Breeding Journal, Species: A. percula ("onyx") x ("picasso")

I think you are right, Chad.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 15:

One dead body today, the first since about day 4.


 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 16:

Some of the kids have started orienting themselves towards the walls of the tubs and have started defending little territories in the algae or whatever that's starting growing there. Oddly to me, none are claiming any of the bottom of the tank. It's all along the wall near the surface. Meta!
 
I need to get rid of a whole bunch of oversized brine shrimp....
 

 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 17.
Another loss this morning, putting the total since ~ day 4 to two.


 
This is one of the fish that's staked out a territory along the tank wall:
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 18.
 
Many more site-attached juveniles today. The ranks of larvae in the water column are still pretty large, but noticeably thinner.
 
Larva:
 

 
 
Juveniles:
 

 
 
"Don't take my picture"

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 19. Meta fatalities still holding at 2.

It looks to me like more than half have made the jump past meta now. The juveniles spend a lot of time bickering along the sides until food hits the water, then most join the frenzy in the current a short distance from the tub walls. The ones that have a really good position on the walls stay and defend it. Since they have no stripes, I'm basing most of my larva/juvenile determination on behavior and on the shape of the fish's mouth. If you look, the larvae have wide mouths with bulbous semi-transparent lips. The juveniles seem to lose that in favor of a more streamlined shape. It really evident on the photos from a couple of days ago.
 
Larva:
 

 
Juvenile:
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 20.

I really try to take photos at the same time every day (before the lunch feeding), but I had to make an exception today:
 

 
First head stripe that I've seen and there are a least a couple of others running around. The number of larvae left has dwindled down to 20 or so IME and the rest are fighting amongst themselves over territory (or some other damsel thing). Looks like I need to really get going on the astaxanthin. 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Woot!  You got stripes! At this stage I start feeding high quality frozen Argent Cyclopeeze, the really red stuff, with every meal. Sometimes it has been frozen too long and isn't quite so red. I get excellent coloration in my juveniles using that.

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

Man, Tal, I would but I have a really hard time getting it here. I really don't know why. And it's really expensive to get it from Marine Depot or something.
 
----------------------
 
So, once you see one head stripe...


 

 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 21.
I finally went all out and got a cheapo stick-on-the-side thermometer for the tub. Looks like I'm running at about 78F. Very few larvae left in the WC this morning, 7-10. Still holding at 2 deaths since day 4.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 22.
Still hanging in there, despite me completely spacing out their 4:00 p.m. feeding yesterday.


 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 23. I've upped the temp a tad. The fish are really not very nice to each other.
 
"The Standoff"
 

 
"The Result"
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 24. One fatality last night = 3 since day 4.

Moving along. It looks like they've almost grown into their bellies. Down to one BBS feeding per day now because most seem to hit the powder food with more enthusiasm. I'm thinking about putting them in-line with the sump and filter for a while today.
 
Still evil. I saw two strike my siphon tube this morning.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 25.

An attempt to capture one of the early morning fish balls. I count 50 fish in this photo, and it had already started breaking up. There were two more fish balls and some lone fish around, though this was the largest one. They break up _fast_ though. (Early morning, washed-out fish colors.)
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 26. 

I think there was another fatality, but I couldn't find it when I went to check the siphon water. So, let's say that we are up to four since day 4.
 
Almost all of them have head bars in some stage now. The violence seems to be tapering off, but they seem to be in the "daredevil-and-not-avoiding-things-that-might-kill-me" stage. Water changes are fun.
 
Sorry. I forgot to take the pictures before I fed them, so you get an action shot today:
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Sorry to be late: I had two rush books dumped into my lap on Friday, both to be done today. The second proved to be ugly and took me all day today to finish. So I wasn't even going to update today at all. But ... see below.
 
Day 27.
 
 
Big day for the kids today. I cranked up the ol' flow-through system, so they have an extra 40 or so gallons of water and some more biofiltration. I also found a sponge filter in town today, so I'm running that in a cycled tank to get it ready for the kids.
 
I fed them a little bit of my frozen fish goo. Good things were said by all who tried it.






AND ...








We have a second stripe!!! Woohoo!
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 29.

Well, no photos yesterday, thus ruining my goal of documenting every single day of these clownfish's lives from hatch to death of old age, 35 years from now. (That _could_ have been my goal. You don't know.) Dang work. Who ever thought it was a good idea, anyway?
 
One more loss yesterday of a no-stripe holdout, so we're now up to five.
 

 


 


 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Look at that last photo...picasso trait coming through?

Looks like maybe. There are a couple of them that have some markings coming in between the first and second bar, too.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 30. (Woohoo!)
 
Same ol' stuff. A picture of possible picasso traits on a couple of fish:
 

 
And, I did a _partial_ count of what I could get in one photograph with my wide-angle lens. 170 clowns.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 31.
 
