Otohime or BBS for Clownfish Fry

[Katowoo]

Any thoughts on which is better after the rot period for clownfish fry? Which is most cost effective in the long term? Reed's got Otohime yet I can set up a DIY hatchery for BBS cheaper.

Thoughts...

[Zooid]

I like to use Otohime because it is far easier and you don't have to worry about whether the BBS were decapsulated properly. If the larvae eat the shells of the BBS eggs, they can get a clogged digestive system and die.
I normally give mine BBS every third day starting at day seven. I'll start Otohime A on day three or four. After metamorphosis I stick to Otohime only.

[landlord]

I went with Otohime merely because I simply had too many other things to worry about, and did not want to be growing more food.

For me it was simply a matter of time spent in the fish room.

For my Tomato's it is rots (in greenwater) alone until day 7-8 them a mix of Oto A and stop the green water. After 3 more days the remaining rots get pulled and it Oto from there.

--landlord

[billsreef]

Both ;) The BBS are good to keep a steady food level available all day long, while the Otohime A is excellent to broaden the fishes nutrition with 2 to 3 meals a day.

[Katowoo]

So Biil - ur recommending a mix of BBS and Oto?

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15406795#post15406795 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Katowoo
So Biil - ur recommending a mix of BBS and Oto?

For maximum growth, that is the way I do it ;)

[rkelman]

I used to use BBS after Rots. Now I've since I've switched to Oto A only after Rots and my fish are better off no question. My survival rate has gone way up as well. Of course I feed several times a day so they don't go hungry. Its a huge time saver too.

[Katowoo]

Rk - so does Oto A slowly sink? Will the fry go after the Oto?

[Zooid]

If I'm not mistaken Otohime A normally floats. Otohime B1 mostly floats and Otohime C1 mostly sinks.

[rkelman]

Oto A floats for a bit then sinks. When they are real young I usually use small pinches and submerge my fingers to release it and swirl my hand in the tank so it disperses.

[Katowoo]

Thx Rk. I'll order some from Reed when I order some RotiGrow Plus that someone else was mentioning on another thread. New product from Reed.

[gotfrogs]

Katowoo - the Otohime works great. You will be happy that you ordered it.

[Katowoo]

Thx guys. How long do you keep the fry on Oto A? What do you give them after Oto A. Do you move to Oto B and so forth?

[gotfrogs]

I have two batches of clowns. One group is about 50 days old and the other is less than a week. I used bbs for about 4 days with my first batch and plan to do the same with the second batch. I will offer the oto A and bbs overlaping with rotifers, stop offering rotifers then a few days later stop the bbs and only feed oto A for a few weeks and then offer oto B1. I have been feeding B1 exclusively to my older fry for about 3 weeks and have had zero losses during this time.

[Katowoo]

Thx. GF. I ordered a starter kit of Otohime (A/B/C etc) and a bottle of that new Rotigrow Plus from Randy @ Reed Mariculture today. I'll let you guys know what I think of them. The Rotigrow Plus is not even on their website yet. Randy took the order off of me over the phone.

[Katowoo]

Thx. GF. I ordered a starter kit of Otohime (A/B/C etc) and a bottle of that new Rotigrow Plus from Randy @ Reed Mariculture today. I'll let you guys know what I think of them. The Rotigrow Plus is not even on their website yet. Randy took the order off of me over the phone.

[Katowoo]

Thx. guys. So I've got 300+ true perc frys still alive after day 3. I'm worried that I'm going through my rots at too fast a pace and don't want to deplete them. Ive got 2 x 5g cultures going. Should I be worried?

Questions:

1)What's everyone's suggested schedule for feeding and on what days? eg. 1-5 days rots / 5-8 days rots + BBS or /and Otihime / 8 + days just BBS and or only Otihime? I know a lot of the respected members on this board suggest just Otihime which I have a starter kit from Randy at Reed already.

2) What's everyone's cleaning and water change schedule for the fry tanK?

3) When's the best time to put a sponge in the fry tank at what day? I've got one cycling in my main tank for 5 days now.

I've got Joyce's book but I want to see what everyone else does successfully as well.


TIA everyone!

[gotfrogs]

I would wait until about 6 days before feeding the Otihime and hold off on putting a sponge filter in there until you have finished feeding rotifers. Make sure that you keep the water in the fry tank green while feeding rotifers. On my last batch (of 60 or so fry) I only added rotifers to the tank once. They were able to maintain a stable population but I don't think this is the norm. As for cleaning. I would siphon the bottom of the tank at least once per day, twice a day if you have time. Once you get the sponge filter in there you can get by cleaning the bottom every few days. Good luck!

[Katowoo]

Thx GF. BTW - does your id inidcate that you raise frogs as well? Just asking cause my youngest boy wants a big Ex Terra habitat for his birthday and he wants red eyed tree frogs in there. The big reptile show is coming to Sacramento early sept so that's where I'm going to pick up everything.

