Iam a dad .. now what ?

[aliyesami]

I successfully collected a couple of hundred larvas of gold band maroon clown in my 90 gallon and transferred them to a rearing tank (10 gallon) where iam also culturing rotifers. This was last night i.e 24th aug .10 pm.

I covered the tank from all sides with black paper but i have few questions :

1- should I cover the top also ?
2- should I turn the lamp on or not and if yes at what times??
3- when can I uncover the sides of the rearing tank?
4- how do I clean the rotifer debris without killing the larve ?
5- how do I keep the nitrates n nitrites down in the tank since it has no bio filter and just air stones?


answers to any questions are higly welcome.

thanks
Sami

[tedr]

Go to the "Clown fish breeding log" post in this Forum and then go to the Houston club's link I posted. That link should answer all of your questions.

[aliyesami]

Thanks Tedr !
but can you answer one question here as i need to know urgently what should i do with the light .. i m reading at places that i should leave the light on ,which I didnt . should i turn to top light on now? the larve are about 14 hours old

[aliyesami]

I went to the Houstons link you provided but I cant find the information Iam looking for there , could you guide me specifically where on the site is this info? in forums? in private msgs? in articles?

thanks

[tedr]

Don't know what is going on with that link. I'm looking into it.

You need to leave a VERY low light over the larval tank. I use a night light, and wrap it with electrical tape so only the end is lit. The larvae are very sensitive to bright light, yet they need some light to feed on rotifers. They do not feed on the rotifers using sight at first, but literally run into to rotifers the first few days. Super load the larval tank with rotifers and put phyto in the tank for the fotifers to feed on. Also, do not completely fill the larval tank. In the 5g I use, I have about 1/3 of the tank filled. Less water volumn equals better opportunity for the larvae to find rotifers. Really need to get that article to you. It will help.

[Pugidogs]

As the book reads...you must have enough light so the larvae can see the rotifer. To much light will make the larvae go to the bottom of the tank. With the right amount of light and the larvae will be in the water column searching for food. Pugi

[aliyesami]

Thanks guys , my larve is doing good so far , survived one day with minimum loss.
I am keeping light low and they seem to be swimming all over the tank. I am keeping rotifers well fed and siphoning the tank clean .
my nitrates are a bit high though.


I also found this nice article

http://www.marshreef.com/files/raising_clownfish.doc

[aliyesami]

much of my larve is dead the second day. I am suspecting not healthy rotifers.
I have two questions regarding this :

1- I put the larve in the rotifer culture tank with air stones and I am reading that rotifers cant survive with air bubbles .
do rotifer culture tank need air stone ? how is it airated normally?

2- the rotifers came with instructions to put them in ph 7.0 but my tank ph is 7.8 , I was told by my LFS that saltwater cant be brought to ph 7.0.

any comments ?

[tedr]

Aliyesami, Go to the "clownfish log" in this forum. I just posted some suggestions regarding culturing rotifers. Basically, I'm suggesting not using just one rotifer culture tank, but possibly 4 - 5 containers. In other words, don't put all your eggs in one basket.
I would not suggest putting larvae in the rotifer culture. Everything I've read seems to indicate that rotifers are MUCH more tolerable than you may think. I suspect they are very much more tolerable than clown larvae.

I know I've lost a few hatches due to too much strain on the larvae. That's why I've started to follow the recommendations in the Karen Bradley article. I believe using a SMALL clay flower pot and transferring to eggs to a 5g larvae tank works best. Just follow her instructions. Use parent tank water exclusively 'til they go through metamorphasis. I use a small flower pot, because I lost a hatch trying to move a larger pot out of the larval tank after hatching, and I do believe just moving a large pot out of the tank did stress the larvae. Make sure you have as little water as possible in the larval tank for at least the 1st week (3 inches?). This will help larvae in catching rotifers. Super saturate the rotifers for the first few days. They have to learn how to hunt them. I would go through the article and compare her recommendations to what you did and modify next time. There will be a next time. I suspect your clown will lay again within 1 - 2 weeks.

["Umm, fish?"]

What do you feed the parents? They ought to be able to survive to day 2 without any food at all, so I suspect the water's bad or the parent's nutrition is bad.

[kerusso316]

Dead by day two is stress or low food.

[kerusso316]

Rotifers need slow big bubbles.No air stones.Just enough to move the water.

[FMarini]

actually IME dead by day two is poor water quality, transfer stress, or poor parental nutrition (ie not enough nutrition in the yolk). The fry should make it at least 3days w/o food if the egg yolk was complete.
Anyway, There is a nice article in this month free magazine called reef hobbyist, I found it at the LFS and its entitled my clownfish just laid eggs- now what. I believe it karen Bittner, and it goes into detaila bout a crash course in fry husbandry and what you can use instead of having the correct equipment.

Anyway, I would just use this first batch of eggs as a learning tool, your clown should start breeding like clockwork, and you'll have many chances to perfect this.
So start w/ your grow out tank, and your rotifer/phyto cultures. Once you've got those basics down- you'll start having success w/ your fry.

frank

[seastar12]

Next time