My clownfish breeding journey
- Thread starter JasonG
- Start date
Today my Onyx True Percula pair laid what looks to be my first viable clutch!
Since I last posted my new broodstock system is full. I now have 2 maroon pairs, a pair of Picasso's, a pair of Pink Skunks, Photons, True Percs and Onyx True Percs.
Here is a pic of the Onyx first clutch since I have had them, very large, 1500+ would be my guess, the female is a big girl
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Since I last posted my new broodstock system is full. I now have 2 maroon pairs, a pair of Picasso's, a pair of Pink Skunks, Photons, True Percs and Onyx True Percs.
Here is a pic of the Onyx first clutch since I have had them, very large, 1500+ would be my guess, the female is a big girl
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Eggs totally changed color overnight, I am wondering if they were laid a day or two before I noticed now, as this normally happens around day 5/6.
Still looking healthy and pops is doing a great job tending!
Going to post some rotifer culture info tonight since I have had a couple of pms about it
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Still looking healthy and pops is doing a great job tending!
Going to post some rotifer culture info tonight since I have had a couple of pms about it
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Thanks everyone, here is some info on my rotifer set up as requested:
I started out running two 5 gallon buckets with sponge filters hooked up to airlines. Salinity was at 1.14 which is optimum for reproduction with no heaters. I was feeding Rotigrow Plus made by Reed Mariculture at around 4ml per day (once at night, once in the morning). I was harvesting 30-40% of the rotifers DAILY, then adding new salt water. Harvesting was done by removing water using a measuring cup and then pouring through a rotifer sieve, I would then feed the rots to my reef tank and discard the water or discard the rots and the water if I didn't want to. I was also dosing 2x recommended dose of Amquel Plus to detoxify ammonia which is recommended. Right around the 4 week mark my rotifer population seemed to explode and then within a couple of days it crashed.
After talking to someone from Reed Mariculture at RAP just after my culture crashed, and talking to another Reed employee on another forum I figured a few things out.
Sponge filters are pretty much useless for culturing rotifers
Using rotifer floss in some form is a must (its a really fine foam type material that traps debris but not rotifers)
How much you feed determines how much you need to harvest.
Cleaning the sides of the bucket is important
Counting rotifers to check density is crucial!
So now I am doing the following and my cultures look a LOT cleaner and seem healthier all around. My salinity is at 1.20 (I found out from other breeders that although its not the ideal salinity for culturing them its perfectly adequate for the numbers I am looking for). I purchased a CCS from Reed and I use that instead of the sponge filter in my primary culture - its a lot of money to pay for a a couple of pieces of PVC, an airstone and some foam but it works - it is also cheaper than paying for Reed to overnight new rotifers every few weeks when your culture crashes I bought one so that I could copy the design eventually and build another if I liked it. My backup culture has a piece of rotifer floss hanging in it and an airline for circulation - this works well too although not as well. I now brush the sides of the bucket daily (with a NEW toilet brush!), and rinse the CCS standpipe and rotifer floss daily as well. I am harvesting around 25% right now to build up the numbers of rotifers for my fry that will hatch soon. I am also counting my rotifers - this helps in determining how much to feed. To count them I pull out 1ml of culture using a syringe and put it into a test vial, then using a cheap hobby loupe from harbor freight, I try to count the little bastards as quickly as I can while they are swimming! I am also trying RG Complete as well, it contains Rotigrow Plus but has ammonia detox and ph buffer added already for convenience. Not sure if I will continue down this route because it is more expensive than the already pricey food which brings me to my last point (promise)
I decided to buy expensive food rather than culture phytoplankton. There are a couple of reasons for this. What your rotifers eat is going to determine how healthy larvae are (rotifers have little nutritional value themselves) and will impact numbers making it past metamorphosis - RG from Reed is widely accepted as the best rotifer food to gut load your rotifers with before feeding them to larvae. Secondly, culturing rotifers is hard enough. To keep them well fed is very difficult when you have to culture phyto as well. Larvae need to consume around 1,000 rots daily to stay healthy which means you need a lot of rots, which in turn means you need even more phyto!
