Need Help with Breeding Yellow-tail Damsels

[jeittreim]

Hi, I have a 55gal reef tank that has been my pride and joy for the past 3 years, just recently I discovered much to my suprise that 2 of my damsel fish have laid eggs on the underside of one of the rocks and I have been somewhat caught off guard.

In my past, I have been successful at breeding Freshwater Severums, however, I am a newbie when it comes to saltwater ( I have just started getting comfortable with my ability to grow and propogate my coral!!!)

I have a breeding tank from my freshwater days (a 10 gallon with the glass painted black) and a sponge filter with a complete setup. I have already set it up ready to transfer the rock with the eggs and water for it to take care of the fish, but am not sure where to go from here!!!!!


HELP PLEASE!!! Has anyone been successful at raising damsels?


Thanks in advance,


Jason
jeittreim@hotmail.com
:thud: :eeek:

 

[Guy W]

Well, I've not done yellow-tails but I would imagine it is very similar to breeding clowns which I have done.

It is really very time consuming and almost not worth it for a fish that you can only sell for 5 dollars tops, and less if your selling to fish stores.

But if you just want to do it for fun, there are some good books. One book, Clownfishes by Joyce Wilkerson goes into depth about breeding clowns, and if the steps are the same with yellow tails you can follow that with success.

The process of growing algea to feed to rotifers, and rotifers which you feed to the babies, and then brineshimp which you will feed to the babies as they get a week or two old, and then the space needed to grow out the fish for 6 months is a pretty huge commitment, but it can be a lot of fun.

But there are a lot of books out there and I'd be happy to help if you have some specific quesitons.

 

[fishiness]

they were discussing breeding brine shrimp here, i think i posted this in antoher thread today but i don't remember. some guy was spending $20 a week, or a month, (i forget) on fish food, when he could just have been doing this for free: jenn from our board posted this: I did run a brine culture running for 2 years on my back step. Hatched some brine (or you could buy some adult brine) stuck them in a bucket on my back porch in discarded tank water (from water changes) and let the sun do its thing. Rain topped it off, sometimes I topped it off, but otherwise it thrived on neglect, froze over in the winter, and came back to life in the spring.

No heater, no aerator, no nuthin'.

free food, yo, for those hungry guppies