Onyx Clownfish Breeding Project

[DarthNater]

thats awesome!! i have to say i love your threads and they are the main reason i come here. glad to see you posting again! keep up the good work

[president89]

That's a great xmas present. Love the thread. Looking forward to more posts.

[N_prise]

Hey that's an awesome pair of clowns! I'd love to get a few from u! Could u ship to 48043? Lmk ! Love em!

[ClownfishSushi]

Thanks guys!

The eggs are looking great and I'm expecting a possible hatch tonight. I didn't think of the logistics of collecting on xmas eve and although it's going to be a little complicated I'm going to make it happen.

I'm setting up the fry tank now and then I gotta get going to NJ to hang with the girlfriend's family. I'm delaying the lighting timer by a few hours so I hope to be back by 10PM to do a manual collection.

I need to read over my old thread to remember what was special about their offspring. I seem to recall that they got super excited and would motorboat around the surface unless I did something to calm them down. Just blanking on what that was! Oh well, happy holidays and merry xmas!

[ClownfishSushi]

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sure enough, the Onyx clutch hatched last night and I finished up collecting just after midnight. I'd say that officially makes these "Xmas Onyx"!

It ended up being another split hatch but I'd say a good 70% of the clutch hatched. I have approximately 100 fry in the slow-drip fry tank. There are enough eggs remaining that I probably will be collecting the stragglers again tonight.

As of this morning they were looking pretty good. I fed rotifers last night and again this morning and I will be running lights for the first 24 hours straight.

[ClownfishSushi]

I collected the 2nd half of the eggs last night. They began hatching around 8:30PM and every remaining egg had hatched within 15 mins. I may have underestimated the amount of remaining fry because I easily collected over 100.

The fry tank is already looking a little messy so I think I'll go ahead and perform the first bottom scraping later this afternoon.

[nanoreefer1000]

AMAZING pair of onyx!

[grizbear]

nice looking parents. Good luck with the xmas babies!

[coraltastic]

Wanting to move my breeding pair to a new tank, I am worried they might stop breeding. Any suggestions to making the move?

[president89]

Originally Posted by coraltastic

Wanting to move my breeding pair to a new tank, I am worried they might stop breeding. Any suggestions to making the move?

It is very likely they will stop breeding. I've read up to several months. I would make their new tank look exactly the same as the one they are in, meaning put all the same decorations in exactly the same fashion. Also, I would try to avoid netting the fish. Wilkerson always recommends ushering clowns into a container to avoid stress.

If you really want a good answer, I would create your own thread.

[reefstew]

Originally Posted by coraltastic

Wanting to move my breeding pair to a new tank, I am worried they might stop breeding. Any suggestions to making the move?

Wait till they have eggs & move them with the eggs. Their is a good chance they will start up in a month. It has worked for me.

[ClownfishSushi]

Originally Posted by coraltastic

Wanting to move my breeding pair to a new tank, I am worried they might stop breeding. Any suggestions to making the move?

Actually, there is a great way to move them.

Wait until the day she is scheduled to lay. It has to be that day.

She should be overloaded with eggs and about to explode.

When you move her, she'll have to lay no matter what. And having the male tend the nest afterwards is just further reinforcement.

There is a very, very good chance they will resume a normal schedule if you time it correctly.

I got this advice from another breeder who juggles around lots of pairs. Works great for cross-breeding as well...

[Riley007]

Just finished reading this thread from the start, some great information, pictures and videos. I've been seriously considering setting up a breeding attempt. Please keep up on the progress and pass along any advice you may have. Also if you have any pictures or diagrams of your grow out setup I'm sure many others here would love to see what works!

Thanks again.

[SloppyWhenWet]

Baby fish rock

[Lou Young]

Very nice clownfish and a cool thread. Thank you for sharing. Following along.

[Riley007]

Any updates?

[ClownfishSushi]

Originally Posted by Riley007

Any updates?

I apologize for the lack of updates. Had multiple family issues come up requiring me to be out of town twice in as many weeks. : (

Fortunately, a good friend who is a local breeder was able to help out and keep the feeding schedule while I was away.

Juveniles are looking good and should be weaning of rotifers all together in the next week. I promise to get some pics and video up when I find some time and they get to the cute stage.

[ClownfishSushi]

Originally Posted by Riley007

Just finished reading this thread from the start, some great information, pictures and videos. I've been seriously considering setting up a breeding attempt. Please keep up on the progress and pass along any advice you may have. Also if you have any pictures or diagrams of your grow out setup I'm sure many others here would love to see what works!

Thanks again.

My growout system is quickly becoming a hassle. I have 14 individual tanks.. not connected in any way. Each tank is 10 gallons and has it's own heater, hob filter, sponge filter and airstone. The tanks are bare bottom and 25% water changes happen every other week. It's a lot of maintenance and I'm eventually going to need to upgrade to a combined growout system.

The good news is that it's relatively simple to add or subtract tanks to the setup and I can easily convert fry tanks into growout tanks and vice versa. Also, I'm never going to be in danger of some freak pathogen wiping out my entire inventory.

[Lou Young]

I am just catching up on this thread and reading up as much as possible but the separate tanks seem like a much safer way to do it. Props to you for being able to maintain all of the separate tanks.

[OrionN]

I attempted to raise my Onyx clutch also. I lost a lot of fry the first night but tonight is going to be night number 5. Since the first night I only lost one fry the second night.

I think the idea of 24 hr light the first day and start feeding right away is a great idea. I will do this the next patch. I got well over 300 fry hatched but only end up with 56 fry PHD#5

What is your feeding regiment?
Rotifers first then what do you add and at what day as the second food? The third food?

Thanks

[ClownfishSushi]

Originally Posted by OrionN

I attempted to raise my Onyx clutch also. I lost a lot of fry the first night but tonight is going to be night number 5. Since the first night I only lost one fry the second night.

I think the idea of 24 hr light the first day and start feeding right away is a great idea. I will do this the next patch. I got well over 300 fry hatched but only end up with 56 fry PHD#5

What is your feeding regiment?
Rotifers first then what do you add and at what day as the second food? The third food?

Thanks

Rotifers for the first 21-25 days. Three times a day at first, once a day towards the end. I overlap Otohime A starting around day 3 with each feeding. They eventually get crushed golden pearls and freeze dried cyclopseeze depending on their growth. Usually around the 2nd week. Final food stage is normal foods, frozen, flake and pellet.

The important thing is that you overlap food sizes and feed at the same time. They need to be taught that the new item is food even though it's not moving.

[Lou Young]

Hello. Do you ever get any babies that have the Picasso look but are dark like you onyx?

[ClownfishSushi]

Originally Posted by Lou Young

Hello. Do you ever get any babies that have the Picasso look but are dark like you onyx?

I don't really see any extreme misbars from my Onyx gene pool. Bill Addison knew what he was doing. On very rare occassions I will get a special barring, like an onyx with a white spot on her face, and I've held onto those 1 in 1,000 fish for my personal collection.

In the future I do plan to cross an Onyx with a Picasso. There are several breeders who are actively doing that now if you were interested in finding one. Search for Onyx-Picasso or Picasso-Onyx.

I've also got an Onyx with a Platinum who might start to produce something in the next year or so... That will be interesting.

[ClownfishSushi]

The latest Onyx clutches have finally grown large enough to attempt some footage.

Juvenile Onyx Clownfish (18 DPH)

[edandsandy]

BEAUTIFUL BABIES!
I loved the background music too!

Congrats!!!