Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin)

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 11:53:04 GMT

When I came back from Cozumel I was out of homemade mash and all my broodstock were fed only frozen Mysis and Plankton for 3 weeks. Most of my broodstock have been on a breeding hiatus since. I made more homemade mash last weekend and have been pumping the fish full of food. Hopefully things will start percolating in there soon!

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:47:07 GMT

Mine take about 3.5 to 4 months to achieve good, solid blackness. At that point, about 50% have black noses. I was surprised it took so long. I now have auto feeders on my growout tanks so they are getting fed more often than before, so maybe future batches will be black sooner.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (oceancube)

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:14:35 GMT

looking good.... Shouldn't they be black by this time already??? Nice to see your updates!

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:25:59 GMT

This spawn is 03/30/13. 762 eggs! Not bad for Darwins.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:10:30 GMT

Sadly, these little guys were subject to Negligence Causing Death. When plumbing my growout system I used Gutter Guard for the drain pipes without thinking it through. Many of these fish still fit through the Gutter Guard. After 3 days of running I noticed fewer numbers of juvies in the tanks and sudden realization of where the missing fish were dawned on me! Unfortunately, I lost about 25 of the little guys, but managed to save at least a dozen still alive in the filter sock.

Sad story aside, here is a pic of the little guys a couple days ago when I first started up the sump and transferred the older ones to the 10-gallon on the system. They are 2.5 months old in the pic and 1-1.25" for the most part (a few younger ones jumped the fence haha).

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:06:19 GMT

60 DPS photo (he's about 7/8"):

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:12:51 GMT

I culled all misbars in the June 14 & 27 batches. The June 14 batch has just one fish with good white bars, and the June 27 batch has 13 with good white bars. The lone June 14th guy will be 60 dps on Aug 13th and is currently 53 dps and 3/4" long. Go little guy go!

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:31:27 GMT

I was busy messing around in the fish room today right in front of the Darwin tank, about an hour in I glance at the Darwins thinking I might feed them again, and they are busy spawning the biggest nest they've made. Silly fish...can't disturb them! A late spawn for them - they are usually midday - and they switched back to the 45 degree tile rather than the vertical tile.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 14:07:56 GMT

Pics from yesterday after I moved them all. 06/14 batch got moved to the new growout tank. 06/27 batch got moved from a 10 gallon to a 5 gallon to free up the bigger larvae tank.

06/14 batch (all misbars except for one):

06/27 batch (still 60% misbar):

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:10:55 GMT

07/09 batch has huge die-off yesterday which was 8 dph. There are about 100 Fancy Ocellaris larvae in the same tank that are 2-3 days younger, and it seems the die-off was almost 100% Darwins. This large die-off has been a typical occurrence in my larvae tanks, although it is not occurring on a particular dph. I am noticing that the die-off happens just before I decide to siphon out a bunch of water, sieve out the rotifers, and return the water to pare down the rotifer ppopulation. I am thinking that maybe I need to thin out the rotifers a few days earlier and the sudden die-off is caused by lack of oxygen simply from too many critters in the tank. It would make sense the Darwins would die first being older and and a bit bigger. For a sudden large die-off there must be something very toxic going on.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 20:29:11 GMT

I collected another batch lastnight (not really sure why...I have too many already). I've been building a growout rack, and wasn't really prepared so I just stuffed them into one of my BRTs. There are about 250 of them. 7 eggs weren't hatched in the morning (looked healthy) - they were tossed.

Second batch is 14 dph today and many of them have significant second stripe markings. They all went through meta as a group, just a couple stragglers finishing up now. I'm weaning them off rotifers now. This batch is much more consistent than my first batch. There were about 250 collected, 50-70% die-off on 5 dph, just the odd death since. Must have been oxygen or something like that to cause the big die-off. Appears to be about 100-140 of them.

First batch is 27 dph today. Many have tail stripes forming, but none have decent second stripes. I think they are all going to be mis-bars. Sadly, I will not be keeping any mis-bars. They are eating TDO B1 very well....little piglets. There were 31 of them collected, and 31 of them are still swimming.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:27:23 GMT

Tail stripe started showing up yesterday (24 dph) even though none of them have complete second stripes. Second stripes right now are just near the tops of their backs, not down their sides. I'm worried they are all misbars! I forgot to mention black pectoral fins showed up around 20 dph.