[Katowoo]

Need some help here pls. I've harvested about 1/3 of each of my 2 x 5G rot cultures and rinsed them off this am in the fry tank (300+ fry) and I don't see many left. I'm worried about depleting my cultures if I can continue to add more today. Thinking about ordering an emerge batch of either 600K or the 5M count from Reed on monday. The PH in both the fry and rot culture tank are about the same and the SG in the fy tank is 1.022 and the rots are about 1.018. I've added a decent amount of rotifier diet to the fry tank to maintain a lght green. Are the 300+ fry going through the rots faster than I can put them in there daily or are the rots dying right away in the fry tank? Thoughts / Help?

BTW - 3 days after the last batch hatched, today the parents just laid another clutch. This is the 4th batch now and every time they lay a new clutch 3-4 days after the last like clockwork and the eggs hatch on the 7th day everytime.

[billsreef]

300+ fry are a lot of hungry mouths. I would set up an additional rot culture (back up is good) and harvest about 50% of each culture on successive days. i.e. harvest from culture 1 on Monday, culture 2 on Tuesday, and culture 3 on Wednesday. By Thursday culture 1 is nice and dense again, and so forth. A rotation like this with heavy harvesting keeps water in good shape via water changes and keeps the rots in a nice exponential reproductive state. In the lab, I take it a step further and maintain 4 seperate cultures, cleaning out the oldest culture vessel and thereby restarting one culture every week. Leaves me with excessive rot production, but if a culture fails it just doesn't matter ;)

[rkelman]

"Thx. guys. So I've got 300+ true perc frys still alive after day 3. I'm worried that I'm going through my rots at too fast a pace and don't want to deplete them. Ive got 2 x 5g cultures going. Should I be worried?"

As Bill said, I would start a 3rd. If you want to jumpstart your cultures add a heater to each at about 75degrees and feed twice a day (once before bed and once in the am) to get you through this hatch. I don't recommend doing that long term but it will give you alot of Rots in a hurry.


"1)What's everyone's suggested schedule for feeding and on what days? eg. 1-5 days rots / 5-8 days rots + BBS or /and Otihime / 8 + days just BBS and or only Otihime? I know a lot of the respected members on this board suggest just Otihime which I have a starter kit from Randy at Reed already."

I feed Rots exclusive until about day 4 or 5 then start with a bit of Oto A. After 8-10 go with Oto A only. Keeping the Rots going for a couple weeks won't hurt them either.

"2) What's everyone's cleaning and water change schedule for the fry tanK?"

I don't touch it until they are through meta. Maybe vac the crap off the bottom. That's about it.

"3) When's the best time to put a sponge in the fry tank at what day? I've got one cycling in my main tank for 5 days now."

I add the sponge after Meta (7 days in my case) Is the sponge filter running? I had one in my sump for 3 weeks and it never colonized. I had to have the filter running to get a usable amount of bacteria built up.

[Katowoo]

Thanks Guys! I'll start a 3rd 5G culture right away.

RK - why do you suggest in the long term not feeding them twice a day and keeping the temp at 75 degrees? If I went say 78 degrees would that speed the process up even faster? Yes - I keep the sponge filter running.

Thx again guys for the help!

[mobert]

I also want to know why it is not good long term to feed twice a day and keeping the temp at 75. Is it because of the increased rotifer waste and therefore more maintenance??

Katowoo, one thing I realized when I was running low on rotifers is if I returned the sieved water back to the rotifer bucket, I would probably be returning baby daughter rotifers back to the bucket. I was previously dumping the water in my tank and topping off with filtered tank water. This probably really slowed down my rotifer production.

Also, a few of my Clarkii larvae accepted Otohime on day 3-4 but most of them accepted 50-100 micron Golden Pearls on day 3-4. Very small feedings every hour or so and constant bottom cleaning though.

[rkelman]

Sorry Katowoo I didn't see your message.

The problem with feeding twice a day and keeping the temperature up is they reproduce really fast / create waste really fast and the water goes south really fast. I don't do this unless I'm dangerously low on Rots. Which doesn't happen too often unless I have a crash.

[GreshamH]

Are you using Cloramx when dosing IA products? Your water quality should be fine if you doing the recommended 30% daily change as well as dosing the proper amount of Cloramx:IA.

[rkelman]

Cloramx.. no. 30% daily change... no... :)

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605030#post15605030 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rkelman
Cloramx.. no. 30% daily change... no... :)

:p me neither. I was running out of rotifers on day 2-3 and most of the dead food ended up on the bottom of the tank. No chemical is going to keep old food from getting funky and fuzzy.

btw, Gresham, I got the RotiGrow Plus yesterday and I really think it is leaps better than Rotifer Diet. This morning I was able to feed some of those skinny, "I only want rotifer" lavae. Plus the rotifer water seems to have less fouling with a heavy feeding. Thanks for a great product!

Question. I divided it up and froze most of the RotiGrow Plus as it is said that it is OK to do so but since it is made of 5 different algaes, will all but two types of algae cells burst and render it similar to Rotifer Diet??

