Help me raise these maroon clown eggs

[tonym10]

My maroon pair has been spawning regularly for months now.
So after the last batch of eggs hatched I placed a ceramc tile where they lay their eggs. Today is the second day the tile has been in place and tonight there is a batch of fresh eggs. Tomorow I will order live rotifers from Inland Aquatics. I plan to feed the rotifiers the dried phyto I feed my tank.
I will use a 10g tank to hatch and raise the eggs in and a 5g bucket for the rotifiers.
I will use this thread to post evrything along the way.
Once things develop a little more I will post pics of everything.
Eight days from now is Jan 5 , should I put the eggs in the rearing tank on the morning of the 5th or should I do that on the 4th?
Please give me help along the way here.
Thanks.

[Toddrtrex]

I wish I could help you out more, I have only gotten as far as getting my pair of GSM to lay their eggs on a tile. Just haven't had the time or full desire to see it all the way through. But I wish you the best of luck and will be following.

I could be wrong, so take what I say with a grain of salt ( pun intended ) Did adding the tile interept their spawning at all? Just wondering if you she give them a couple of times getting used to the tile before you remove it. Like I said, I could be wrong, but wouldn't want to upset them if they are sensitive at all. I know my skipped a couple of spawns after I introduced the tile.
HTH

[tonym10]

I thought adding tile would interupt their spawning, but it didnt . I put the tile in on Monday and on wednesday it had eggs.

[Rod Buehler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6376628#post6376628 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tonym10
I thought adding tile would interupt their spawning, but it didnt . I put the tile in on Monday and on wednesday it had eggs.

Many/most people say/think that the tile will upset the pair, and it may in some cases, but IME, the tile seems to encourage spawning.

I pull my tiles from the parents (percs) as tank as late as possible so that poppa can care for them as long as possible. I have pulleed them a day or 2 early on a few occasions and I still get nice hatches, but I still like to wait as long as possible.

In the summer months when my tanks are running at 86ish, i pull my eggs I pull my tile on the seventh night. (if they spawn on a Wed afternon, I pull them the following Wed night) In the winter when my tanks only hit 78-80 I pull them on the 9th night. (spawn on Wed afternoon, I pull the tile on Friday night)

Good Luck

[True Percula]

good cant wait

[tonym10]

Order is now placed for live rotifers, phyto discs, decapsulated hatching brine shrimp eggs, etc.....
I hope the rotifers will be alright on the spray dried phyto untill I get a supply of phyto from my culture disc I ordered.

[tonym10]

Started my rotifer culture today with a batch of live rotifers in a 5 gal bucket with air line. Also started green water culture today, but that was started with disc, so I will need to feed the rotifers Roti Rich untill my phyto cultures are ready to be fed to the rotifers.

[tonym10]

Here are some pics of everything so far. If you I am doing something wrong in the pics please point out to me.

This is the clown eggs on tile at day 2
http://i.pbase.com/o4/38/254338/1/54201969.clowneggs828.jpg

This is the new cultures of macro and rotifers and the 10g tank in the back for the eggs.

http://i.pbase.com/o4/38/254338/1/54201973.clowneggs831.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/38/254338/1/54201987.clowneggs833.jpg

[tonym10]

How can you tell by looking at the rotifer water what is rotifers and what is just dirt specs. Do rotifers gather on the sides of container and the bottom or do they stay in the water colmun, or is this collection of stuff on the bottom dirt?

[Rod Buehler]

A few things that I see.. You may want to move the Wilkerson book and the microscope. There is a good chance that they will get wet where they are :D

You wont want to keep your rotifers and phytos so close to eachother IMO. It may be hard to keep the rotifers from contaminating the phyto.

Rotifers stay in the water column. The stuff on teh sides/bottom is clumped/settled phytoplankton/dirt.
\
When I first started playing with rotifers, the easiest way for me to see how well they were doing was to put them in a clear plastic bag (i used fish bags).. Let it settle for awhile.. Any ditritus would settle ,and the dust specks in the water column that i would see were rots.. Now I put them in a clear glass and inspect them with a 10X jewelers loupe.

