Breeding Journal, Species: Metamorphosis and grow-out, Amphiprion ocellaris, Darwin

General
Species:  Amphiprion ocellaris, Darwin
Social Structure:  Protandrous hermaphrodites
Size of Individuals:  3 inch female, 1.5 inch male
Age of Individuals:  Unknown
Date added to Tank: 
Not my fish at the time, but I've owned them for at least 2 years
Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  Initially 150 gallons , now in 70 gallon broodstock system
Substrate Details: Initially live sand, live rock , now bare with 2 clay pots
Filtration Details:  Initially, Protein skimmer, Calcium reactor, Chiller, full reef tank. Now 100 micron sock, live rock.
Water Changes:  Frequent. Initially,  Owner services aquariums, and so did perhaps weekly water changes of 10% or more. Now 10% weekly.
Water Temperature:  80
Lighting:  Initially, Metal halides . now fluorescent under cabinet.
Lighting Cycle:  13 day, 11 night
Other Tank Inhabitants: Initially, large variety of fish and corals, snails, crabs, stars .  NOw bristle worms.

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Initially, Ocean Nutrition Formula Two flake, natural reef copepods .  Now variety of frozen ON formula 1, mush, PE mysis, nutramar ova, ON angelfish, Dry: otohime C1 pellets.
Feeding Schedule:  Initially, Flake food given once daily, large pinch. Now, two to three feedings a day

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn: Initially unknown , last time 9/5/2011
Spawn Time of Day:  late afternoon
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  every 14 days or so
Courtship Details:  Female would develop large abdomen
Egg Size:  2 x 4 mm oval
Egg Color:  bright orange at first, silver with eyes at last
Egg Count:  uncountable….partially hidden in reef . last time, about 240.

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  12/9/2008 , last time 9/13/2011
Hatch Time of Day:  initially, just after lights out, 7 pm ish , now just after lights out, 10 pm.
# Days after Spawn:  initially, not sure . last time, 8
Larvae Description:  transparent tail and tummy with tiny eyes


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  77-78
Size of Larval Tank:  10 gallons
Substrate Details:  bare, heater, airstone
Other Tank Decor:  none
Filtration Details: 
 I add aged new saltwater, 27-30 ppt, greenwater as needed (rotifer diet). I add probably about a gallon or two per day, dripping it in slowly. After a few days, the volume is to the top of the tank, and I put the system water on trickle and let the system do a constant water change. The overflow is covered with nylon window screen with nylon net over it to keep the babies from going down it. Also, the curtain of air bubbles from the airbar just below it helps to keep the babies from getting sucked down or stuck on the screen. The flow thru it is so slow that the babies will never feel the suction. After they are strong enough to swim away, I up the system flow. System consists of 100 micron bag, bioballs, heater, submerged bioballs, Pura filtration pad, possible uV if it was working at the time...


Lighting:  fluorescent overhead
Lighting Cycle:  14day, 10 night
Water Changes:  system does a constant water change

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types: L. rotifers with rotifer diet (Reed Mariculture), and Tigriopus californicus, and otohime larval weaning diet
Feeding Schedule:  rotifers ad lib, adding in tiggerpods as larvae were big enought to eat them, Otohime A weaning diet introduced at day 5.  Overlapping the rots and tiggers, I fed Oto A up to 4 times a day.  After a few days, I discontinued the rots and tiggers, and the larvae/fish just got Otohime in increasing sizes as they grew.

