Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion ocellaris "Darwin Black"

Sanjay, that IS interesting.  I know that if I put back a tile that has died in artificial incubation, the parents will remove the dead eggs and eat them.  I've never tried giving back a partially hatched tile.  Someday, I should try that.  It also speaks to the relative resilience of clownfish eggs, that is to say that the water chemistry in the hatching tank could diverge from the broodstock tank, yet the eggs can withstand the move, sans acclimation, without much consequence.  HMM...very interesting.

On a Black Ocellaris note.  This morning, another gallon of sieved rotifers went in.  Mutiple times today, I offered light dustings of Otohime A for food.  This evening, 1 more gallon of clean new water was added along with 20 drops of RotiGreen, 5 drops of Chloram-X, and 2 more gallon's worth of seived (53 micron) rotifers.  Bottom line, I'm very happy that I now have 3 productive rotifer cultures going...the clown babies are really plowing through them now!

Settlement sometime in the coming week..

So between yesterday and now, I've added water, drained down to 5 gallons, added 20 drops of RotiGreen yesterday and another 10 this morning, added 10 drops of Chloram-X, Harvested 2 gallons of Rotifers last night and another 2 gallons this morning, and have periodically added small feedings of Otohime A.  No noticed deaths now for at least 24 if not 48 hours.  Things are looking solid.  I feel like I should have headstripes soon...

(they are 7+ and 6+ days post hatch, FWIW).

More fun...we're at basically 7 to 8 days post hatch, and I've noticed my first "waddle" swimming this evening.  Meta is coming soon!

Harvested a "whopping" 3 gallons of rotifers this evening as well as adding in 10 drops of RotiGreen (tank is running at about 6 gallons right now).  Plan is to drip in maybe another 10 drops of RotiGreen, some Chloram-X, and 2 gallons of clean new saltwater.  We'll see if that all gets done yet tonight!

FWIW,

Matt

2:05 AM, March 2, 2010 - WE HAVE HEADSTRIPES!!!

I just looked in to make sure the last of the new water dripped in, and I noticed at least 3 larvae hanging at the sides with headstripes, only visible when looking in from above.  I'm going to refrain from taking pictures at this time as I don't want to shock or stress the babies in this state, so you'll have to trust me (unless I get some good pictures without a flash...)

Right on time, cool!

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

First, settlement pictures, shot early morning 3-2-2010.





Second, on the evening of 3-2-2010, another massive spawn on the Black O's...

Last night, trickled in another gallon of clean new water with a little Reef Plus and Reef Iodide.  This morning, as is customary now I offered up Otohime A.  I also enriched 2 gallon's worth of rotifers with Super Selcon for 30 minutes before rinsing and feeding it in....the fish are not weaning as easy as I'd like, so I'm continuing to offer up rotifers while trying to get them straight onto the Otohime.  No hatching brine shrimp for me!

There is somewhere between 30 and 50% headstripes at this point.  I've seen one baby that is clearly deformed and will need to be culled.  I've also seen one or two babies that already have the start of the SECOND stripe, just a tiny white dot at the back at this point.

FWIW,

Matt

Oh, and BTW, as far as I'm concerned, we'll probably be updating that Bio of mine to say "successfully reared 6 species" instead of "5"

3-4-10 - 10:35 AM

80% have gone through Meta at this point in time.  Yesterday, drained the tank back down to half full (5 gallons), scraped the bottom and sucked out lots of "gunk".  Trickled in 2 gallons of new saltwater at around 1.023.  This morning, fed Otohime A, fed more Otohime A, started another trickle of clean water in (aka we were at 7 gallons this AM, and I'll probably bring it back up to 9 by midday).  Fed in more rotifers, just for the stragglers.  Have a few fish now showing the starts of 2nd stripe development, starting along the back of the fish.

Interesting to note, that since I've raised these fish so far with the lights on 24/7, they are very STRONGLY phototrophic.  I turned the lights off for a moment last night, and the entire mass of babies bumrushed the one side panel of the tank that isn't painted black.  I think I'll have to ease the fish gently onto a day night cycle.

FWIW,

Matt

Giving them their first "night"...room lights staying on, but I blocked off the unpainted end so that light is only coming in from above.  They kinda freaked.

Also, once again brought them down to 5 gallons of water, and trickled in one new clean gallon.  Will trickle more in tomorrow.  Still around 80-90% settlement.

I'm curious, why did you choose to light them 24/7? Also, why did you not cover the non painted end of the tank until you changed the lighting cycle?

Is this a "Darwin" specific experiment?

The reason I ask is that from what I've read and my own experience with various Amphiprion species, 24/7 lighting has no positive/beneficial effect.

In contrast, 24/7 lighting has worked well with my P. fridmani...

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Faster growth.



At night, with the 24/7 lighting, the only lighting coming in was from above.  But once I turned out the main light, and left the room lights on, the babies instantly went for the unpainted side where light was coming in.  Thus, blocking it kept the strongest light coming in from above.



Not really...just figured I might as well do it since it had a positive impact on some other species.



