Breeding Journal: Amphiprion clarkii

General
Species: Amphiprion clarkii
Social Structure: Pairs
Size of Individuals: Female 6",  Male 4" 
Age of Individuals: Female 12 yrs, Male unknown
Date added to Tank: 4/17/2010

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank: 22 Gal
Substrate Details: Crushed Coral
Filtration Details: Connected to Main system, 200 Gal + 2 100 Gal Sumps 
Water Changes: 40 gals every 2 weeks
Water Temperature: 78°
Lighting: (2) 35watt 10K PC lights 
Lighting Cycle: 11 hours Light
Other Tank Inhabitants: Haddoni Carpet Anemone

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types: Mix of various pellet foods, Formula One, Formula Two, Spectrum, Cycopeze
Feeding Schedule: Twice a day

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn: 4/29/2010
Spawn Time of Day: 9:30 pm
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:
Courtship Details: Missed courtship on first time.
Egg Size: 1 mm
Egg Color: Rust colored
Egg Count: 1600

Hatch Details
Hatch Date: 5/7/2010
Hatch Time of Day: About  10pm.
# Days after Spawn: 8 days
Larvae Description: Small about 2mm with visible eyes.  I could not see if they had yolk sacks still.


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:
Size of Larval Tank:
Substrate Details:
Other Tank Decor:
Filtration Details:
Lighting:
Lighting Cycle:
Water Changes:

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:
Feeding Schedule:

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:
Days after Hatch:
Date of Settlement End:
Description of Fry:

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:
Size of Grow-Out Tank:
Substrate Details:
Other Tank Decor:
Filtration Details:
Lighting:
Lighting Cycle:
Water Changes:
Size at Transfer:
Age at Transfer

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:
Feeding Schedule:

Additional Information
Miscellaneous Information:



You will be required to provide photographic evidence in this thread of each event submitted for the MBI Program.
If your thread does not contain these photos the MBI Committee will not be able to approve your reports.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

 
Well only two weeks after I picked up these guys I came home tonight and went to feed them just before bed and caught them going at it!
 

 

 

 
I threw food in the tank so the anemone would contract and I could get the eggs in the picture.
 
Here are a couple close ups of Big Mama
 

 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

 

Attached Image(s)

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

They had spawned for the previous owner but I never got numbers of how big the nests were. I really hadn't expected them to spawn already at all. I have only had them for 2 weeks and really haven't been feeding them what you would consider a  brood stock diet. It's been pretty much just the same mixture of 5 or 6 different pellet foods that I feed my display tank.

Because I hadn't expected this I have no cultures up and going so I'm now in a desperate search for a starter culture of Rot's. If anyone has any near AA please let me know.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

I was able to get a starter culture of Rot's today from Cowboy13 ( thanks for meeting me . Hopefully this means I will have a shot at raising at least some of them..

Wish me luck!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Glad you found some rots Chad!  What are you going to raise the larvae in?

I have a 10 gal tank that is already drilled that I'm planning to try the flow through system with. The rack it's on has a spot above that I can place a container to drip enriched Rot's from and then just let it drain into my main sump.

I'm going to go with the lazy man's way of raising larvae Or at least trying to!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

There is a very different look to the eggs today:
 

 
Darker and lost all the orangish color they had when first laid.

Attached Image(s)

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Holy frick that's massive!  Please do the day to day pix if you can!!!

I plan to get a least a few more pics in before hatch. The acrylic on the front of the tank is terribly scratched up. These used to be a holding tanks from an LFS so they have been aroudn the block a few times and it is hard to get decent pictures through them. I'll try to do the best I can. I wish I had put tiles in the tank so they didn't lay these on the back wall. Now I'm going to have to setup a snagger to get the larvae out. Which by my calculations will be Wed or Thurs night.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

You need an underwater camera.

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

Ok here they are on Day 4:
 

I also posted some pictures of teh parents in my second post above: http://www.masm.org/mforums/fb.ashx?m=38482

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Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

OK here they are on Day 5:

 
And Day 6:

 
If you look really close at day 6 you can see eyes on some of the eggs now.
 

Attached Image(s)

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

And here is Day 7:

 
You can see lots of eyes tonight...Looks like there is a chance for a hatch tonight so I shut off the pumps and turned the lights off early.
 
If they hatch tonight They'll be another post on this later.
 

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Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Awesome. Simply awesome.  Good luck with the kids!

Sorry for the lack of updates! The last few days have been crazy busy and I've had a few unexpected problems.