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  12/18/2008
Days after Hatch:  9
Date of Settlement End:  12/27/2008
Description of Fry:  lots of misbarring, not really orange, but not black either.  No naturose was given with the Otohime

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:  80
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  10 gallon 
Substrate Details:  bare
Other Tank Decor:  same as larval tank/system
Filtration Details:  same
Lighting:  same
Lighting Cycle: same               
Water Changes:  system changes 10 % every 2 weeks, tank cycles in system constantly
Size at Transfer:  not transferred.  The fish grow out in the same system they grow up in.
Age at Transfer:  na

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  Otohime Weaning diet, various sizes as needed
Feeding Schedule:  4 times per day via automatic feeder

Additional Information
These fish were raised in 2008/2009, and info was recovered from postings on another forum.  Pictures are accurate to this particular spawn to the best of my ability.
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Miscellaneous Information: 



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Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:49 am
My friend let me harvest larvae from her breeding pair last evening. I used the soda bottle snagger I made previously. It worked pretty well, except that the light was not right. I tried shining the light down the tube, and that collected larvae in the bottle, but also they swarmed all around the snagger, instead of just at the opening. I turned off the light at the top, and just shined my flashlight thru the glass tank at the opening to the snagger, lower down, and they went in just fine. 

This snagger is very easy and neat to remove from the tank. Just a quick unhook from the air pump and lift it out, larvae and water in the bottom. But when I went to transfer the larvae to a plastic bag, the water leaked out the mesh sides unexpectedly, and made a mess. Also many larvae got trapped in the crevices I failed to glue shut when I was making this thing. I will redesign the bottle, and try again another time. 


 
For the larval tank, I used about 4 gallons aged new saltwater, about 30ppt, to match the water from my friend's tank. I added an airbar along the short end of the 10 gallon tank, and a heater. I added bleach for an hour or two, then dechlorinated and tested for chlorine.
After the larval babies hatched and were snagged, I brought them home in a shipping bag in a styrofoam cooler, and placed the bag, floating, in the tank. pH and salinity matched already, so after the temperature was the same, I just let the babies swim out of the bag, and rinsed out the reluctant ones gently. 
 
I was disappointed to see most of them lying on the bottom, looking lifeless. There were some swimmers, so I added rotifer diet and rotifers and left the lights on for a couple more hours before lights out and bed. This morning I woke to a tank full of swimmers with very few dead. They appear to be eating. I could not have been more surprised. 

My live phytoplankton is not looking too good now that the temperature in the basement has dropped for the winter, so I am using Reed's rotifer diet as my greenwater. This is a first for me. Also my rotifer cultures are hopelessly contaminated with tiggerpods, and even when I filter by size, the coppopodites come thru with the rotifers. So these guys will be getting tiggerpods as well as rots. It will be interesting to see if there are any different results because of this. 

The temperature stayed about 78 or 77F. 

I really don't do water changes. I siphon the bottom when it gets junky, and I add aged new saltwater, 27-30 ppt, greenwater as needed (rotifer diet). I add probably about a gallon or two per day, dripping it in slowly. After a few days, the volume is to the top of the tank, and I put the system water on trickle and let the system do a constant water change. The overflow is covered with nylon window screen with nylon net over it to keep the babies from going down it. Also, the curtain of air bubbles from the airbar just below it helps to keep the babies from getting sucked down or stuck on the screen. The flow thru it is so slow that the babies will never feel the suction. After they are strong enough to swim away, I up the system flow.


I will also be striving to acheive fish that 
a. Are not all misbarrs 
b. Turn black earlier than 9 months. 

We will have to wait and see! 
 

They were looking really good tonight. I fed them a gallon's worth of rotifers before dinner and another after dinner, so they went to sleep with rots in the tank. I hope that is not too many animals. 

They have very peanutty shapes, and large silver bellies. Very energetic and hunting and eating well this evening. I hope the dead phyto doesn't pollute the tank too much, but I have a drip of clean water going for them. They are in about 5 gallons right now. I'll drip in up to the 10 gallon mark and then put them on system, just a trickle.

Dec 11
So far so good. There was some green sediment this morning, which I quickly siphoned out, but it was no more than I usually get with live phyto. 

Last night after dark, they laid down in the gunk at the bottom of the tank, and I just had to hope that they could still get enough oxygen. Apparently, they did. Swimming and hunting this morning. 

Honestly, it has been so long (9months) since I raised a nest of clownfish, it feels like a new experience, and I am so excited! No apparent deaths this morning, and all appear to be eating.

