First attempt breeding clownfish

[Kathy55g]

My friend's clowns laid eggs 2 Sundays ago, on the tile, so he emailed me to get ready.

I did not think that I could get the rotifers up to snuff, but they took off multiplying, and now, as the clownfish eggs are hatching in my larval tank, I have about 2.5 gallons at 200 rots/ml in a bucket, and 8x 2L bottles brewing rots as a batch culture for insurance. I have lots of live nannochloropsis phytoplankton, too. I drove the eggs home last night in 2 gallons of parent tank water in a 5 gallon pail with bubbler going over the eggs, and set them up last night in the larval tank with a steady flow of bubbles over them and with water from the parent tank (also a heater, thermometer, and an ammonia alert badge).

I think the eggs are hatching. After an hour of total darkness, I crept downstairs with a dim flashlight, and I think I saw tiny larvae swimming around. I guess I should leave them alone while they do their hatching thing.

Someone suggested feeding them right away after the hatch, but I am thinking that there must be a reason that Nature's hatching cue is total darkness, and they can't eat what they can't see. We will feed them in the morning.

Wish me luck, I've never done this before, but I've been reading and fooling around in the basement so much, that my kids no longer recognize me.('')

JK, actually, they enjoy tearing labels off of coke bottles and looking at the rotifers under the microscope. Although they still don't know a rotifer from a phytoplankton from a larvae, they'll get it eventually.


Time for bed. Many mouths to feed tomorrow, I hope.
Cheers.

[Atticus]

Good Luck!!! My first suggestion is to use the water tinting method. Just add enough phyto to the larval tank water to put a light "tint" not color the water green.

[ediaz]

Hello KM,

I always feed the morning after they are done with their hatching thing.

Adding the phyto to the tank like Atticus says will keep the rotifers in the tank nutritious and will have other benefits as well.

Enriching the rotifers and artemia just before feeding, not the cultures, with selco, protein selco or a similar product will help.

Yeah my lawn is not doing good, i did not do good in botany class
I am still looking for that phyto thing you asked, havent forget...

Ed

[Kathy55g]

Hundreds of larvae hatched last night, and almost all are dead....
I woke up to piles of dead larvae and about 20 swimmers. I fed them, added a little nannochloropsis, sucked out the dead piles and watched as almost all of the rest died...

Under the microscope, the dead ones had black spots on their skin, and what looked like a black film partially covering their yolk sac. Ammonia was 1.5 . Joyce's book says that is tolerable.

Must be something in the water? I still have unhatched eggs. I have many questions:

Should I do a complete water change and let these unhatched eggs have a go?

The parent tank is 20 miles away. Can I use water from my display tank?

Can I use new artificial saltwater I mixed a couple of days ago?

Should I bleach and de-chlorinate it?

Advice is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Kathy

[Atticus]

Where were the piles located? Anywhere near the heater???

[Kathy55g]

No, there was one pile in the middle of the floor, and one stacked on the top edge of the tile where it extended out of the water (bubbles pushed them up there) and another on anther area of open space on the tank bottom. Some around the edges, here, there and everywhere.

On a lighter note, I was delighted to find 3 or 4 still alive and interested in rotifers when I got home from work today. I thought they would all be dead!

The heater did not appear to be the culprit. In fact it was hardly ever on. The temp is 80 in the larval tank, and the water in the mixing tank without a heater is 77, so the heater doesn't have to work too hard.

On the other hand, maybe it was the heater. I had wrapped about half of it with electrical tape to prevent the light thing from hurting the larve, but I think the tape had a bad smell. This morning I pulled it out and remove the overkill tape and replaced it with just enough to cover the light. It smelled better. Who knows?

So, with 3 or 4 larve and climbing ammonia from all the death and destruction, I should perhaps do a water change.

Do I use fresh overnight artificial salt water, or water from the display tank? Should I treat with chlorine and dechlorinator?

Help!
Cheers,
Kathy

[Kathy55g]

I wonder if it was the light?
I have a 90 watt fluorescent flood about 2-3 feet over the tank. Was it enought to kill the larve? How do you spell larve?

