Quote:
Originally Posted by westohooligan
Partially correct. Definitely some good info for sure.
You can get a larvae catcher to catch the fry from the main tank, hatching them in a separate tank will be much easier, as your fry will not survive in the display, they will get eaten or killed by your filtration.
Baby brine shrimp really shouldn't be used and aren't necessary. Not for
nothing, but they are kind of an antiquated way of doing things. There has been a phenomenon known as "Sudden Fright Death Syndrome" traced to the fats in BBS. The MOFIB site is decent, but you're best and most complete info will be www.mbisite.org. The MBI has many journals on all sorts of fish to help out.
There are 2 types of rotifers available commercially now, so finding out what type to feed the chromis is paramount. For sales purposes they are divided into L and S type, just meaning Large or Small. Clownfish fry eat the L type, while cardinals and most damsels eat the S type. Culturing rotifers is fairly easy, but you must have a strong culture or two before you get serious about rearing the chromis fry. There are foods available to ween them off the rotifers and onto pellets. I raised all of my clown fry on rotifers, then TDO.
So I'd say:
Step One: Research, research, research
Step Two: Start your food cultures. Rots and everything you need can be acquired at www.apbreed.com
Step 3: Setup your hatching station and growout tanks
And finally: Start your breeding in earnest.
Good luck! |
Would love to know what other type of food item you'd recommend as a post rotifer food, since not all fish will go straight onto TDO(Top Dressed Otohime, a Japanese fish food brand for marine larval fish, mostly used with clownfish, for those who don't know). I've been going off of Wittenrich's text, and while artemia are antiquated (personally, I'd prefer copepods, but those are just a tad bit too hard to raise), SFS can be countered by adding in flake/prepared food, once the fry have metamorphosed and are weaned onto the prepared food. Did MBI replace MOFIB? I was at MOFIB a while ago, but I haven't kept up lately.
Also outdated: L and S type rotifers aren't technically called that anymore, maybe at apbreed, but some sites call them by their scientific name. Pretty sure they got separated into two different species (Brachionus plicatilis and B. rotundiformis), and additionally, there are more than 2 species used but not all are ID'd yet. You'll want to basically find a rotifer species that is able to fit in the mouth of the larvae (i.e. find larvae mouth size using a microscope, then figure out which rotifer is best based off of that size).