Pics to follow
I started out running two 5 gallon buckets with sponge filters hooked up to airlines. Salinity was at 1.14 which is optimum for reproduction with no heaters. I was feeding Rotigrow Plus made by Reed Mariculture at around 4ml per day (once at night, once in the morning). I was harvesting 30-40% of the rotifers DAILY, then adding new salt water. Harvesting was done by removing water using a measuring cup and then pouring through a rotifer sieve, I would then feed the rots to my reef tank and discard the water or discard the rots and the water if I didn't want to. I was also dosing 2x recommended dose of Amquel Plus to detoxify ammonia which is recommended. Right around the 4 week mark my rotifer population seemed to explode and then within a couple of days it crashed.
After talking to someone from Reed Mariculture at RAP just after my culture crashed, and talking to another Reed employee on another forum I figured a few things out.
Sponge filters are pretty much useless for culturing rotifers
Using rotifer floss in some form is a must (its a really fine foam type material that traps debris but not rotifers)
How much you feed determines how much you need to harvest.
Cleaning the sides of the bucket is important
Counting rotifers to check density is crucial!
So now I am doing the following and my cultures look a LOT cleaner and seem healthier all around. My salinity is at 1.20 (I found out from other breeders that although its not the ideal salinity for culturing them its perfectly adequate for the numbers I am looking for). I purchased a CCS from Reed and I use that instead of the sponge filter in my primary culture - its a lot of money to pay for a a couple of pieces of PVC, an airstone and some foam but it works - it is also cheaper than paying for Reed to overnight new rotifers every few weeks when your culture crashes
I bought one so that I could copy the design eventually and build another if I liked it. My backup culture has a piece of rotifer floss hanging in it and an airline for circulation - this works well too although not as well. I now brush the sides of the bucket daily (with a NEW toilet brush!), and rinse the CCS standpipe and rotifer floss daily as well. I am harvesting around 25% right now to build up the numbers of rotifers for my fry that will hatch soon. I am also counting my rotifers - this helps in determining how much to feed. To count them I pull out 1ml of culture using a syringe and put it into a test vial, then using a cheap hobby loupe from harbor freight, I try to count the little bastards as quickly as I can while they are swimming! I am also trying RG Complete as well, it contains Rotigrow Plus but has ammonia detox and ph buffer added already for convenience. Not sure if I will continue down this route because it is more expensive than the already pricey food which brings me to my last point (promise)I decided to buy expensive food rather than culture phytoplankton. There are a couple of reasons for this. What your rotifers eat is going to determine how healthy larvae are (rotifers have little nutritional value themselves) and will impact numbers making it past metamorphosis - RG from Reed is widely accepted as the best rotifer food to gut load your rotifers with before feeding them to larvae. Secondly, culturing rotifers is hard enough. To keep them well fed is very difficult when you have to culture phyto as well. Larvae need to consume around 1,000 rots daily to stay healthy which means you need a lot of rots, which in turn means you need even more phyto!
Pics to follow
Its day 5 today and I am looking at a bunch of little eyes staring back at me! Getting close to hatch day, probably Friday or Saturday. Here is a pic of the eggs today, notice the little black specs at the end of the egg those are eyeballs!
I also ended up picking up FIVE more fish tanks last night. A fellow reefer on here had picked them up from a LFS that closed. So I now have 5 more 10 or 15G? acrylic tanks that I am not sure what I will do with yet. Good deal though, he was selling them for $15 a piece, some even still had bulkheads! Good thing my wife is on board with this or I would be divorced by now
I also ended up picking up FIVE more fish tanks last night. A fellow reefer on here had picked them up from a LFS that closed. So I now have 5 more 10 or 15G? acrylic tanks that I am not sure what I will do with yet. Good deal though, he was selling them for $15 a piece, some even still had bulkheads! Good thing my wife is on board with this or I would be divorced by now
