Clownfish Breeding!

[ThatDarnDragon]

wow, been over a year or so since I posted. Hi all

anyway, my 10 gal nano is going great, not counting the times where my clowns of 2 years has been killing every fish i try to put in.. but thats ok, they're very territorial.

well, previous weekend, I discovered my Ethel (female ocelleris clown) was looking rather.. fat. A few days observation, I discovered she's full of eggs. Whee!! She's well rounded, eh?

Well, I decided to try my hand at raising fry. It'll be a challenge, but it'll be fun in the long run. I will need your help getting me through the first try or so.

What I've done so far:

Ripped down my 5 gal saltwater tank, and will give it a heavy duty cleaning and prepare it for the fry. There will be no filter, sand or rocks in it.. it will only have a heater and a wood airstone. Im planning on connecting the main and fry tank together to share water (I posted this on the hardware section, asking how to do this..)

I've placed a terra cotta pot in the parent's tank, hopefully they will lay there.

And I've ordered a Rotifer/polyplankton kit to grow my own fry food.

When all this is set up, I should be ready for the 3rd or 4th batch of eggs. Im excited. Tips, advice, help of any sort is appreciated!

Oh, here's a few videos to enjoy, they're preparing! Photobucket ruined the quality of the video.. sorry!
http/smg.photobucket.com/albums/v251/tha...nt=P6260002.flv
http/smg.photobucket.com/albums/v251/tha...nt=P6260004.flv

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow awesome, congrats on the breeding . If I may suggest for the fry tank, use a sponge filter as these won't gobble up the fry and still offer filtration. I'd also add a little LR rubble to the tank to get some good bacteria in there. If you do connect it to your display tank via a sump-type system, make sure you do it with an exceptionally low flowrate, and cover any drain lines, or powerheads with foam.

 

[ThatDarnDragon]

Wow awesome, congrats on the breeding . If I may suggest for the fry tank, use a sponge filter as these won't gobble up the fry and still offer filtration. I'd also add a little LR rubble to the tank to get some good bacteria in there. If you do connect it to your display tank via a sump-type system, make sure you do it with an exceptionally low flowrate, and cover any drain lines, or powerheads with foam.

I didnt even think about a sponge filter.

Im not trying to cut corners, but Im trying to make things easier where I can do water changes less frequently, not every single day. I will look into the sponge filter as opposed to connecting the tanks.

 

[kkyyllee]

dont connect it to the main system, youll need to do lots of water changes and it would end up screwing up ur main tank. set up the sponge filter in ur main tank for a few days to get bacteria in it built up, i wouldnt add sand it would make cleaning hard

 

[ThatDarnDragon]

dont connect it to the main system, youll need to do lots of water changes and it would end up screwing up ur main tank. set up the sponge filter in ur main tank for a few days to get bacteria in it built up, i wouldnt add sand it would make cleaning hard

there will be no sand or LR, I dont want to injure the fry in any way. good idea bout the filter.

now to wait to make sure she DOES lay, lol

 

[SkiFletch]

Lol, well remember, if she does lay eggs, she'll continue to do so. Even if you're not ready for the first clutch, you'll have a chance at the later ones. So get that sponge filter going and cycled first

 

[Betta5]

What ever happened to them?

 

[littleme1969]

I see you mentioned an airstone. I though bubbles in a marine aquarium where a big no no ?

 

[kkyyllee]

air stones just cause horrible salt creep, and can lower the ph of water

 

[littleme1969]

air stones just cause horrible salt creep, and can lower the ph of water

So i'm assuming the oxygen is just taken up from surface movement, Powerheads filters etc?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah but powerheads are very bad for baby larval clownfish... They'll suck them up real quick. Most successful clownfish rearing I've heard of used sponge filters as they're gentle, great bio filters, aerate the water, and don't cause too much salt creep.