[Atticus]

Larva Like Farva from Super Trooppers!!! Great Movie


Back to fish... How strong was the current from your air stone? Too much current will damage fry and kill them the first night. Light will kill fish, but it is due to over energy expenditure trying to swim toward or away from the light. ANother thing could be underfed parents which produce weak fry.

[mattydub]

It sounds like the light was too strong...but I'm no expert....just a guess and a wild one at that...sorry for your loss but please keep us posted!

[Kathy55g]

Originally posted by Atticus
Larva Like Farva from Super Trooppers!!! Great Movie


Back to fish... How strong was the current from your air stone? Too much current will damage fry and kill them the first night. Light will kill fish, but it is due to over energy expenditure trying to swim toward or away from the light. ANother thing could be underfed parents which produce weak fry.

thanks for the spelling tip!

The airstone is really an airbar that is connected to the smallest pump from the petstore, and shares this pump with the rotifer airline that goes to the 5 gallon pail of about 2 gallons of rotifers. The airbar is situated under the eggs at the base of the tile that holds them. It is held down by the tips of 2 other tiles. I'll try to take a picture. I thought that you had to blast those eggs with air to keep them going! Should I turn off the air when the lights go off tonight to allow the rest of the eggs on the tile to hatch? maybe put a second point source of air into the tank to keep things moving?

Could be the light. I put a shade over the tank when I went to work this morning and there were still about 6 live ones in the tank when I got home. I made a paper towel shade for the tank this evening, to perhaps protect more fish. How much light do you use for your larva?

The parents are rather large fish from a friend's tank, and I cannot imagine that he underfeeds them. He has a gorgeous reef tank.

I am not sure the remaining eggs are any good, but I guess we'll see tomorrow morning.

Again, wish me luck.

Thanks, and keep the advice coming.
Cheers,
Kathy

[Kathy55g]

Originally posted by mattydub
It sounds like the light was too strong...but I'm no expert....just a guess and a wild one at that...sorry for your loss but please keep us posted!

Thanks, Mattydub,
I wasn't counting on hundreds of larva, although I was prepared to feed them. I expected some losses, but not this much. But, all in all, if I lose them all, I will learn something, and the parents spawn every couple of weeks, so I'll have another opportunity to try again. If I didn't try to raise them, the parents would just eat them, so there is no real loss. I do enjoy trying, and I believe sooner or later, I will succede.

Cheers,
kathy

[Atticus]

Adding phytoplantkon to the water acts as a light diffuser. You want your fry to stay in the middle of the water column. If they are nose up add more light if they are swimming down into the glass decrease your light.

[Kathy55g]

Thanks Atticus, I will try to figure out which way they are facing without taking the black stuff off the sides of the tank.

I am thinking the killer of the massive numbers was the air bar. I probably damaged them as they hatched.

There are 4 survivors this morning.

It is amazing how quickly those rotifers eat. I was checking them out under the microscope this morning, and my continuous culture rots looked a little pale. I filtered out enough to feed the larval tank, and then added some fresh phyto to the filtered rots. Checked again a few minutes later, and they all had bright green bellies! BRIGHT green! Fed those little guys to the larval tank. Next to feed is the continuous culture bucket.

I like the idea of tinting the larval tank green with phyto. Since I can't feed them during the day, and there are only 4 larva, the rotifers will probably last until I get home, and the ones they eat should be good and nutritious with all that phyto.

Thanks for the help, and please feel free to keep it coming,
Kathy

[Luis A M]

Kathy,
You clearly have a PMD case,aka first night death.Bad luck for a beginner!
You can search for it though causes and solutions are mostly hypothetical.Keep trying and try different conditions.This thing comes and goes.
Good luck!

[Dman]

Kathy,
What species were they?
Dman

[Kathy55g]

Originally posted by Dman
Kathy,
What species were they?
Dman

Good question...Perculas or Ocelaris, I can't tell the difference...

