clownfish food order

[shifty51008]

my Occ clowns finally started spawning, yesterday was the first batch. The wife and I decided that we will try to raise the fry in a month or so and I am looking to figure out the stuff I need to raise the rots for their food. this is what I am figuring:

CCS Starter Kit
RGcomplete, 16 oz bottle
1 Million Live Marine L-Type rotifers Brachionus plicatilis
Otohime Hobbyist Breeder Pack
Rotifer Floss - 8 x 8""

I already have air pumps, airline, needle valves, air stones, heaters, 10 and 20 gal tanks with lights, brine shrimp hatcheries, and brine shrimp eggs.

is there anything else that I would need to start to raise clowns? I have joyce wilkerson's book on clownfish which is a great book, just like to hear from others.

also how long does a 16 oz bottle of RGcomplete last on average when only wanting to raise 1 batch of clowns at a time? lets say 50-80 fry for instance

TIA

also here is a pic of their 1st spawn :D
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a296/kau_cinta_ku/7-1-13_zpsc82cd7ee.jpg (http://s13.photobucket.com/user/kau_cinta_ku/media/7-1-13_zpsc82cd7ee.jpg.html)

[mwilliams62]

I have gone through 6 oz of my 16oz bottle in about two weeks not sure about others how long it last them. This is for one batch for me. Also you will need some 5 gallon buckets for your rotifers cultures and plenty of salt. So when you clean the frys tank you will then use water from the parents tank to put back into the frys tank. Then I put fresh salt water mix back into the parents tank to replace what I took out for the fry tank.
Then you you strain your rotifers to feed to the fry you need to put new saltwater back in to replace what you took out. Making sure it is the same salinity as the culture water is.
Also the fry and parents water need to be pretty close to the same salinity as the rotifer water is. So when you put them into the fry's tank they want die.

[shifty51008]

Thanks, i do have on hand 400 gal worth of salt on hand at all times so that shouldnt be a problem

I have noticed that rotifers usually come in with a sg of 1.017 my dt(parents water) is at 1.024 so is it best to just slowly raise the sg of the rotifers to my 1.024? According to reed's website their rotifers will grow in sg of up to 40ppt.

Also i didnt see on their site about the sleves to use to strain the rotifers, what are you using? I have heard coffee filters work but mine always seem to tear. Maybe to cheap of ones

[mwilliams62]

I slowly raised the rots to 1.022 and the parents tank water is 1.022 to 1.024. For what I have read it is okay for them to be close as possible to each other. I have used the coffee filters but it was a pain. The seive you get online can't remember which website because I think there are a couple places. 53 micron seive.

[shifty51008]

Thanks for the help i am sure i will have plenty of other questions later on and when i start to try to raise them lol

[mwilliams62]

Welcome. I am still learning myself and finally having some success..
There are others that have way more experience than me hopefully they will chime in..

[mwilliams62]

Here are a couple of links for those sieves:

http://stores.aquaculturenurseryfarms.com/-strse-7/Plankton-Collector-Sieve-3/Detail.bok

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Rotifer-Sieve-p220.html

I bought mine from a fellow reefer here in Houston.

[shifty51008]

lol I was looking them up last night and for some reason non of those sites poped up, i only got florida aqua farms lol.

but i did have one other quick question, are Shell Free E-Z Egg brine shrimp eggs worth the extra cost? i've normally just used the one's with shells and it can suck at times seperating the shells.
http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Shell-Free-E-Z-Egg-c202.html

[mwilliams62]

I have never used those. I have only been using the rotifers and then the OTO -A after 5 days after hatching. Then I have started mixing a tiny bit of TDO-B1 and TDO-A together for my older ones that are 45dph. Barely a pinch of each since I only had 4 to survive from that batch but my other batch I have at least 70 and I use 2 full pinches of the TDO-A now and they are about 3wks old.