Again, other species efforts led me to try it here just to see.

As of today, maybe 95% through meta.  Lost one smaller one overnight.  Headstripes all over the place, and 2nd stripes forming on maybe 10-20 individuals now...

Matt

First, pictures shot the morning of 3-7-10





This evening, I moved the babies into a different 10 gallon tank.  This tank has an established internal filter, which I threw in a breeder net so that it doesn't suck up the babies   Made sure that the back side of the net is kept away from the back of the tank with a rigid airline tubing so that babies don't get stuck back there.

During the move, I took a headcount.  Officially, 181 baby Black O's.

Shot these just after midnight, wee hours of the morning on 3-9-10, the move and right after:

Grats on the Black O's Matt.  I am curious as to why you did not feed bbs and tried to go straight from rotifers to Otohime A?  I have had good success with weaning to Otohime but always from bbs.  Also do you think the Cloram-x has the potential to have any negative effects on the juvenilles?

Dave

Dave, I don't have hard answers to your questions.  Skipping BBS is simply something you CAN DO with Otohime A, and in theory, Otohime is more nutritionally appropriate than BBS, so better to just go straight to it.  I've been told by the fine folks @ Reed that Chloram-X has no ill effects on fish larvae.

As of 3-24-10, I'm back in  Duluth and there are many babies getting tailstripes.  It looks like this batch is OVERWHELMINGLY Misbars...very sad turn of events.  There are many babies I can clearly see that I'll need to cull, and frankly part of me is wondering if ANY of the batch will really be salable fish.  Certainly a big disappointment, and clearly I need to improve my larval rearing!

Very cool Matt, congrats on the Darwins, are they still afraid of the dark?

Paragraph 1: I almost always skip BBS and go right to Otohime A with no ill effects. You mentioned Chloram-X a few times while you were here and I just recently heard a few people mention problems with using Amquel... can you point out any discussion, or thoughts, on that?


Paragraph 2: My first batch of Darwins was about 70% misbars, the next batch was less than 20%. Not sure what happened since I did the same thing for both batches... I attributed it to being the first batch.


I was told by all of my stores that misbarred Darwins had no bearing on sales, unless there was something really cool, lol.


I don't want to get into a discussion about culling here, maybe we should start a thread on that?

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Yeah, I know many folks LIKE or perhaps "don't care" about misbars, but I do.  I DISLIKE them.  I think though, that I had problems beyond misbarring, i.e. there are a fair number off outright culls (i.e. stubbies, kinked backs, clearly flared gills) so I think that even with the daily water changes the water quality didn't work out.

Regarding Amquel Issues, the first thing I would ask is are they "chemically the same"?  I.e. there may be chemicals in one that aren't the other, and that could be the problem.  Again, it could just as easily be that there ARE issues with using Chloram-X, but again, what I was told by Reed is that there aren't.

And no, the Darwins are no longer afraid of the dark...they're on a regualr day night schedule now.  STILL strongly phototrophic though!

Matt,

Thanks for the feedback.  I recently hatched a batch of A. Ocellaris and they are on day 5 now.  I have always introduced bbs to the larva on either day 5 or 6 and then introduced Oto A on day 13 or 14 with a 7 day overlap in foods.  Typically the babies are off rotifers by day 14 and bbs by day 21 with them being completely weaned to dry foods.

I have never put an ammonia neutralizer into the larval water but am experimenting with this batch.  This batch is relatively small (approximately 100 fish) but I am really wanting to see if the cloram-x will make a difference in the markings on the fish.  These babies will receive the exact same regimen in regards to foods and water changes as normal to see if the cloram-x will make a difference.

I also keep the lighting on 24/7 on the larva thru meta and believe it does make a difference especially in the first few days of the larval cycle.  I also believe that the larva start into meta sooner when the lighting is on 24/7. 

Thanks again for introducing me to Tal.  Without the introduction I wouldn't have found this site

Dave

Dave, it's absolutely my pleasure to have made the introduction.  I'll be waiting with bated breath to hear the results of your ChloramX experiment.  I'm still ticked that I've had such a high rate of misbars in this first batch.

On the upside....while I was gone Renee reared 3 baby Black O's.  They hatched on March 10th.

And now, March 26th, I have a new batch of eggs going down this evening   A chance to FIX my misbarring problem the first time around.  I welcome suggestions on what I might have done wrong...

Good Luck on the Black O's.  I'll definately let you know about the experiment.  I too have had high percentages of misbars on the Black O's so I would like to find the smoking gun also.  I have raised 8 different species of clowns right now with pretty much exactly the same routine and the only other species I have had difficulty with in regards to misbars is the true percs.

So, it's April 3rd, and later today the entire batch will be sold off.  I went through tonight and pulled out 4 babies that were immediately culled (fed to the Serranus annularis) 3 more that are stubbies that admittedly, I just want to see what they're gonna look like a little bigger, and I held onto 2 fish just so I have solid fish to show for my necessary 60 days post settlment (I think we're at 45-46 days post hatch right now??)  I also sold 6 to a local hobbyist.  And I've had maybe a half dozen die in the last 2 weeks.  So it'll be interesting to see what headcount I get when I'm bagging them up this morning!!!

