Clownfish Fry Raising Journal Update 05/24/12

I raise the fry in the same tank where they have hatched. I keep a floating gallon fish bowl with the sides cut out and covered with netting. The first few times ours laid eggs and we removed the fry they did not make it. Now, after about 50 hatches, we have a very high rate of survival. Our latest batch, about 10 days old we have over 100 and 10 have gone through metamorphosis.

 

Zander, are you breeding at the moment or looking into starting down the road?

I think the reason why you can't skip rots all together is because some fry will not recognize the oto has food as fast as others. The rots provide these fry with food until they finally do recognize oto as food.

I don't think a sufficient (not in excess) amount of rots overly pollutes the fry water any more than just oto would. Either way I don't think you can get away from vacuuming the fry tank bottom of detritus, uneaten food, etc if you want to keep water quality up.

 

You mean you keep the fry in the same tank as the parents - just separated by a floating 1 gallon container? How many microns is the netting you use on the floating tank? How do you keep rotifer densities high enough to sustain the fry?

 

Yep, same tank. It works out perfectly, and since the mated pair have been on a regular schedule of about every 10 days we have two fish bowls...The pair have not stopped producing for over two years now...

The netting we use is actually the netting from very fine fish nets. I am not sure of the micron size, but the rotifers do not escape(for the most Part). Believe me, with over 100 larvae there is really no time for them to escape...

 

Pulled the skull 1 night earlier than before because all signs indicated that the eggs were going to hatch last night. Good thing we did - woke up this morning and the majority of the eggs had hatched. This is our first hatch with more than just a handful of fry. Fingers crossed - oto should arrive today and I'll start sprinkling a small amount of A tomorrow per Pickle's advice.

 

Our egg's hatched last night. Here's a quick video of a couple of them. Sorry for the poor quality it was shot with my iPhone.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDaf-3GYwAQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Looks good. I use my iPhone as well...LOL

 

Removing the eggs is not the best idea, and way too much work. We prefer to have them hatch the natural way with the male keeping the eggs aerated...

 

We prefer not to stay up until all hours of the morning chasing fry around.

 

We force them to hatch by darkening the room and covering the tanks...It has always worked for us...