[shifty51008]

ohhh, i see you skip the brine all together. are the OTO -A, TDO-B1, and TDO-A the only dried foods you feed till they get old enough to handle parent foods?

sorry for the dumb questions, still trying to figure out what I should all order now to at least have on hand.

[mwilliams62]

Yes that is the only foods for now. This is my first two batches to make it this far.
I kept having issues with my rotifers and all would fail. Now that I switched over to the RG Complete my rotifers are going good.
This is what I did:
Day 1-4 feed rotifers 3 times a day morning, lunch time and bedtime
Day 5-10 started add rotifers then once I added them I would then sprinkle the ODO-A about two pinches worth.
Then I switched over to TDO-A after day 10 same procedure as day 5-10 to now. 3 wks old now.

Now for my tiny batch I started adding the TDO-b1 and TDO-A together sooner then what I have been doing with the larger batch.
I would put a little of both in the palm of my hand rub them together gently to get it mixed and sprinkle it into the water along with the rotifers.

[Jaypilot]

I would also like to chime in this conversation and maybe it will give you a few other ideas.

First off I would get your rotifer up and going before even attempting to keep the fry. I say this because it will just get frustrating if you don't. Secondly start the first batch of rotifer and then a few days later start a new bucket of rotifer using your first batch of rotifer. I would keep at least three buckets of rotifer going or more if you can handle the mess.

I do not feed my fry BBS either, but with that being said I still raise BBS often to feed my older fry, cardinals, and what ever else I feel like feeding at the time. I thought about getting the decapsulated shrimp eggs but I also did not want to spend the money. With that being said I did a Google search on decapping brine shrimp eggs and its vary easy and vary fast. It will save you tones of time later on and cost a lot less money.

As far as feeding my fry. I feed them rotifer all the way up until I start to see the bars form which seems to be about 7-10day. On about the 4th day I also start to add finely crushed NLS pellets(I crush the nls with a spoon on the counter top). I have about 50 so far that I have brought up this way and they seem to have great color with no mishaps.

I do plan on getting TDO soon, I just didn't want to invest too much money into this until I though I had it figured out. So if you are in that same boat this may be an option for you as well.

[Jaypilot]

DIY EZ baby brine shrimp.

If you do a Google search most likely you will find a ytube video of a guy using a baby brine hatching kit to keep the eggs moving through out the whole process. This guy uses nearly a half gallon of bleach to accomplish this and its simply not needed.

I use a 4oz baby food jar.

1st step is to hydrate the eggs. To do this I add the eggs that I'm planning to hatch in the jar and then I add about 1oz of water or just enough to cover the eggs. This step takes about 10min but you are looking for the eggs to sink and once that happens you are ready for the second step.

2nd step you want to remove the shell. To do this simply poor in about 2or 3oz of bleach and continue to agitate the jar. The water will start out clear and become milky and you may even feel a little heat coming from the jar. At that point the eggs should have gone from brown to pink. This step should take less then about 3min.

3rd and final step is clean the eggs. At this point the eggs are vary well hydrated and should fall to the bottom pretty fast. So I just poor off the bleach and then fill up with ro water. With fresh ro water I agitate the eggs a little more and then dump out the water, and add fresh water again and repeat about three time. The last time I let the water sit with the eggs (you should no longer smell bleach) and I add a few drops of water conditioner just to get rid of any remaining bleach.

4th step is hatching brine shrimp. I would poor off the last of the water that you used to clean the eggs and then I would add the eggs to a fresh thing of salt water and hatch just like normal. I personally do not use a heater or a light and I have a vary large batch of baby brine in about 36hours. I then use a 120micron (purchase from eBay along with a 53micron filter) filter to drain the water and feed where I want with no eggs shells.

If you want to feed them to your fry you can just don't do it until at least the 3rd or 4th day.

And I forgot, the hydration process takes the longest and it doesn't hurt to let the eggs sit in a few Oz of water for a few hours wile you go off and do something else just agitate every once in a wile if possible.

