View Full Version : Clownfish breeding in tank
rockethippo
03-17-2007, 9:56 PM
My LFS said if my clownfish pair breed you can just put something like a flowerpot in the main tank and the babies mgiht go in it.
jojo22
03-17-2007, 11:37 PM
Yeah but a kressel (sp) system works better
Reefscape
03-18-2007, 9:55 AM
explain that one for me please JoJo, never heard of that...Ta
Niko
jojo22
03-18-2007, 2:00 PM
http://www.captivereefing.com/showthread.php?t=3869
Here is a thread with some very helpfull pics. These work great for fish that either can't swim at birth or are poor swimmers. In the case of clown fish it makes for a tank with no flat sides for them to run into as that can and does often cause death in clownfish fry.
Reefscape
03-18-2007, 2:22 PM
cheers matey, a really good idea that it, especially since its self contained...
Niko
jojo22
03-18-2007, 2:29 PM
If or should I say WHEN I get some ponies I plan to build a few of them and try to raise them.
My father and I were breeding and raising clownfish for a while. We had 3 29 gallon tanks for 3 pairs of breeders. bare bottom no substrate 29 gallon tanks with 1 flower pot.
The fish would spawn like clockwork about once a month, eggs hatched in about 8 or 9 days if I remember correctly.
The grow out stage, from 1 day to 3 weeks the fish were kept in a 30 something gallon hexagon tank, with all the side glass tapped up (the babies don't like light from all angles, only from the top).
After that point we moved the babies over to a series of 8 55 gallon tanks to grow out to 3 months. At that point the fish were between 1/4" and 1/2", not really a sellable size, and we were sitting on several thousand fish with no more space, so we stopped breeding and sold off everything as it got big enough.
It was fun, interesting, and on a small scale I think I may do it again at some point, but trying to do it as a source of income without a huge facility isn't worth the hassle.
Fishieness
05-05-2007, 10:00 AM
yeah. the babies wont go on the flowerpot. the flowerpot is there for the pair to lay the eggs on, but once hatched, the babies will be everywhere. They also have pretty much NO chance of surviving in your main tank. They will be eaten/sucked up/starved to death. The best thing to do is put them in another tank as suggested above. the best transfer methods is putting the rock (or flowerpot) that the clowns layed eggs on in a seperate tank a day or two before hatching. You can then use an airbubbler to create some water flow over the eggs, but you cant have any of the bubbles actualy touch the eggs. you can also catch them at night right after they hatch. shine a flashlight down into the water and the clownfish will start swirling in the beam of light. Then just shine the light at a white bowl and they will swim in there, then jsut transfer.
if you are even thinking about raising clownfish, i would strongly suggest buying "clownfishes" by joyce wilkerson
rockethippo
05-10-2007, 1:39 AM
What are the survival rates of the babies? and how many babies per breeding?
TomToro
05-10-2007, 12:58 PM
My two Clarkiis breed every three weeks or so. The babies grow until you can see their shining silver eyes. The male beats the heck out of anything that comes close and then one night they hatch and the Mandarins get a feast. I'm on my fourth breeding right now. Wish I could figure out a way to get 'em out of there before they hatch. I do have another tank with revolving cheato and tons of bugs I could transfer them to.
rockethippo
05-17-2007, 12:52 AM
Is it correct that occellaris females will be ready to bread when they are about 1.5" long?
Guy W
05-21-2007, 12:41 PM
What are the survival rates of the babies? and how many babies per breeding?
On our false perc pair the survival rate was probably 60 to 75% of the babies making past the 14 day mark. After 2-3 weeks die off was basicly none. Getting them through the first couple weeks is hard but once they start getting color and actually looking like tiny little clowns they lived for us.
The Maroons on the other hand were much tougher. We would have maybe a 20 to 25% survival. Our male was a gold stripe and our female was a regular maroon, although I don't think that had anything to do with it. Who knows.
The False Percs would usually have about 500+ babies. It was hard to get an accurate count, I just now we had thousands of babies in a few short months.
Wish I could figure out a way to get 'em out of there before they hatch. I do have another tank with revolving cheato and tons of bugs I could transfer them to.
We would wait until the night of the hatch, pretty much 10 days after laying the eggs if I remember correctly. We would turn off all the lights and hang a small mag flash light above the tank, and suck them up with a turkey baster when they swam towards the light.
We then transfered them over to a small Hexagon tank with all the sides covered in paper, to prevent light from coming in from the sides (they don't like that, and will swim into the glass and kill themselvse if you don't eliminate side light).
Is it correct that occellaris females will be ready to bread when they are about 1.5" long?
That's hard to say. All clowns are born asexual and become male. The biggest male becomes a female when there is an absence of a female in the population, and she will pair up with a mate. The easy answer is this happens at sexual maturity, not necessarily at 1.5 inches.
The female will always be much larger than a male. I would recommend if you want to get a breeding pair to buy the largest and smallest clowns you can find and put them together. Maybe a 1.5" fish with a .75 to 1.0" fish. If they don't fight they will most likely pair up and spawn at some point. It did take our pair almost a year to start breeding.