So Friday I had set the the timer to shut off the light on the tank at about 10 pm.. I knew I should be home at just about 11pm so I fgiured they would be good and ready to hatch when I got home..We didn't actually get home til around 11:30 and when I went down to the tank and looked at the nest( red flashight). This is what I saw:


 
CRAP! They had already gone off. I quickly scanned the tank and only found 3 fry in the tank with the parents. Since I figured I would be home before any thing happened I didn't shut down the flow through or the tunze nano in the tank in the morning. I immediately figured I was hosed. Just to check I lifted the cover off teh first of my 100 gal sumps and sure enough there were a bunch of fry in there. Not 2000 but a bunch none the less. I siphoned out maybe 100 of them and then flipped the lid off the second sump and BAM! there where fry everywhere.. I started by just siphoning them out and easily got a couple hundred this way but I was having to stop every few minutes and carefully try to siphon just the water back in the system and then go back and try to siphon fry again..Because they were so spread out in this 100 gallons of water I was just getting too much water between fry. I finally just gave up and started carefully netting them out with a brine shimp net and placing them in the bucket.
 
 

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Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Here are a few shots of the bucket as I progressed.
 
This first one I think is shortly after I started siphoning from the second sump:

 
 
 
Then a couple close up's of the fry in the bucket. Or as good as I could get in my hurry:

 

 
 

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Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

And here is the bucket when I was about done:
 

 
This isn't even half of what was in teh tanks.. I just finally gave up.

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Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Hah, that happens. I hate when they hatch before you expect them to. Pretty cool that they made it to the sump and you were able to get quite a few out.

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

Very nice looking pair of clarkii's.  Congrats on recovering so many after they went off.

I don't think my rot culture is up to the task..It just doesn't look like Tal's did. I don't know if I did something worng or what the deal is but I'm starting to wonder if there are any rot's in there at all.

I'm loosing larvae like crazy now. Siphoned out a bunch of dead ones off the bottom this morning. It may have been that the trauma of the surf ride through all the pumping to get all the way to the second sump..

I'm for sure going to get some tiles in the tank tomorrow night so I can just move the next batch before they hatch..I'm also going to try to get at least one more culture of rot's going...

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Keep it up, you'll get the hang of it.

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

Ohh.. I have no plans to stop now.. I want my first fishy!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

My Rot culture just doesn't seem to be where it should be at. I mean I'm not even sure that I have any rot's in my culture at all right now. I certainly can't see any. I completely expected to come home tonight and find nothing but dead fry. But It looks like I still have alittle over a 100 still swimming around in the tank.



 

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Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Well I still have probably 50 larvae. I'm sure that my Rot culture is just not holding up but my efforts must be doing some good because I searched my sumps last night for the other 1000 that I didn't pull out and couldn't find a single one. 

In my desperation to try to get some food in there I siphoned a bunch of the swarms of copepods out of my sump and put it in the tank, My hope is that at least some of those pods have egs ready to hatch or there where already naupli in the swarms that got transfered over so I got some tiny pods in there for them to eat.


I also put 4 tiles in the parents tank so the next time they lay I can easily remove the eggs before they hatch this time.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

I talked with Tal a bit last night and made a few changes. While the larvae are still alive they don't seem to be getting any bigger, Tal thought that especially with my low rot count in my culture they might be burning too much energy. I guess my green water isn't green enough. I thought that the purpose of the green water was to provide food for the food while it was in the tank to keep it enriched. I guess it also makes it so they can't see as far and don't waste energy swimming around after  food from one end of the tank and back again. So I added more phyto to the tank.

Also I remembered Tal saying some time ago that he left the lights on 24/7 to allow the larvae to eat more. So I was doing the same thing. Well what I forgot was that he was talking about Dotty's and that only works with high rot counts. Since I neither have Dotty's or a high rot count once again I'm just having them burn energy all night long. So last night I turned the light off to let them rest.

This morning I turned the light back on and added more rotifers from the culture to the tank. We'll see what I end up with when I get home tonight. 

If anyone near Lansing, Jackson, Hillsdale, or Coldwater has any nice dense rot cultures that I can get a jump start from please let me know. I'm desperate here!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

That Tal guy is a pretty smart fella.  Hopefully your fry keep fighting as hard as you do.

I can only hope.. I put the message out again that I'm looking for someone with Rot's aroudn where I live or work. Hoping that I'll be able to start a second culture and get more dense food for my fry!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Chad, one thing that you might try is rotifeast.  I did that when I had low rots counts on my occys.  I might be expensive and not the best alternative but might help you in the event that you don't find any rots.
 