Here's a pic from 23 dph:

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:07:21 GMT

First batch is 22 dph today and the second batch is 9 dph. The older ones have some second striping, but not much. The younger ones are just starting to get their first stripes. I was hoping I might do better with the second batch, but it doesn't look like I am. If I could get my Tigger pods to reproduce quicker I would feed some to he larvae! So far, the Tiggers aren't very prolific.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 23:17:28 GMT

I had a huge die-off from the 06.27 batch this afternoon - about 50%. I'm not sure why. They appeared fine around 3 pm and had the big die-off by 7:30 pm. I added more RotiGreen Omega around noon, added TDO A around 3 pm (air was off for about an hour accidentally). Was the air off too long? They looked fine when I turned it back on, but maybe I didn't look close enough. I did their first 30% water change yesterday morning, and another this morning. Then I siphoned out 50% of the water through a rotifer sieve and returned it so that I removed a bunch of rotifers. Maybe that was too much fussing with them? I didn't see any ammonia spike. Maybe they weren't all feeding well. I will look closer tomorrow when the lights are back on. Maybe they were too crowded? Ideas? Comments?

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:18:21 GMT

Thanks Kathy!

I will be pulling the June 18th eggs tomorrow night. I turned the flow off in the tank tonight, and will check before I go to bed to make sure they don't hatch early (temps have been warm lately). The female is looking awfully fat already.

The fancy Occys have fostered the few Darwin eggs I gave them from the June 18th batch to full term as well. I'm hoping they will spawn soon, the female looks fairly ripe.

Here is my settlement photo. He was the first one to settle, and has claimed the heater as his territory. This is the same fish as pictured just above:

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (KathyL)

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:41:36 GMT

Congratulations!

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:32:53 GMT

About 50% of the larvae have settled into fry now (13 dph), about 25% are partway through metamorphosis, and the remaining 25% haven't started meta yet. At least this is how it appears to my untrained eye! Yesterday (12 dph) was the peak of the number of larvae in meta. No sign of second stripes yet.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:28:45 GMT

First sign of metamorphosis today which is 9 dph! This morning just after the lights came on I'm sure I saw one larvae doing the "wagging tail" move like clowns do, but he seemed to snap out of that and go back to the "larvae flutter". I see at least two that have a faint head stripe. These two are hanging out at the side of the tank at the top. They are doing body bends, and mostly just staying in one spot. I feel bad for them, they look stressed out. They don't have big fat bellies like the rest of them that are (smaller and) swimming around all over the place.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:50:27 GMT

Today is 7 dph for the June 14th batch. I'm noticing a significant size difference in the larvae. It seems there are big ones and little ones, not much between. The little ones seem to swim deeper in the tank, and stay further from the light. The big ones are all readily taking TDO A. I started TDO A on the 5th day, and just today am I noticing they are really pursuing it. Yesterday I sieved out about 40% of the rotifer population as it was getting out of hand and I was adding a lot of greenwater (4.5 mL per day in 2.4 gallons). I imagine less rotifers helped the larvae seek TDO. I forgot to add ClorAm-X on the midday greenwater feeding yesterday and had a small ammonia spike in the afternoon that killed off about half a dozen larvae. I was very surprised how quickly the ammonia came on! I'm not seeing any signs of metamorphosis or first white stripe yet, but hoping to see something starting tomorrow maybe.

Yesterday I removed the angled tile with the few eggs on it and put it in with my fancy Occys. They took to it right away.

Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris (Darwin) (EasterEggs)

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 06:11:56 GMT

Thanks Kathy! I think they are doing really well for a new pair. This is their 4th batch now. Aside from the scattered ones on the angled tile, their main egg mass looks quite nice. I'm interested to see how well he has done with fertilizing this time since he had those other ones distracting him. In his last 2 batches he has been about 90%, so I think there is room for improvement.

3rd batch from June 14th is 6 dph today. I'm going to run an airline siphon along the bottom of their tank today to clean up a bit. The rotifer density has gone up by about 30% in the last 24 hours, so I might try to sieve some out.