Getting them to spawn and hatch eggs is the easy part, trust me. Growing all the stages of food, feeding the food, feeding the 3 day old babies, having enough room to grow out the babies, and maintaining the grow out systems are the challenge. It was an interesting project but we couldn't make any profit. 12 55 gallon tanks was not enough to grow out all the babies we had, and keep revolving the stock so we always had room for new batches.
If your interested in breeding clownfish I highly recommend:
Clownfishes (Paperback)
by Joyce D. Wilkerson (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Clownfishes-Joyce-D-Wilkerson/dp/1890087041/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-6513902-0821414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179765398&sr=8-1
That is the only book we used, it explains everything you need to know.
Guy W
05-21-2007, 11:44 PM
Some pictures from our baby tank. These fish are probably around 2 weeks old, maybe a little less.
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/7630/clowngroup1sk6.jpg
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/9177/clowngroup3ci2.jpg
rockethippo
05-22-2007, 9:13 PM
Awwwwww. What sort of filtration do you have in the tank with just hatched eggs? Just an air stone? How often do you change the water? How long beforehand do you start culturing the rotifers? To save money you could have just used large totes .
Guy W
05-22-2007, 11:59 PM
Awwwwww. What sort of filtration do you have in the tank with just hatched eggs? Just an air stone? How often do you change the water? How long beforehand do you start culturing the rotifers? To save money you could have just used large totes .
On the baby tank we just used a sponge filter, basicly:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=3936&Ntt=sponge%20filter&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&N=2004&Nty=1
Changed 30+% of the water every couple days or so. The rotifer and microalgea systems we started after the eggs were first starting to be laid, and didn't raise a batch until the food system was up and running.
Keeping the rotifers and nanochloropsys algea (spelling?) was pretty easy once we figured out a trick. Being in South Florida we just had large rubbermaid containers sitting outside in the hot sun with some air line/pump circulation. Keeping it indoors was more difficult and it never really took off until we moved it outside. It was kept out of direct rain.
rockethippo
05-23-2007, 12:30 AM
Well I was thiking the rotifers would be easy to grow inside. I was thinking of just dripping kents phyto, or am I totally thinking wrong?
rockethippo
05-23-2007, 12:36 AM
Also does a sponge filter just make micro bubbles? If yes, wouldn't a wooden air stone for skimmers work?
Guy W
05-24-2007, 10:25 PM
Well I was thiking the rotifers would be easy to grow inside. I was thinking of just dripping kents phyto, or am I totally thinking wrong?
I'm not familiar with the kents phyto so I'm not sure.
I'm not sure if this is the exact product we used for the greenwater algea culture to feed the rotifers or not, but if this isn't it exactly it's very similar:
http://www.reed-mariculture.com/microalgae/nanno.asp
The problem we had, and why we moved the system outside, was the amount of light needed to keep the algea system growing. But once it's growing you don't have to buy any more products to keep feeding the rotifers, which is good if you intend on hatching a lot of batches of babies.
Guy W
05-24-2007, 10:27 PM
Also does a sponge filter just make micro bubbles? If yes, wouldn't a wooden air stone for skimmers work?
The sponge filter just collects a lot of particulate matter and offered a little circulation and oxygenation to the system, but not enough to create a current the babies had issues swiming in. Ultimately you probably don't need any filtration on the tank the babies are growing out in for the first several weeks if you do daily water changes, and on a small system that isn't a very big deal if you have your own RO/DI system to make good clean water.
bkchristy
06-09-2007, 9:28 PM
Just hatched my first set of eggs.. Only about 14 the first morning were alive and the second day only about 4... Have a 10 gal tank with sponge filter, lite sand on bottom and the bubble coral they were laid on.. plus the mom and dad... Fed them plankton and they seemed to eat it , but I must be doing something wrong.... HELP.....
rockethippo
06-09-2007, 11:33 PM
what kind of plankton? I'm pretty sure you feed phytoplanton to rotifers then feed the rotifers to the fry.
Just hatched my first set of eggs.. Only about 14 the first morning were alive and the second day only about 4... Have a 10 gal tank with sponge filter, lite sand on bottom and the bubble coral they were laid on.. plus the mom and dad... Fed them plankton and they seemed to eat it , but I must be doing something wrong.... HELP.....
The parents will most likely eat the fry (babies) before they ever have a chance to grow. Another reason to not keep the fry with the parents, especially in a small system is they will quickly foul the water. I'm guessing if you only have 14 alive after 1 day the parents ate most of them. A typical hatch should be between 200 and 500, or more.
I don't know what you mean by plankton, I assume your talking about some sort of coral food like Kents Phytoplankton, or whatever it's called? I've never heard of or read about anyone using a non-rotifer based diet for clownfish fry. Thats not to say it won't work, but if no one is doing it there is probably a reason.
Fear not though, if the parents are breeding regularly you will have plenty of chances to try again. Pick of the book 'Clownfishes', I linked it in this thread several posts back. You can learn everything there is to know about raising clownfish from that book, if your interested in trying it.