Clown babies!!!!

[David S]

After loosing his first mate to carpet surfing and being removed from an eels mouth my male clown of nearly 2 years has had eggs with his new mate of 6 months.I would like to try and raise as many as poss but the eggs are attached to a rock which cannot be removed and i have a birdnose wrasse in the tank which at the moment is being attacked by the female clown if it goes anywhere close to the eggs.
I have a nano tank but it crashed and is in the process of being cycled,

What do I need to do now??

 

[Jimbo7]

I would leave the nano barebottom with a cycled sponge filter. I have talked to a couple breeders who are using the Otohime system (Otohime all natural fish food from Reed Mariculture) which makes feeding and nutrition much easier. A starter culture of some pods or rots will help initially to make sure they are feeding while you get them on the pellets.

The biggest thing it seems with breeding is making sure you are really good and consistent with cleaning out excess food and waste. There are a lot of plans online for larvae catchers, or you can look online to find hints on when they will hatch and collect them manually.

Your best bet is to head over and check out MOFIB. They have stuff down to a science.

 

[David S]

Cheers Jimbo7 that site has some great tips,I'll try to get everything ready for this nest but if not for the next(presuming they will lay again within 10-14 days)

 

[David S]

Ok just to update this post, my clown laid about 100 eggs,throughout the week quite a few eggs must have detacthed from the LR as their was only about 20 left last night,I don't think anything got to them because the 2 clowns were very protective.Although I wasn't ready to raise them i decided to try and save a few,so i made a very basic fry catcher with an old miracle mud container,some pvc pipe,filter sock and an led,I set it up in the tank last night knowing they would hatch last night or tonight.I set my lights to red I kept an eye on it.This morning I got up to find 3 had been caught not a brilliant result out of 100 but I'm still chuffed.My rotifiers turned up in the post so I have setup a culture tank.so although I wasn't quite ready this time I will be next time.I'm placing a tile near to the egg site in the tank so hopefully she will lay on the tile instead of the rock,then i will remove 90% of them into a funnel with an air line the day of hatching,then off to my temp growout tank until my nano is completly cycled.Any other hints or tips would be greatfully accepted

David

 

[maxst2]

I suggest reading this. He's got some nice input and trail and error processes and LOADS OF INFO.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=229199&hl=

 

[David S]

Thanks for that maxst2.
Typical!! I was going to put a tile or pot in the tank for the clowns as the larvae hatched yesterday only to get home from work to find at least double the amount of eggs laid already,At least I'm a bit more ready for them this time,I will leave it for 7 days and I will remove around 90 % of the eggs to a large funnel for hatching.My rotifiers should multipling well by then as well