Clownfish Fry Raising Journal Update 05/24/12

Thanks Corailline! I remember you saying that you had a hard time getting your clowns through meta. Do you have any idea what might have made it difficult for you? So that I could try to avoid/look out for/fix it.

 

Thanks Daniel!

 

I have decapsulated brine shrimp eggs that I might try to hatch and feed to the fry starting tomorrow (day 5) as suggested in Joyce's book. I know you don't use baby brine shrimp and I probably wouldn't either if I had otohime - I hope to have that option soon. In the meantime, I'll continue feeding rots and look for a mortar and pestle today. I have Formula 2 flake and pellet food that all of my fish seem to like and do well on. What other dry foods do you recommend? Do you run your crushed food through a micron filter or something similar to make sure it's small enough? Or do you just eyeball it? I would imagine that I would have to to vacuum the bottom of the tank shortly after feeding to get up any uneaten food.

 

I believe it was temperature and food.

I was doing it by the seat of my pants and had no clue. I went to MCNA in Long Beach for the convention. Joyce Wilkerson was there, she was not a big name back then, even though her books was out ( I am happy to say I still have the signed copy). Her advice was just jump in, only trail and many errors will lead to success, nothing could have been more accurate.

I was going to attempt to try my hand at it again with my B/W misbar. I followed Pickles thread for along time, it was invaluable. But sps became my focus.

I know I will give it another go in the future and this time I will have learned from your experience, so thank you for detailing it and making it available.

 

Great read! I wish my clowns would lay eggs some time.

 

Definitely do the BBS and for other foods - I like using Omega Flakes - reg and veggie as well as New Life Spectrum pellets and some dry cyclopeeze. I would start by crushing small amounts of each component seprately and then mix them all in a crush them together. That way you know you got eact one down to a fine texture. I don't run it through a seive - but that might not be to bad an ideal - you'd want something larger than the 53 micro we typically use for rots thought. And get an ammonia badge -they are cheap- yes excess food will contribute to the dentrification process but you can control it by not feeding to much and doing your regular daily tank maintenance. An ammonia badge will let you know if you need to really get in and clean the tank out well.

I told you I've been cheating on the tank cleaning? I clean an empty tank and move all the fry and water into that tank. Seems to be working out very well and as long as I have the extra tank on hand I might as well. I still make sure to replace at least gallon of tank water every day or so.

 

I picked up a mortar and pestle today. While I was at Petco picking up more salt, I saw "first bites" which is made by hikari - it was cheap so I went ahead and picked it up to give it a try. Once opened, it had exactly the same appearance as the formula two flakes that I had just grinded to dust, except more brown. I put a small pinch of a combination of the two in the tank and the frys seemed to react to it. A few were obviously eating it. I'll start baby brine shrimp tomorrow and continue the rotifers and dry powder.

 

Thanks Pickle. I'll look into getting some of those foods tomorrow.

When do you stop tinting the fry's water and let it clear? After they're completely transferred over to flakes/ frozen?

 

Basically for as long as you are feeding rots - I usually feed rots through Meta, so for me that's the first 9 days or so.

 

Do the fry get freaked out being moved from tank to tank? Do you just dump one tank into the other? Or scoop the fry out like you would as if they had hatched in the broodstock tank?