TIA,

Mona

[GreshamH]

It is fine to freeze. It is sold frozen in fact. All I can say on that though.

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605030#post15605030 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rkelman
Cloramx.. no. 30% daily change... no... :)

Well there is the problem right there. You are not actively removing the ammonia build up from the feeding of the rots. It's very simple to use :) Ditto on 30% daily harvest. By doing that you keep the culture you and strong, plus you're helping keep the water clean. You really can't use algae paste like you would live, additional steps are needed, easy steps though :)

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605160#post15605160 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mobert
:p me neither. I was running out of rotifers on day 2-3 and most of the dead food ended up on the bottom of the tank. No chemical is going to keep old food from getting funky and fuzzy.

btw, Gresham, I got the RotiGrow Plus yesterday and I really think it is leaps better than Rotifer Diet. This morning I was able to feed some of those skinny, "I only want rotifer" lavae. Plus the rotifer water seems to have less fouling with a heavy feeding. Thanks for a great product!


Something is really wrong if you have food going to waste and your running out of rots in such a short time. Sounds like you need to take a hard look at your procedures to find out just where the problem is. Probably a combo of over feeding and ammonia build up which stresses and kills the rotifers. No feed should build up on the bottom. Your wrong about no chemical helping I hate to say. By removing the ammonia your removing the highest stress factor besides lack of feed. We sell it at near cost so I don't post about using it to push sales, I do it to help you better culture rotifers and to be successful at it.

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605244#post15605244 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Well there is the problem right there. You are not actively removing the ammonia build up from the feeding of the rots. It's very simple to use :) Ditto on 30% daily harvest. By doing that you keep the culture you and strong, plus you're helping keep the water clean. You really can't use algae paste like you would live, additional steps are needed, easy steps though :)

Oh, you were talking about the rotifers not the fry tank. I have been flushing 1/3 into my reef tank and topping off with filtered tank water. No Chloramx though.

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605282#post15605282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Something is really wrong if you have food going to waste and your running out of rots in such a short time. Sounds like you need to take a hard look at your procedures to find out just where the problem is. Probably a combo of over feeding and ammonia build up which stresses and kills the rotifers. No feed should build up on the bottom. Your wrong about no chemical helping I hate to say. By removing the ammonia your removing the highest stress factor besides lack of feed. We sell it at near cost so I don't post about using it to push sales, I do it to help you better culture rotifers and to be successful at it.

Thanks for your help Gresham, I forgot to order some Chloramx with my last order. I don't think my rotifers are dieing. I had a huge clutch, maybe 800-1000 live larvae and only 5 gallons of rotifers at 50 per ml. So they ate them all and that was why I ran out of rotifers and started feeding dead food...ie Golden Pearls and Otohime A. The larvae were mostly too young to know how to eat the dead food so I had to keep dropping minute amounts in as once it hits the bottom of the tank, they are no longer interested and that is why the bottom of fry tank has dead food. I only got the rotifer starter kit a week before the hatch so I didn't have time nor did I know I should have had three buckets of rotifers going before raising this clutch. I probably have 300 larvae left but they are voracious eaters.

[GreshamH]

50 per ML? That's close to 0 an ML :(

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605648#post15605648 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
50 per ML? That's close to 0 an ML :(

I wouldn't say it was close to 0 as that was the count per ml that I got in my starter kit.

[GreshamH]

Not from us. Our smallest bag is sent out at 600K per 750ml = 800 per ML.

[mobert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605736#post15605736 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Not from us. Our smallest bag is sent out at 600K per 750ml = 800 per ML.

Not the kit I got from you guys a couple weeks ago. I counted.

[mobert]

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Reeds products are great and my rotifers came well packed, lively and plenty for a starter culture. Not close to 800 per ML but plenty.

[rkelman]

I know what I need to do to keep the rotifers going strong. Its a lack of time / effort on my part. I really do need to order some Cloramx and re vamp how I'm culturing them.

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605956#post15605956 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mobert
I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Reeds products are great and my rotifers came well packed, lively and plenty for a starter culture. Not close to 800 per ML but plenty.
OMG because you may have gotten a bad bag (pretty much unheard of), you are stating we send out less then 800 per ML? Sorry that is really stretching :rolleyes:

We ship billions weekly and I have never heard of such a low volume going out. Why didn't you call if you found such low numbers? We always put more then the listed amount in as the hatcheries we sell to need the right numbers.

Please email us so we can resolve this.

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15605784#post15605784 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mobert
Not the kit I got from you guys a couple weeks ago. I counted.

What counting protocols are you using if I may ask?

[mobert]

I have to apologize for my statement. I had received rotifers from a company on eBay the day before that was dismal and immediately ordered from Reeds. I received them the very next day, checked it and did not actually count them. I just remember now that it looked great. My memory of the 50 counts were the many times I counted after they were diluted in culture water. My sincerest apologies.