[mwilliams62]

I found a video how to decap brine shrimp but I did not see the guy using half a gallon maybe 2 cups if even that because he poured it into the 2liter coke bottle that he cut and made for hatching the bbs in it and said to let it agitate for a few minutes then rinse, rinse and rinse.

[Jaypilot]

Ya the key is rinsing a lot. That may be the video that I'm talking about. Either way he uses ALOT more bleach then I do. It is a good video to get the idea of what's needed and then you can alter his technique for your personal use.

[shifty51008]

thanks again, both of you. I think on my first or so attempts I am gonna got with rots, BBS, and then the OTO and TDO. then later on try it without the BBS.

I also saw the video of the guy using a couple cups of bleach, I have some extra vials of BBS that I will play with while I am waiting for my clowns to lay better batches. I like the small food jar idea also.

[ernieq]

One thing to add regarding salinity levels. Rots multiply and do much better in lower salinities. I would keep my fry and broodstock tanks in the 1.022 range and the rots at 1.017. They key is to stay within .007 so the rots don't die of osmotic shock. I've never had issues using these two ranges. I also use a sieve to harvest the rotifers and you must harvest daily, otherwise you get a culture full of old rots that don't reproduce as fast. The idea of keeping as many cultures as you can handle is a solid one. That way you never run out, because as your batches get larger, the little guys go through rots like nobody's business.

[shifty51008]

thanks for the advice, I will slowly start lowering my sg on the DT to around 1.022. after reading joyce's book again and also seeing your peoples comments I think I will order and extra CCS Starter Kit that way I can have 2-3 cultures going at once.

do you all measure how many rots you culture or just guess by looking in the fry tank to how many there are? also how do you measure them if you do?

[ernieq]

after trial and error, you just know what it should look like. I would say during the first 72 hours, the density should be such that there is a rot within a couple millimeters of each other. Usually this means I harvest about 1 gallon of a very dense culture (about 1 mm between rots) to put in a 1/3 filled 10 gallon nursery. By day 4 u should be moving them into NHBS and/or OTO.

[mwilliams62]

Ernieq I just want to make sure this is correct you filter 1 gallon of rotifers for the first four days?

[mwilliams62]

I think I am going to try the NHBS on this up coming batch should hatch on Tuesday night. Can you tell us how you hatch you bbs and how you harvest them.

[ernieq]

Ernieq I just want to make sure this is correct you filter 1 gallon of rotifers for the first four days?

Yes daily for the first 4 days. If you put them in the evening before lights out, they have a chance to multiply even more. Just make sure there is a supply throughout the day. Sometimes I would syphon another 1/2 gallon at noon if I saw the density was much lower than desired. Make sure you have a couple of air stones operating on both sides of your nursery tank to keep oxygen levels high, otherwise you'll get a lot of misbars and flared gills.

[mwilliams62]

I think I have some misbars but not sure on the other. I have on of those 12" bubble wand in the tank using a small gang valve to control the bubbles trying to make as ure it was not to strong.

[Jaypilot]

thanks for the advice, I will slowly start lowering my sg on the DT to around 1.022. after reading joyce's book again and also seeing your peoples comments I think I will order and extra CCS Starter Kit that way I can have 2-3 cultures going at once.

do you all measure how many rots you culture or just guess by looking in the fry tank to how many there are? also how do you measure them if you do?

I just want to make sure we are on the same page here... there is no reason to order more then one batch of rotifer. Just give the first bat h a few days to multiply and then take half of that water and start a second batch with that water.

I know you said you have a few vials of BBS eggs. Those vials work GREAT for checking the density of your rots. I also use those little vials to hydrate my BBS eggs before bleaching them. Just add the number of eggs that you want to hatch (I normaly hatch about 1.5 caps of bbs eggs at a time). Then I fill with RO water and rotate it every few min until you start to seethe eggs settle to the bottom.

