 7th. New batch of babies should hatch in the next 2 nights. Got a new rotifer culture started a few days ago so they will be ready at hatch time.

So here is the start of round 2 of raising clownfish. :)

Very fat momma minutes before she started laying the eggs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ish104kxo

Not so fat momma and irritated anemone from her laying the eggs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkuMkWPKkD0

WannaRace
02-17-2013, 11:53 AM
Ace, this is awesome.

I am sharing the experience with you. My clowns just laid their 3rd batch yesterday. No luck rearing them yet without live rots. I'm trying rotifeast this time so we shall see what happens. I just want one! Is that too much to ask? :-) I've got everything else I need, just lack the culturing station.

Ace25
02-17-2013, 01:00 PM
We will see if I got lucky the first time, but I found rearing the babies incredibly easy. As soon as they hatch I put the babies in their own tank and dump in a ton of rotifers and a little phyto. They normally don't eat the first 24-48 hours after hatch but I want the food in their face as soon as they start eating.

My rotifer station consists of 2 5G buckets and some air stones. I put in about 1/2 million rotifers per bucket and feed 4ml of RGFeast 2x a day. I have 4G of 1.019 saltwater in each bucket and after the initial 3 day wait to let them grow, I start taking 1G out of each bucket a day and filter it through a coffee filter to catch the rotifers then dip the filter in the babies tank, then replace the 1G I took out with new water @ 1.019. Every 7 days I will take out the remaining 3G and put that in a different container so I can scrub the buckets clean and then put them back in with another gallon of new water.

I initially tried raising a batch off of frozen/refrigerated/dried food, unfortunately it didn't work out. I just don't think it is possible to raise babies off of Rotifeast or any other non-living foods during the first 2-3 weeks of life. I don't think they have enough nutrition to get babies to the meta phase (when they start coloring up/getting stripes). Once they reach meta then they can eat rotifeast, OTO pellets, etc, but it is the first 2-3 weeks that they need live food from my experience.

Ace25
02-18-2013, 09:32 AM
Babies hatched last night.. Caught around 20 or so. I want to keep my numbers lower this time so I can raise them in a 10G instead of a 29G so water changes are a lot cheaper.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARQEDcwSm88


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb1bD0_DttM

Floyd R Turbo
02-22-2013, 08:00 AM
Got that rotifer culture ready to go??

Ace25
02-22-2013, 08:12 AM
The white 'cloud' in the tank is probably a million rotifers so I think the rotifer culture is going strong. ;)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZzfJ_Jz8mw

Parents laying another batch of eggs tonight.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmqtfy63YNU

WannaRace
02-25-2013, 07:11 PM
Lights out. I'm waiting for mine to hatch any minute now..

WannaRace
02-25-2013, 08:45 PM
Well I would estimate I transferred about 60 babies to quarantine. Tomorrow I'll give them their first heavy feeding of (non-live) rotifers and see how they take to it. If this batch doesn't work out, then I am going to culture live rotifers for the next one.

Ace25
02-26-2013, 03:34 PM
Good luck.. I didn't have any using 'dead' food when I tried but whose to say you won't be the first. If it is possible with any saltwater fish, clownfish have to be the ones that will do it. :)

Here are mine at 1 week old. (make sure to click the gear icon to change the resolution to 720p, even then there are limits to how good of video an iPod Touch can take, ie. no macro mode)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ZuFg3RWFk

WannaRace
03-02-2013, 10:37 AM
Well day 4 and I've got none left. Ace, where did you initially buy your phyto cultures and rotifers? I don't want to spend a huge amount, I just want to be successful at this once.

Ace25
03-02-2013, 10:56 AM
Rotifers. I ordered 1 million and split the bag 50/50 into 2 5G buckets.
http://www.reedmariculture.com/product_instant_zooplankton.html#l-typerotifer

Rotifer food.
http://apbreed.com/product_rgcomplete.html

How To: I add 4ml 2x a day per 4G in a 5G bucket. Harvest 25% every day (I filter out 1G of water in a coffee filter and replace with fresh 1.019 water, then rinse the coffee filter out in whatever tank I feel needs the rotifers)
http://www.reedmariculture.com/support_rotifers_culturing.html

Here are my babies at 13 days old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvte3QgK8mQ

Raimond
03-05-2013, 09:05 PM
Awesome thread. I just added 10 young clowns to my tank from a breeder.
Subbed for educational value...

Ace25
03-05-2013, 09:19 PM
Day 15 update, lost 1 that didn't make it through the meta phase, the rest are now eating OTO pellets (A and B1).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC5msTLgN0Y

The new batch that hatched yesterday.. I was supposed to put an airstone full blast on the eggs and I didn't (seemed like I was going to harm the eggs when it was on full blast) which I think led to half of them suffocating before they hatched. They were the ones not exposed to being blasted by bubbles. Live and learn.. still have quite a bit, too hard to really count right now though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pmLHVm0PIA

Ace25
03-18-2013, 03:39 PM
3rd batch hatched last night. It is the biggest collection I have ever got out of a hatch. I used a hose this time to siphon them out. 1st batch, using turkey baster, I got around 25 babies. 2nd batch I attempted to pull the rock out that had the eggs the night of the hatch and I messed up somehow and only got 11 babies to survive, most didn't hatch. I am just trying to refine my methods now to get the best success rate, and it seems sucking them out with a hose is the best method.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEv6N0b2q8c

WannaRace
03-19-2013, 09:37 AM
I've heard siphoning them is the best method as well, Ace.

What I've had luck with is shining a flashlight from the top down near the water line, causing the babies to swim up, and then scooping them out with a measuring cup. This way they are never exposed to open air, all while using the water to fill up the nursery tank.

Ace25
03-24-2013, 10:37 PM
Batch 3 - Day 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biBnYWhcM6Q

Batch 1 - Day 34

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjNsGvFcTtA

marineguy
04-02-2013, 08:10 PM
Ace, what are you feeding them on at day 6?

Ace25
04-02-2013, 09:27 PM
Day 6 is still rotifers.. day 7 I start to add a tiny pinch of OTO-A, and ween them off rotifers between day 7-14. Usually days 12-14 is when they go through meta, get their color and head stripe comes in, and from that point on they eat only dried foods, OTO-B1 for weeks 2-3, mix in OTO-B2 between week 3-4, and by week 4 they are eating OTO-B2 and Spectrum small fish pellets.

Here is a video from yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIJjYIjm2jc

Video of the BIG batch that I just took, 15 days old, top down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAOH4S212k

Ace25
04-21-2013, 04:36 PM
Update. Moved all of them into 1 tank once they got old enough to not kill each other.. then dummy me thought they were strong enough to handle a small powerhead and woke up the next morning to half a dozen dead ones stuck to it.. live and learn. I gave away 4 so far to someone from Los Angeles last week (along with about $1000 worth of corals for free).

Be sure to press the Gear Icon on the bottom once you hit play to pick 720p to see detail in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2XSMshBMDA