Thats how I used to do it, but if I were you I would use that microscope :D

Good Luck!

[tonym10]

Thanks , I see a couple rotifers in a dropthat I place on the slide under the microscope , but I wanted to find a way to see if the population is multiplying each day. I wasnt sure if the stuff on the sides and bottom was dirt or rotifers. SHould I vacuum the dirt off the bottom of the rotifer container?

[Rod Buehler]

For my rotifer cultures I use an inverted carboy/water bottle that has the bottom (or top when inverted) cut off, and the neck of the bottle is fitted with a ball valve. Harvest is much much easier.. and there is much less risk of any contamination because I just open the valve and sift the rotifers through a seive (did I spell that right?).

I dont get a lot of build up/accumulation of detritus, but if I do, I just swirl the container before a harvest.. let it settle for a few minutes, and most of the detritus settles in the neck of the bottle above the ball valve.. I quik, half second open/close of the valve flushes the detritus out. I usually clean my cultures before they get too bad, so I dont have to flush them very often.

[tonym10]

I just checked the rotifers under the microscope. I used an eydropper to pull water from the middle of the water column in the bucket of rotifer water. I have about 3 rotifers in 1 drop of water that I put on the slide under the microscope and there are 20 drops in a milleter ,so then I have about 60 roifers per millaleter , is this correct?

[tonym10]

I will be using the same water from the tank that the eggs are in now as the 10g that the eggs will be placed in. So this water has a sg of 1.025 , but the rotifer water sg is 1.021 . Will the rotifers be ok here or will they die right away? DO I need to lower the sg of the 10 g egg tank water , and if so how without damaging the eggs?

[MarinaP]

I run rots at 1.014 and babies at 1.021 without any ill effects. You might want to strain parents' water through a rot sieve for the nursery tank. Best of luck with my grandchildren :)

[tonym10]

Thanks Marina, why do I strain the parents water?
And are you saying the range of sg from my rotifers to my tank water will be ok?

[MarinaP]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6406292#post6406292 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tonym10
Why do I strain the parents water?

To avoid possible rots' predators

And are you saying the range of sg from my rotifers to my tank water will be ok? Yes.

[tonym10]

OK
Thanks

[tonym10]

:( They hatched at day 6

[MarinaP]

I doubt they did.

Snails? Crabs? Fungus?

[tonym10]

I dont think they were lost to snails or crabs. They didnt turn white from fungus, I didnt look overlly close at them this morning, but it looked like they had the silver tips at the tops of the eggs.
I guess they will spawn again in a few days. I will move the morning of day six this next time just in case. At least I will have a really good population of rotifers and phyto.

[Atticus]

Just as a side note...

You may want to feed your clowns some cyclopeeze and spirulina. The eggs are a good color for Ocellaris, but IME you get stronger fry if they are more of a red color with maroons.

[tonym10]

New batch of eggs thas afternoon Sunday 1/08 . What day should I move these eggs?
My phyto cultures and rotifer cultures are doing real well for this batch.

[tonym10]

Today is day 6 for the eggs. this is the night they hatched on the last batch.
Should I move them now or wait till tomorow?
Another question, should I ave rotifers is the larvae tank when I put the eggs in there or wait till he eggs hatch , then put the rotifers in?

[tonym10]

Tonight day 7 I moved the eggs. I have the tile leaning on a corner in the 10g with an airstone under the tile. Is this the proper pacement for the airstone? How do I know if I have enough air flow or too much?
Thanks

[tonym10]

The eggs did not hatch last night, and I guess I didnt have enough air water movement on them because they deveopled a film over them. I gently swayed the tile in the tank to get the film off the eggs , the film came off along with about 30% of the eggs. So I am quessing that none of the eggs will hatch, but I added more air for movement right on the eggs and will see what happens tonight.

[CW from the OC]

bump!

Tony, how did it go??

[tonym10]

No eggs made it.
Will try again next time, will wait till day egg, and get more water movement.

[tonym10]

New eggs laid this past Thursday.
So I will be ready in a few dasy to try again.
If the eggs were laid Thursday afternoon, will day 8 be This Thursday or this Friday?