Breeding clownfish?

[Levi_S]

Is there something inherently impossible about raising fry in the parents tank. If you have a species tank with just say, gravel, little live rock, anemone, clowns and snails for a cleaning crew; would it still be necessary to remove the eggs before hatching. ASSUMING of course that the parents don't eat the eggs straight away? Or could you rear the fry in this type of setup along with the parent and anemone. OR - could you just remove the parents and leave the fry in with the anemone (for imprinting purposes).

Thanks,

[trueblackpercula]

they will hunt ever fry down in the morning and eat them all.

[acrohead]

Not only do the fry look like baby brine (my Vanderbilt chromis will pick them off as I collect them and he is in almost darkness in a reef, but still manages to grab quite a few) but the amount of food you would have to have to get the little guys to live would be far harder to provide than if you tried to rear them in a 5 or ten gallon tank. The larva are about 1/16 of an inch when born, and they are not a good swimmer, and burn tons of energy trying to swim against the smallest current, so you must pack the tank FULL of rotifers (the common thought is that the little guys must only swim 1 to 1.5 body lengths before running into a rotifer) and in a tank bigger than 10 gallons you would have to culture your roti's and greenwater or other algae substitue to feed rotifers in this set up, and no skimmer or external filter or you suck all food and larva out with the filter.
This co-culturing of algae and rotifers to me would be great in a 20 - 40 gallon tank if you had the space and a couple of hatches to feed all at once. If your an average joe like me I would suggest that you try with a BARE 5 gallon or so, and no gravel as the fry can get stuck in the grains if the gravel is too coarse, and it will make a real mess trying to clean the crap that builds up in the bottom of larval tank (IMO same problem with cleaning bottom of tank with small gravel/sand). And as far as imprinting, you dont want a fry that accidentally swims by an anen in your tank and have the tiny baby have no chance to escape a sting that an adult may easily endure while they are trying to acclimate to a new anenome.
I think if you dig around this site a little and read about folks breeding setups that are successful at this part of the hobby you will learn alot of info that you can really put to use in home culture of clowns.
I hope I wasnt too long winded.
And BTW, I watched one of my favorite staghorn acropora's grab a newborn fry and it wouldnt let go, it was sad to see him struggle, but thats the food chain.
Stick with it if you really want to raise them, and one day you will be rewarded.
T