[Kathy55g]

Originally posted by Luis A M
Kathy,
You clearly have a PMD case,aka first night death.Bad luck for a beginner!
You can search for it though causes and solutions are mostly hypothetical.Keep trying and try different conditions.This thing comes and goes.
Good luck!

PMD? Post-Hatch Massive Death? Sorrry I'm new to this.

I dismantled the tile-bubble bar combination so I can't take a pix in the tank, but I'll re-assemble tonight and take a shot.

I think I may have damaged the neo-fry with the barrage of bubbles I applied to the eggs. That's my best guess right now, although I am interested in anyone else's opinion.

Keep them coming! Thanks for your consideration.

Kathy

[Atticus]

Kathy,

With only 4 fry left watch your rotifer load in the tank as the fry will not be able to keep up and you will be culturing rotifers in their tank. This normally is not a bad thing, but if the rotifers crash so will your fry. Just a heads up. I strongly believe it was damage from bubbles that caused the quick death, but you may also want to try leaving the heater off for a couple days next time. I have done this with the last few black ocellaris hatchings I raised and it was a very positive experiment. I tried this because I was actually out of rotifers and wanted to see if I could get the fry to last 6 days until the fresh batch of rotifers came in. They ran on yolk sac alone for 5 days with the decreased temp and I had 0% die off until day 4. My room temp is 76-77 degrees.

[Luis A M]

Originally posted by kmleah

PMD? Post-Hatch Massive Death? Sorrry I'm new to this.

Good guess "Perinatal massive death".

eggs either fail to hatch

or hatch into normal lively larvae that are found dead in the morning.Those surviving the first night live and develop normally.

[Kathy55g]

Originally posted by Atticus
Kathy,

With only 4 fry left watch your rotifer load in the tank as the fry will not be able to keep up and you will be culturing rotifers in their tank. This normally is not a bad thing, but if the rotifers crash so will your fry. Just a heads up. I strongly believe it was damage from bubbles that caused the quick death, but you may also want to try leaving the heater off for a couple days next time. I have done this with the last few black ocellaris hatchings I raised and it was a very positive experiment. I tried this because I was actually out of rotifers and wanted to see if I could get the fry to last 6 days until the fresh batch of rotifers came in. They ran on yolk sac alone for 5 days with the decreased temp and I had 0% die off until day 4. My room temp is 76-77 degrees.

WOW! O die off with no added food! I will try this with the next batch. My basement is 77 degrees all summer, so that should work. I assume you recommend feeding them, since I have the rotifers?

Only 2 larva this morning.

I have a microscope, so I've been counting the rotifers in the larval tank and enriching with phyto the ones I add to it. I've been adding phyto to the larval tank, too, to keep the older rotifers green bellied. Seems to be working pretty well. Thanks for the heads up, I can use all the help I can get.

[Kathy55g]

Next question: Water change.

JW recommends water from the parent tank. In my case that is impractical, since the parent fish are from my friend's tank, 20 miles away.

I am thinking I may want to use freshly prepared Instand Ocean, aerated overnight, and pH and salinity matched to the larval fish tank.

Is this a bad idea? I need to check ammonia ...

I am lowering the salinity (from 32 to 25 ppt) over 2 days with a drip of fresh RO/DI water, as per Joyce W.. Do I add new salt water the same way?

Thanks in advance.

[Dman]

Here's what I would do,
Use the water from your 55 for water changes. This accomplishes two things: one, the fry get properly aged water and two, your 55 gets a regular water change.
Dman

[David M]

And I alway thought it was just a hobbyist expression as in PM death (night death) I am waaay to stupid to be raising fish

[Atticus]

Originally posted by Dman
Here's what I would do,
Use the water from your 55 for water changes. This accomplishes two things: one, the fry get properly aged water and two, your 55 gets a regular water change.
Dman

That is exactly what I was going to suggest. If possible try to filter the 55 gallon's water as you take it out to keep from spreading nasties to the fry tank. I use a small diameter tube and a 53 um rotifer screen. Keeps bad pods and hydroids out among other things.

[Kathy55g]

My rotifer screen has not arrived yet. I've been using a coffee filter. Works for rotifers. I guess it would work for this, too?