Breeding Chromis

[gotteeguy]

Have chromis been bred in reef aquariums? My friend really likes blue/green chromis and has a 29 gallon fowlr tank set up just for them. He wants to know how easily they will breed and some other specifics?

 

[-Nemo-]

There have been many reports of chromis spawnings in home aquariums, but very little/no success in raising the fry. I believe the ongoing record is around 2 weeks?

Here's a picture of one which is 72 hours old, credit goes to Andy (Apologies, I forgot his last name )

If your friend would still like some more info, I can try to dig some up but it would be quite an uptaking!

 

[gotteeguy]

Thanks for the info. I'll show him this.

If his chromis did spawn, where would they lay eggs?
If he "dug" up the eggs, and I let him use my hang on refugium meant for fish fry, could they live? What usually kills them anyway?

Thanks.

 

[ben1987]

still next to no chance, its feeding them thats hard

 

[-Nemo-]

The larvae would have to be in a tank by themselves. The problem with chromis larvae is that they are exceptionally small when hatched. This leads to a problem which ben stated, it's hard to find a small enough food for them that they will eat.

Andy stated, "We only got them to day 10. They were eating a bit but we had trouble getting enough small nauplii in the larval tanks. But that said we've improved some things. Not sure when I'll get egg again. Most likely we will move to Sargent Majors as a model species to test out the plankton and rearing method."


As for where they lay, it seems they like to lay on the tank glass... But, Some where on rocks, while most reported having eggs on the back glass and on overflow boxes.

There is very, very little information on them.
They seem to spawn about every 13 Days
I could not find an incubation period...
Andy seems to have been feeding them copepod napule, which is how he got them to Day 10.

All I could find

 

[gotteeguy]

Thanks for the info.

My friend has "Kent Marine" phyto and zoo plankton bottles. Would these be small enough for them to eat if he hatched some?

 

[ben1987]

you would need gallons and gallons of it. Would cost a fortune, you need to culture youself.

 

[-Nemo-]

Not only what Ben said, but also it has to be live zooplankton. They will not eat dead or frozen or really anything other than live. The zooplankton also needs to be enriched which is another reason you need to culture it yourself. The zooplankton itself isn't very nutritious (unless it is newly hatched) it's what the zooplankton is fed that is what's nutritious for the larvae.

I go through about a gallon of rotifers every clownfish hatch, I would go through more, but I co-culture the rotifers with the larvae. Without co-culturing I would expect to go through at least 3 times more.

 

[gotteeguy]

Thats a lot!!!

I don't know if he has any plankton that he breeds..I'll check and see.

 

[ben1987]

why does he want to? it would be quite cool. But never in a million years could you make any money out of it. You would need to get into breeding fish of a higher value if you were to ever make anything

 

[gotteeguy]

Well, I guess you could sell the first tank raised chromis there ever was for quite a bit. I'm sure somebody would buy it. And when chromis get rare someday people will know how to breed them by following his steps. I guess this would be like the equivalent of the first man on the moon, but in the fish hobby?

 

[-Nemo-]

I can understand his interest in wanting to breed them. I've been there... Just expect to lose money but gain knowledge!

 

[ben1987]

nah sorry. dont mean to put you off but if you did manage it and theres a reason why its not done yet. Then people dont actually (99% of the time) care where a fish came from as long as its cheap. You might get an extra 20% for a tank raised fish but for a chromis thats pennys. Shops wont give you money either, and selling them yourself privatly means you dont earn top whack.
Theres no way you can make money from this, do it for the experience yeah, but just dont think you will make anything other than a loss. You would probaby be down a couple of hundred before you even had a fish at sale size, at which point you will sell it to either a reefer at a knock down price because thats what people expect when not buying from a shop. Or trade it in for store credit.

Theres a guy 10 miles from me with a 300 gallon tank and about 50 different breding tanks. he has about 14 pairs of regular clowns, which are more expensive and popular than chromis. He only gets salt buckets or store credit in return. He des it for the fun of it.