Clown Breeding

[Bang Guy]

Clownfishes is a great book.

To answer an earlier question, starting with just feeding the Larvae Cyclop-Eeze is very risky. Typically they need a live food to get their eating instincts going. After a week or so they are able to eat the freeze dried Cyclop-eeze if it's ground to a powder.

Rotifers are a good food to start with but the Rotifers must be fed a high quality algae.

[diverdown69]

Yep. Most species of cultured finfish feed like that for first feeding. They are attracted to the movement. That's why I said to get a rotifer culture going or an Artemia culture established. [acronym:a2770f7bc9="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:a2770f7bc9], larval brine shrimp would be great. They are nutritionally acceptable. Adult Artemia brine shrimp [acronym:a2770f7bc9="On The Other Hand"]OTOH[/acronym:a2770f7bc9] are nutritionally empty for all intents and purposes, but they can be used to incite a feeding response.
When you start algal and rotifer cultures, make very sure that you don't let the rotifer culture contaminate the algal culture. This may sound like a no-brainer, but it is more likely than you may think. Use separate glassware, filtration, and utensils to deal with each culture. Contamination of your algal culture with a few rotifers can result in the destruction of the algal culture. Where I work, we have huge cylindrical tanks with wall lighting for algal and rotifer cultures. We also have separate equipment for both cultures. We use rotifers for larval rearing experiments with Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei).
Another thing that you should seriously consider is the timing of the larval hatch and collection. You have to time it right so you can collect them. Some aquaculturists use a flashlight and beaker. You can shine the light on the surface of the water and the larvae will flock to the light...it's called a phototactic response. With the larvae at the surface of the water, you can CAREFULLY skim them off in a 250 mL beaker or similar piece of glassware.

[Bang Guy]

I just want to caution that larval Brine Shrimp (Artemia nauplii) are too large for newly hatched Clownfish. Something the size of Rotifers is required for the first several days, longer for many species of Clownfish.

[acronym:53fc237bbd="On The Other Hand"]OTOH[/acronym:53fc237bbd], Artemia nauplii are perfect for newborn Banggai Cardinalfish.

[diverdown69]

I didn't realize that the Artemia naups would be too large for a first feeding. They are used regularly for many other species of fish and inverts.
Looks like you learn something new everyday after all.

[Bang Guy]

I'm mostly familiar with the Ocellaris but other Clownfish are very similar. I feed them Rotifers for 14 days but I start mixing in the nauplii at day 7 or 8.

[diverdown69]

What kind of survivability do you get from the average brood?

[Bang Guy]

The last batch was over 80% but that's not typical for me. Usually it's 25 - 30%.

[diverdown69]

Honestly, high survivabilities like that don't really surprise me that much. I have heard of survivabilites between 80-90% with Premna and Amphiprion. [acronym:ff59190316="In My Honest Opinion"]IMHO[/acronym:ff59190316], it all depends on the water quality and how well you are able to collect the newly hatched larvae. Speaking of, how do you collect them? Do you use the flashlight and beaker method or do you collect them in an overflow tank?

[Bang Guy]

Neither. I fashioned an incubation chamber using an air pump, [acronym:ffec3a75a9="Plastic pipe"]PVC[/acronym:ffec3a75a9] tubing, and a plastic oil pan. I put the rock the eggs are on in the chamber a day or two before they are due to hatch.

[diverdown69]

Interesting set up. I asked that because the systems that I have seen for finfish culture are set up to allow the larvae (and even fertile eggs at times) to be removed from the breeding tank through an overflow/skimmer of sorts. Once the eggs are removed from the tank, they are taken to the larval rearing tanks. The LRT's are very tightly controlled in terms of WQ, temp, and lighting. As for actual tanks, these things are nothing more than a bunch of 20-[acronym:944d407e87="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:944d407e87] circular tanks with a standpipe and fine mesh net in the middle. Lighting consists of an incandescent bulb and a reflector. The room temperature and humidity is very tightly controlled as well. They use powerheads to circulate the water ever so gently.
The best system like this I have seen was the one I saw at Sea Center Texas last week. They were culturing red drum, speckled trout, flounder, and even TARPON! The systems were set up such that they could control photoperiod in each tank individually so that they had a constant cycle of spawning and larvae/egg removal. One tank might be spawning while the others were in a resting phase. This sort of set up (lighting control) could very easily be duplicated for hobbyist use with small [acronym:944d407e87="Activated Carbon"]AC[/acronym:944d407e87] timers or even a computer if the hobbyist was so inclined. The shrimp culture facility where I work has much the same sort of system with open top tanks and computer controlled lighting.