I'm thinking about approaching Nike to ask them to sponsor my breeding efforts:
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

OK I WANT THAT ONE!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

lol awesome!!! 

Pelagically yours,
~J      

Sounds good, Chad, though you might have to fight my daughter for it. She's already hitting me up for a pair.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 32 (Stepping firmly into month 2).
 
See what I have to put up with? The fish seem to be playing some sort of clownfish kabaddi (which is well worth a detour and maybe a few head shakes if you've never heard of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabaddi)
 

 
All the different head shapes are pretty interesting to me.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 33.
 
One more loss this morning. Total = 6.
 
More from the on-going fish ball:
 

 
And this one's for Gale: Dude, I'm totally not making it up. There is white pigment where the third stripe is going to go.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 35.

Getting bigger.
 
I have a _lot_ of picasso-esque barring coming in. I wonder if that has anything to do with nutrition at some stage? I think there'll be enough weird bars, honestly, to deflect aggression from any specific one.
 
In other news, I have confirmed that I have a big ol' ciliate contaminating my O. marina and really reducing the numbers of dinoflagellates. I need to isolate out some of the O. marina that's left and start up new cultures. Oddly enough, the copepods don't seem to care. In fact, their numbers are still growing. (I still want to get rid of whatever it is though.)
 



 

 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Here's the evil contaminant:

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 36. Sorry, phone photo:


 
I'm starting to see black spots coming in in-between the stripes.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Some video from last night:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhvmdCakDl4

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 37.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Wow. I am really glad I stopped to visit your thread- very informative and helpful. Thanks. I have been reading Tal's site - and trying to get all info needed that I can. Eggs are ( due to hatch tonight I think-- very reflective/silvery. Thanks for the step by step!

Michelle  
 

Cool! Good luck with your batch!

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Day 39.

Doing fine. The guy in the center has definitely started a tail stripe.
 

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Wow, you are getting a large percentage of extra markings Andy.  I'm jealous.  Out of about 500 juveniles I still only have seven set aside with extra markings.  I've got another batch due on Monday or Tuesday.   I'm going to raise them with the pods you gave me.  I wonder if the extra markings have anything to do with nutrition.  We'll see

It really is crazy, Gale. It looks to me like a fair 50% of them have some sort of crazy markings going on. (It's hard to tell, because the second-to-largest clown ball likes to hide out in the shade where I can't get a good sense of what they look like.) I would assume that the ones that are _really_ slow getting their second stripes will be the ones that will eventually look like normal percs.
 
So, let's list out the differences between the way we raised them:
 
1. Nutrition, as you've noted.
a. Copepods as a first food and I've continued to offer all different sizes up to the last few days (when I started having the O. marina culture problems)
b. Artemia was _never_ used as the sole food on any day.
c. Once onto powdered foods, there was still never just one food (the powdered I use is a mix of Hikari S, Formula 2 flakes, and some Golden Pearls that Brine Shrimp Direct tossed in with my Artemia order)
2. Environment:
a. Round container with black sides/bottom vs. aquarium
b. Mine was fully cycled when I started them
c. Lots of water volume
d. I was able to switch them to a flow-through with more water volume and filtration
e. Could lighting have something to do with it? In my system, the fish have a gradation of fairly bright light all the way to fairly deep shade and can choose where they want to be. It's interesting to me, because different developmental stages really do seem to gravitate toward different light levels.
f. Temps: I started out low: 78 for the first however many days, then bumped up to 80. You do yours at 82, yeah?
 
Anything else? I don't really know what procedure you use, Gale, so I just threw out everything I could think of. But it _has_ to be environmental, right? I mean, these are all fish from the same parents.
 
By the way, you know that you are certainly welcome to come grab some fish if you want, right? I would say that you can have the pick of the litter, but I don't want to limit you to only taking one fish.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Wow, they look great! They grow so fast. You are doing a fantastic job.
 
That's very interesting that the two of you have such different percentages of extra markings.

These fish look great! you may wish to incorporate some astaxanthin in their food before too long.  There is a cutoff, at least for ocellaris, beyond which if never exposed to astaxanthin, they will not assume the pleasing color no matter  what you do.

Very interesting Kathy. I've fed my juveniles plenty of very red cyclopeeze, frozen, since I started and I get excellent coloration. Recently the product I've been getting isn't nearly as red and I've noticed a difference.
 
It is Argent brand and I always get it from the same source, A&M Aquatics. I'm wondering if there is a difference in product quality depending on when it is harvested or if the product isn't being packaged properly and is getting freezer burn...  

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

These have gotten astaxanthin at least once a day ever since I switched to non-live foods. Do you think I need to up the amount?

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886