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Unread 08/11/2017, 06:47 AM   #1
DJasak
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Blue green chromis spawning

So I woke up this morning to find my chromis doing their mating dance and found eggs all over this artificial plant. YAY! I've never had fish spawn in my tanks b4 so I'm looking for advice as to what I can do to properly care for these guys and ensure the eggs hatch to fry. AIso how do I care for the fry? It's a 60 gallon fowler with 4 chromis and 3 small tangs: a purple, a yellow and a powder brown.



Last edited by DJasak; 08/11/2017 at 07:09 AM.
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Unread 08/11/2017, 12:37 PM   #2
ichthyogeek
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Well, first off, you'll need a separate tank to raise the fry in. Second, you'll need brine shrimp eggs ( a lot of them), as well as a rotifer culture, and Nannochloropsis and Isochrysis phytoplankton(they sell these online as frozen, which is the most cost effective option). Check out MOFIB, which I think might have an account of how one person successfully raised their chromis' fry.

Do you have any pictures of the chromis and/or eggs? Are the fish doing parental care? I've not read about chromis breeding in a long time, so it would be cool to know this!


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Unread 08/30/2017, 07:30 AM   #3
manfrog
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Congratulations!
I'm guessing it woukd be similar to clownfish.
Get the eggs into a seperate tank with water from the display. Use an airstone for circulation. Keep the same temp. Start a rotifer culture then artemia as the fry grow. Siphon detritus at least a couple times a day to remove waste.
Good Luck!


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Unread 08/30/2017, 11:57 AM   #4
westohooligan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ichthyogeek View Post
Well, first off, you'll need a separate tank to raise the fry in. Second, you'll need brine shrimp eggs ( a lot of them), as well as a rotifer culture, and Nannochloropsis and Isochrysis phytoplankton(they sell these online as frozen, which is the most cost effective option). Check out MOFIB, which I think might have an account of how one person successfully raised their chromis' fry.

Do you have any pictures of the chromis and/or eggs? Are the fish doing parental care? I've not read about chromis breeding in a long time, so it would be cool to know this!
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!


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Unread 09/01/2017, 04:20 AM   #5
ichthyogeek
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Quote:
Originally Posted by westohooligan View Post
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).


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Unread 09/01/2017, 06:04 AM   #6
westohooligan
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I did not mean for any of that to sound disrespectful in anyway.

I bred for years, I never had any trouble with any of my clutches going straight to TDO, but I think more breeders are using copepods in place of the brine shrimp. Everyone's experience is different I suppose, so if it works, keep doing it.

Yeah I think most people migrated over to MBI, there's still some posts on MOFIB, but I don't think it's as active as it used to be.

I used L and S for simplicity. Not everyone knows that Latin names, or would know the difference. We do sell rotifers with the Latin names attached as well as S type and L type just for ease of identification for novice breeders. We also carry TDO from powder up to large pellets to keep up with the growth of the animal. I say we because I work with APBreed/Reef Nutrition at the shows.

This is a shot of one of my clutches, no doctoring or photoshopping the pic. At this point they were about 5 months old, on TDO and frozen foods. Can you tell which one stopped eating the TDO and was only eating frozen?




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Unread 10/13/2017, 08:27 AM   #7
DJasak
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Thank you all for the supportive help! Unfortunately it happened at a time when I just had surgery and was unable to raise the eggs, the chromis are actively spawning so hopefully the next round I'll be able to raise some fry!


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Unread 10/17/2017, 06:01 PM   #8
Anna LR
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If you can culture some live phytoplankton, like Isochrysis, you can also culture copepods, and use the baby copepods for feeding the just hatched larvae.


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