OH, and I took some pictures, but I lost my camera cord somewhere between Long Island and Duluth MN, so until the new one arrives, folks have to wait!

April 4th, 9:30 PM, I pulled the eggs laid on March 26th for artificial hatching.  I think this is 9 days post spawn if I'm counting things up correctly   Should be time!

Matt

"Called it".  Lots of nice looking babies hatched out

Woot!

Don't ya just love it when you get the timing right?

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Yes, but I'd still like them to all hatch on the same night.  I even dropped the temps on all my tanks following Witt's presentation at the MBI Breeder's Workshop...thought maybe, just maybe, that could be the ticket.  of course not!

The hatch tank was running at 5 gallons.  I added 20 drops of Reed's RotiGreen.  I took the tile out and put it back with the parents...we'll see what they do with it.

Matt

Everything is doing great this morning...babes are robust and swimming well and appear to be feeding.  The eggs that didn't hatch are in with the parents and are alive, which means more to hatch tonight!

Didn't have a chance to pull the nest for the second night of hatching, and I think I have enough babies already with the first one.  Going to try to increase water changes following advice from Edgar to see if I can get better barring on this batch!

have you ever thought about a flow through system? I'm sure you have tossed it around,  solve water change issue, thats my vote with your next batch

After the move, when everything is getting set up, ALL larval rearing tanks will have the ability to be flow through

April 13th, 2010, mid afternoon the Black O's put down another nest.  This despite being totally ignored with all my Overtime @ work and the Lighting Project kicking off...

Darnit, I'm so "there" already.  Just waiting for 60 days post settlement.  Come on guys, they're beggin'...



By the way, I am now rapidly being further convinced that LIGHTING is indeed the secret to getting dark colorations to develop at a young age in the clown types that DO turn black.  Look at these Black O's.  They're actually washed out from the flash.  I'm running a Twin Tube NOVA Extreme SLR T-5, 18 inch (36 watt), one actinic one 10k.  I've seen lots of Black O's small and honestly, mine seem to turn out darker than those I've seen raised under dim lights.

Can't say it's for sure, but I'm very interested to finally try my own Onyx Perc experiment once the "hatchery" is up on and running...

My Darwins get completely black under minimal lighting... I have my tanks covered with the corrugated plastic panels, the light is more diffused. Not on purpose, that's just the way it is.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

I have my B&W's under a simple push disc LED, and I think that mine are pretty dark at 85days today

Yes, but at what age?



But how did they compare at lets say 50 days post hatch?  30 days?

Again, it's just a theory, but my experience here certainly gives me that anecdotal feel that there's something indeed going on...

I'll have to go back and look, but I'd say that full black coloration was achieved by 90DPH, or less.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

I guess I really never paid that much attention at those times, I just assume that the color I had was normal or what it was supposed to be.  I need to pay closer attention to things of that nature ( will start)

FWIW, I have more annecdotal evidence to support the 'light = more black" theory.  First, there's Zooid's clowns that I saw in Denver at Reef Ed last week.  Great looking Black O's.  I think Gale said the were 3 months old (90 days)?  Objectively, I'm going to say that the ones I had under the HO's were blacker and were younger.

The second thing - well, we're at 60+ days post hatch now.  In the last couple weeks I moved the largest babies out of the tank with the HO T5's and into a breeder net in a tank lit by a single "plant and aquarium" type 15 watt bulb.  I looked at them this evening and I swear, areas that were black are now reverting to TAN on the older babies.

The LAST thing is that about the same time, I also moved to Amphiprion emphippium out the SPS cube (lit with a 150 watt 14K Metal Halide) and into the same 10 gallon lit by the cheap dim bulb.  I had been disappointed that the Fire Clowns had become so dark after my purchase of them and placing them in the cube.  Well, I swear, they are becoming more red, and less dark and the black is covering less of the body.

One last thing - the evening I left for Reef Ed, April 30th, the Black O's were going through the motions of spawning but had not yet spawned.  I assume they laid the eggs on the 30th, because when I returned there was a nice big nest awaiting me.  The SURPRISING thing is that I moved their entire tank across down on April 27th.  Obviously I pulled the move off well as they didn't skip a beat on spawning this time!  Of course, all we did to move them this time was drain out about 3 gallons of water, keep it in a 5 gallon bucket, move the entire tank full (it's only a 6 gallon nanocube) and fill it back up when we got to the house.  Obviously not nearly as traumatic as the move from Chicago to Duluth.

One last update, I sold off 135+ babies last month, but I retained 2 to make sure I hit the 60 days post hatch milestone.

And HERE THEY ARE - 5-6-2010, 65 days post hatch.

So, just a followup, as far as I can tell the last spawn hatched the day Ethan was born, May 10th, 2010.  Kinda wishing I had been able to collect that batch...how cool would it have been to have clownfish born on the same day as my son?!  Oh well...grand scheme of things I can let that one slide!