180 or so clowns in my grow out tank.

[ernieq]

Since not everyone heads on over to the breeding thread. I thought I'd share my now 36 and 46 Day old clowns in their new growout 55 Gallon tank.

http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_0470_zps95400fdd.jpg

This guy is 46 Days old

http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_0462_zpse1e44eec.jpg

[Fretfreak13]

OMG AWWW!!!!! Great job!

[ernieq]

Video of them eating.

http://s1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/?action=view&current=Mvi0410-1_zpsd8fd24c3.mp4

[seamonkey84]

Nice! I can't wait till one if my pairs start spawning, prob a year or two from now lol. So what do you feed/enhance your Rotifers with?

[ernieq]

I use RGComplete from reed aquaculture. It's easy and I don't have to have 2 liter bottles of coke brewing 24 hours a day with phyto. I only feed rotifiers for the first 9 days or so and supplement with baby brine until they are big enough to eat OTO B1. The guys in growout are on OTO B2 now.

[Raeloni]

They are super cute!

[Raeloni]

Update picture? I bet they are getting big and colorful!

[ernieq]

Here they are @ 57 and 67 Days old. Some have nearly adult coloration, just need to develop color in pectoral fins. They have a ravenous appetite. i have since upgraded their lighting to T5 HO's. It's a 10K bulb and an Actinic bulb, so their colors look different than before.

http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_0995_zps8c25feb2.jpg

[Sugar Magnolia]

I love baby clowns!! Congratulations on your success!

[JHiestand]

That is so cool. I just stayed at little hotel on the coast and the pady running the place was breeding clowns. She had a nice tank when you walk in and I couldn't resist talking about it. She then proceeded to show me the clowns. Seems like a ton of work. Nice effort.

[aandfsoccr04]

yeah that's no easy feat. Congrats

[phender]

Your fish look great. At this point you might think about mixing in some cyclop-eeze or TDO from Reed Mariculture to boost the vibrance of their orange a little.

[xfactor1315]

One day I hope to breed successfully like this, great job.

[ernieq]

I have some of the freeze dried cyclop-eeze that I'm feeding to the my 24 day olds. Their orange is a lot brighter at this point. I'm going to get some TDO as it is easier to feed to the bigger guys. Here they are for comparison.

http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_1018_zpsdf4cb74e.jpg

The flash kind of washed out the colors of the older ones a bit, they are a bit brighter orange in real life. Here's one that is closer to their color.

http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_0945_zps15fe8ea1.jpg

[phender]

Those look nice. I just commented because when I was selling my TR ocellaris in the early 90's, the main selling point for my clowns was that other tank raised clowns were very pale. You couldn't tell mine from WC because I was feeding an experimental food called Vibra-gro. At that time, it was the only food that contained astaxanthin and it made a huge difference in my ability to sell the babies to LFSs.

These days there is a lot more competition out there, so your babies will either have to be top of the line or under priced (or both) to get an LFS to buy from you. Those last pics you posted look like they should sell nicely.

[ernieq]

Here are a couple of pictures from a couple of days ago.
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_4377_zps8892fe90.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_4373_zpsd073e895.jpg

[z's_N_p's]

any aggression issues? how often do you feed?

[ernieq]

For the most part, very little aggression, I have not found any signs of damage on their fins. They used to fight more when they were a month old than they do now. I think there's just so many of them there's no point to it. I feed them about 5 times a day about 2 capfuls of the TDO (C1) pouch. It is all eaten within a minute. I also feed them some frozen cyclops eeze every two days or so and baby brine shrimp once a week as a treat. Within the last couple of weeks there's a pecking order that is observed, where the bigger ones have taken hold of the the PVC elbows. The interesting thing is that they will tolerate certain clowns with them, but not others almost as if they had their "groupie." So most of them now hang out in the middle of the water column, whereas they all used to hang out pretty much in the lower part before. At lights out, all bets are off, and there are as many clowns as will fit inside each PVC elbow. The ones that don't fit, just clump up together in a ball.
Here's a photo just after lights out.
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_1266_zps26d65250.jpg

And here they are sleeping, this one was about 20 days ago.
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/Clownfish%20Diary/IMG_0911_zps4a99427f.jpg

[z's_N_p's]

Very nice. Thanks for the update. :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[aandfsoccr04]

what are you going to do with them all?

[ernieq]

For now I'm growing them out. When they reach 1.5 inches or so I'll begin to sell/trade for FRAGS to some local LFS's that have shown interest. I will probably keep "a few". There are another 70 or so from the last batch before I lost my breeding male to a sky diving incident. Those are not yet in grow out as they are too small to be mixed with those yet. They are 38 days old. In another 2 weeks or so, they will probably join their older siblings.

[ernieq]

Here are some candid shots from today. The oldest ones are now 5 months old, the youngest ones in curls :-) (3 months)
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4725_zps47e3ad9f.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4739_zps20da561b.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4749_zpsac294a5b.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4752_zps51267d9e.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4755_zps14833886.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4775_zpsdcbbbd4c.jpg
http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_4795_zpsa41ae7f7.jpg

[worm5406]

Nice... I need to go over there and look again.. I used to do it once a week.

Keep the updates coming.

Thanks!

[ernieq]

I should mention that there are now like 260 clowns in grow out since I added the younger siblings about a month after this thread was started.

http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj635/eq2/IMG_1555_zpse4f0a7db.jpg

[JohnniG]

Gz! So many of them:D

[E.intheC]

These look great.

[BonsaiNut]

Color and markings as a group are top-notch.
I saw one or two (only) that I would probably cull (if they were mine) - but otherwise excellent fish.

[ernieq]

Color and markings as a group are top-notch.
I saw one or two (only) that I would probably cull (if they were mine) - but otherwise excellent fish.

Threre are probably 4 that need to be culled, but I don't have the heart, though I know I should because they are probably not going to make it as they grow older.