 
 

I'll have to see if they have any locally. If not maybe Preuss has some in stock up there.

I'm willing to try anything at this point!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

I did see the fish take it when I fed it so I know they eat it. 

Chad I have been having trouble keeping rotifer density up in my larval tank also.  How do you harvest your rotifers?  I figured out that I have been killing the rotifers in the transfer from the culture bucket to the larval tank.  I did this by shaking the rotifer screen to get the water to come out faster, while I did this the rotifers clumped together so I was only getting a few rotifers to survive.  I leave my lights on in my larval tank for 16 hours a day.  Also do you have any bubbles to create flow in your larval tank, maybe the larvae aren't growing because they are swimming to get the food and they are expelling the same amount of energy that they are taking in.  I have also had this happen before where the larvae take three weeks to reach metamorphosis.  And finally I have always had higher survival rates when I mix Rotifer HD with live phytoplankton.  Just an idea, let me know if you need anymore information on siphoning the larvae or stuff like that because I have done that before too .

I was able to find some Rotifeast so I will be putting some in the tank as soon as I get home. I also noticed that it says they are live so it seems like I should be able to use them to kick start the culture as well. Shouldn't I?

I'm harvesting them by just scooping water out of the culture and dumping it into the tank. Then adding phyto and fresh water to replace what was removed. Everything was soo rushed that I don't have any mesh or sieves to really do it any other way. The problem seriousily appears to be the culture itself I just don't see rots in there not like what I see in the the Rotifeast bottle or what Tal's culture looked like. So the problem I don't think is getting them from the culture to the tank but in the culture itself.

I do have bubbles in the larval tank but based on the conversation about the flow through design I was under the impression that creating a gentle current in the tank is a good thing. Plus this is in my basement and without some flow in the tank the water will stratify pretty markedly without something to create some sort of turn over. I probably could turn it down a little bit more but it already is just barely on now.

I ordered some Roifer HD and Instant Algae and need to go pick it up. Right now I'm just using Phytofeast until I can run up and pick the stuff up. Which needs to be very soon as I'm almost out.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Well came home today and I'm down to about 20 fry now. Not good.

I did add a bunch of RotiFeast to the tank and added some to my culture as well. I also remembered that I had some Golden Pearls I bought a while back ( 50-100micron ) and I put some of that in the tank. I noticed right away that they where going after the GP. Maybe throwing the kitchen sink at them has finally paid off.

On another note I noticed my female acting odd today. After watching her for a while it's looking like she is getting ready to spawn again! Hopfully I'll be posting some video of them in action tonight!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Cool, yeah your problem is probably density in the larval tank because if you are adding the water out of the culture you probably aren't getting high rofiter density.  I would highly reccomend getting some mesh.  And usually you can bring back a rotifer culture, right now I have one that has really low density but it seems to be coming back.  Just stay with it you will get it soon .

I looked up the Rotifeast page and I'm not sure if the rotifers are actually alive. They call it a preserved product, that leads me to believe that they aren't alive. Also, the fact that it can be stored would seem to indicate that they aren't alive as the rotifers would quickly go through whatever food source was in the bottle and crash.

That's not to say that it's not a good food source, just that I don't think you could start a culture with it.

http://www.reefnutrition.com/rotifeast.html

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

Well as I suspected Mom and Dad are at it again!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Are they laying on the smooth side of the tiles?  Awesome!

Well I'm down to about 10 fry. I think the RotiFeast was just a little too late for some of them. We'll see if the rest hold on. I also noticed some swarms of pods in the tank so they should be reproduce and makign baby pods for the fry to eat. I also noticed that the fry do seem to go after the GP as well.
 
The realy bad news is that the clutch that was laid last night by my calculations will hatch on Thursday night. So that batch is going to be a lost cause as well since I'll be leaving Thursday for the conference.
 
If I remove the eggs now will that make them lay sooner? Like when a lion looses it's cubs?

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

You could remove the tile/eggs before you leave on Thurs and put them into a larval tank with phyto and rots. Might not work but then again, it might. 

As far as removing the eggs now to make them spawn sooner, I don't think it will make much of a difference other than a day or so. Usually when they get into a cycle they stick with it unless they are stressed. Stress will slow them down rather than speed them up.

Since your pair spawned so quickly they probably aren't too bothered by stress.

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