Just my .02 cents good luck though its a fun ride

[shifty51008]

yeah, I am only gonna order 1 batch of rots, just gonna order 2 of these
http://apbreed.com/product_compact_culture_system.php

I understand just a 5 gal bucket and bubbler will work fine, just wondering how well these work also.

that is a great idea to use the vials for though, I may have to steal it from you :D

[Fsarmien]

Nice good luck with them!!

[Jaypilot]

yeah, I am only gonna order 1 batch of rots, just gonna order 2 of these
http://apbreed.com/product_compact_culture_system.php

I understand just a 5 gal bucket and bubbler will work fine, just wondering how well these work also.

that is a great idea to use the vials for though, I may have to steal it from you :D

Interesting. I have never seen that before and I have never heard of it either. I'm sure it will work but $60???? Kind of pricy in my book and I have seen some vary successful breeders use nothing more then a 5g bucket with a rigged airline. I have 4 buckets running now I just couldn't see spending that much for it.

Steal all that you want. I'm sure you will develop your own techniques along the way and the only thing that I'm sure we all ask is that you share what works for you. Maybe we can all learn something.

[mwilliams62]

I saw those buckets a while back. Actually after you add everything that you have to buy you end up sending almost about the same amount if not more.
Airline hose $3.00
Airstones - 1.00 if that
Ridge Airline tubing - $2-4 can't remember the price
Airpump - $10 on up..
Bucket - $2-5 some places charge for the lids now.
Rotifers - $19.99 plus shipping $20.00
In total you just spent over $60 just for one setup.

[Jaypilot]

I went back to look again and unless if I am reading it wrong you still need to supply the air pump, bucket, rotifer and rotifer feed. That puts you at over $100 for the setup. I'm not saying its a bad set up I just think its more then I want to spend.

[mwilliams62]

I saw two different ones one for I think around $40 needing all supplies and the other $60 bucks but I don't recall what all came with it. I know it had some of the supplies needed just don't remember what all it was.

[shifty51008]

yeah the $40 kit is the same as the $60 kit but the $60 kit comes with the bucket. I am planning on the $40 kits as I have plenty of old SW buckets around. I already have the saltwater and air pumps so just need the rots and food. I just figure the filter in that setup will make things easier as my wife will be helping as I work 14 hour days. anything to make it as easy as possiable will help, even if it cost's a little more.

[GreshamH]

I slowly raised the rots to 1.022 and the parents tank water is 1.022 to 1.024. For what I have read it is okay for them to be close as possible to each other. I have used the coffee filters but it was a pain. The seive you get online can't remember which website because I think there are a couple places. 53 micron seive.

With ours you should actually be using a 40 µm screen. Our L strain is smaller then most others due to our feed protocols. They'll be listed soon, they in the process of being ordered and built.

[GreshamH]

yeah the $40 kit is the same as the $60 kit but the $60 kit comes with the bucket. I am planning on the $40 kits as I have plenty of old SW buckets around. I already have the saltwater and air pumps so just need the rots and food. I just figure the filter in that setup will make things easier as my wife will be helping as I work 14 hour days. anything to make it as easy as possiable will help, even if it cost's a little more.

Basic is just the filter, but the starter is more than just basic + bucket. There is the lid and graduated sticker, both are very useful.

Be careful, not all buckets work. The screw style IO buckets wont, nor will Salinity. Only standard bucket tops work.

[GreshamH]

I also use a sieve to harvest the rotifers and you must harvest daily, otherwise you get a culture full of old rots that don't reproduce as fast.

Old rotifers don't reproduce at all. 20-30% harvest daily is best to keep to keep em young and pumping out eggs.

[mwilliams62]

With ours you should actually be using a 40 µm screen. Our L strain is smaller then most others due to our feed protocols. They'll be listed soon, they in the process of being ordered and built.

Sweet please let us know as soon as it is available.

[GreshamH]

will do :)