Clownfish Log

[Hawkeye]

Day 22, "FTS" Not exactly a ball, but a tight group of clowns, given they are occupying 1/10 the space of the 10 gallon tank. That is 17 of 19 clown fry. The other two are runts, not sure if they will make it.

I noticed that some of them have mis-barred "bars" - like the male perc. The bar doesn't quite go all the way down.

 

[ReeferNets]

Phil that is awsome.

They are sooooooooooooooo cute.

Dont be affraid throw in a baby bubble tip in their. Theres a guy on RC who sell them for like 5 bucks. I can grab you some tonight.

 

[Patriot76]

awesome!

 

[NikkiT]

Congratulations Phil!
Those baby fish look great, you've done a fantastic job. . . and I continue to think baby clownfish are one of the cutest things ever.

 

[Hawkeye]

thanks guys. I am having a space issue now.

120 display (where parents are, and nest about to hatch in 24 hrs)
10g holding 19 baby percs (21 day old)
5g holding 5 baby percs (40 day old)

Only tank left is the bc29. I got to get the bc29 set up tonight. It'll be huge for them but I need space. The next hatch is due tonight or tomorrow...I'm still torn as to whether I want to try again. I've got the rotifer culture going strong and another bbs batch brewing. I'm going to just roll the dice and say that tonight is not hatch night and wait til tomorrow when the bc29's water is a day old.

Scary thought - i might run to walmart/petco and grab a 5 gallon tank. Making 5 gallons of water is a lot easier than filling a bc29 partially.

Decisions decisions.

 

[Hawkeye]

Catastrophe.

I got anxious and decided to set up the bc29. Moved the first batch from the 5g hex to the bc29. All survived.

Then I cleaned out the 5g hex, and prepared to catch the 17 percs remaining. I wanted the 10g to be the larvae tank.

So I caught them - just like I did the first batch when I did this. Except they started going CRAZY. Then instant death.

I read about this in wilkerson's book and thought I had gotten past that stage. But I lost 10 percs to this instant death thing. I mean placing my hand to gently coax them into a specimen box. Poof dead. 8 survived this transfer.

I am really shocked and saddened.

So i am down to 5 percs (first batch) in a bc29.
and 8 percs (second batch) in the 10g.

There is one silver lining - which is I was right on the money with the third batch of eggs - they hatched tonight and I was able to recover about half the nest. The other half is still on the wall and I'm too shellshocked to try and catch more. I figure we have about 50 fry in the 10g. I was really messy too and probably got 5 gallons of water out with the fry. Ok i'm off to bed. Pics tomorrow after I get back from service.

 

[Phyl]

Sorry to hear about the instant death thing. I can only imagine how devistating that must be after getting them this far.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Bummer...I am sure you are hurtin.

You are going to need to build a shelf for all the tanks you have running. Do you have a plan for the eventual distribution of the first batch?

 

[Hawkeye]

i may just add them into the main display when they get bigger...then it'll be a big pair with a bunch of juvies. I dunno yet. Or I could part with them. It will be hard to do.

For the 3rd batch I've lost 3 fry today. This is pretty good I think - but tomorrow will be more telling. I've been consumed with making sure this tank has:

a) more water volume
b) cleaner water
c) green-tinted water

The rotifers are a plenty - but I need to keep them fed. I think my second batch of clowns were weaker due to the nutrional value of the rotifers being bad. The timing for the meta seemed off.

Anyways - my wife thinks i'm crazy. So far, I've had hatches on 12/18, January 8 and January 29th. That's 3 weeks exactly between batches. 2/19 would be the next batch if these dates hold true.

 

[Phyl]

At what age are they old enough to pass on or move to the display? It would be good for batch 1 to be ready to move to "production" before batch 4 starts. Running 3 at once is probably plenty, I can only imagine!! I give you a lot of credit for being able to catch the fry. I was never able to figure that part up. I guess my clowns gave up on me because they stopped spawning.

 

[Edwardw771]

Wow that sucks. Sorry to hear about that.

 

[magic]

Phil

I have a complete 5 1/2 gal setup you can borrow. Let me know I'm in Piscataway.

Bob

 

[Hawkeye]

At what age are they old enough to pass on or move to the display?

I thought I knew the answer to this - and it was would have been 3 weeks. It worked flawlessly with the first batch. BUT i'm starting to think the first batch were super healthy because they had all that food in there with them. The second batch - I want to say I messed up by trying to corale (spelling?) the clownfish separately into containers. They'd do a zig zag spin o death in the container and then...

But the ones that did make it were caught together (in a large container) and able to make it safely. Bottom line is I think I should wait until they are about 6 weeks old or so. The brine shrimp also (per wilkerson) give the clown a crazy amt of energy and combined with stress - probably did mine in.

 

[Hawkeye]

Phil

I have a complete 5 1/2 gal setup you can borrow. Let me know I'm in Piscataway.

Bob

thanks - i should have thought about talking to you. Completely forgot. You and Rod. Oh well.

So the best news - is that maybe this experience (losing 9 clowns in a day) was worth it as this third batch is doing remarkably well so far. 3 dead on day 1 (morning after), 4 dead on day 2. In my second batch by this time I lost 60 of the 100.

I am not counting how many are left. Call me superstitious but I'm waiting until they get past meta before counting.

 

[DanJ]

Congrats on the new clowns! And when they are ready to sell some i will be looking to buy in a bout a month =) Thanks

And i love your pics they are cuter than puppys!

 

[Hawkeye]

Thanks Dan! They are really fun and cute to look at.

3rd batch update: Lost another 18 since last posting.

This brings the total to 24 dead. I'm not sure if these were the result of transfer deaths or lack of food. I've been pumping rotifers into the tank and phyto - but maybe the lighting isn't right. Might invest in actinic only light or something.

"FTS" of 3rd batch of clowns. These are 2 days old. I've lost 18 since this pic.

 

[qwik]

Great job . I did not realize the colored/stripped at such a small size . I was looking at the pics not realizing how small they were until there was the frag disc to compare them to . They are so cool looking,keep up the good work .

 

[Hawkeye]

Thanks Qwik - i feel like I could do a better job though. I also think they are small because of the lower nutrition value.

I've lost two more clowns from the second batch. Down to 7. Pretty sad if you consider just 4 days ago I had 17 past meta.

I really think the nutrition on them was bad. I looked at one of my old pics - look how clear the water is - there is no "green" in it - which means it was completely nutrtionally void:

Notice the earlier pic above - has a more green tint.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Excellent information.

 

[Hawkeye]

Day 7 FTS. Still quite a few are alive. Although the big test will be how they get thru meta. I removed most of the filter on the light (i was only allowing maybe 10% of the overhead light to go thru. It's a standard NO light for a 10g AGA tank. So pics are with full light below (not that you could tell the difference) - but the fry are no longer blinded by the light and are able to swim without fear even with full light.

Ammonia 0.05ppm. I started dosing baby brine shrimp in large volumes today. I started a small volume yesterday and it was all gobbled up this morning. I also continued to dose rotifers again for any runts/fish that are not so proficient at catching brine shrimp. Dosage of the rotifers is basically a single scoop of the green sieve.

Here's somewhat better pic. You can see the brine shrimp in the tank (those black specs). Also look at the clownfish fry next to the ammonia badge. It's hard to tell but you can see a slight bulge at the head and middle (tummy) and then a straight tail. This is a healthy fry - it needs to have a "peanut-with a tail" kind of look. In a few days it will descend to the bottom and begin meta (hopefully).