Dec 13
I am raising them at 78 degrees rather than my usual 84. Also I have an airbar across the short end of the tank, just under the heater and the tank's overflow, and as the larvae have grown, and the tank is gradually filled with water, I've been increasing the flow. As long as there is algae in the water, these guys stay off the sides and are in the water column, swimming and eating. I can't remember a more robust group of larvae. I've been feeding them plenty, and keeping the tank greener than I have in times past, so the rotifers have no excuse not be stuffed full. I am also using a bit of chloramX daily to keep ammonia at bay. Tomorrow, I'll put them on the system water, just a trickle, and quit the chloramX. Biofiltration will take care of the ammonia, and I'll just have to make sure they get enough to eat. I'll start them on Otohime tomorrow, also, just a slight sprinkle, to get them used to the idea. 

Dec 16 morning
Yesterday they were taking oto A with gusto. This morning I thought I saw the faint beginnings of a head stripe. The larvae are full bodied, and still robustly feeding. I am still giving them rotifers and r diet, and I have them on a very slow trickle on system water. The tank is pretty clean still. I have squeegeed and siphoned only a couple of times so far all together.
 
Dec 16 evening
They all look fat and happy. There are a couple that are teeny tiny, but have full stomachs. Most are fish shaped. I could find only one with a slight hint of a headband. They are big and strong active swimmers. 

I look for the headbands, because usually I have them by 5 days. It's 7 days today, and meta is delayed because I purposely kept them at 78 F instead of 82-84. I can hardly wait to see if this works: should get a higher percentage with perfect barrs. If I even get one, it's a success. 

So far they have consumed a ton of rotifers, whatever tigger pods made it into the tank, and otohime A. No brine shrimp. This, too may have an effect on barring and color. I'll have to wait and see. The waiting is hard...

Dec 18
Many have headbands this morning. 9 days post hatch. I watched as a couple of them picked adult tigger pods off the glass. All in all, very satisfying. I have yet to find a dead one. 

The nest these guys came from must have been huge. I know the snagger didn't get half the larvae that were in the tank, and then I lost some due to unfortunate snagger construction, and yet, there are probably 150 in the tank swimming today. No significant deaths, or any that I can determine, tells me that perhaps there was some selection for the most healty larvae that made it into thesnagger. I can hardly wait to try some of the new techniques (new to me) on the orange ocellaris. I haven't harvested a nest in 9 months....its a long time to wait. 

The interesting thing is that the broodstock are in a stunningly pristine reef tank (not mine, of course). No algae issues. They are fed once a day, and only because there are anthias in the tank that require frequent feeding. Yet they produce nests like this. Amazing.

Dec 26
The larvae/fish are getting bigger. About half have visible first bands, a few have second bands. The ones without bands are about the same size as the ones with. I wonder why it is going so slowly, but then I am used to a faster metamorphosis, and I think I just have to be patient. 

They have dusky gray back halves, with orange faces and stomachs. They are on Day 13 today. I wonder if these guys will turn blacksooner rather than later. The Otohime A food they are getting has not been topdressed with naturose. I wonder if their bands will be perfect or misbarred as before..... 
So hard to wait......

Dec 27
The babies are doing very well, and it looks like at least some of them may have at least 2 complete and perfect barrs. Still, it is too soon to tell. 

I've lost a total of 4 from what looks like 150 in guesstimate. I do have a couple that look funny, bug eyes and too fat a belly, so there may be a couple to cull, but most are fantastic looking. I've been lurking a bit at RC and rkelman, who is also a member here, has a thread there on his blacks, and they did not color up until later like my last batch. I hope this batch will do better. We will have to wait and see. Waiting....bah humbug!

Video taken on Dec 26.  If you have a quick eye you can see a couple with headbands.

Dec 31, 2008 Happy New Year!
Having a few deaths lately....a couple every day. Large bellied unstriped ones mostly. I wonder if the slow metamorphosis is too slow...

I do seem to have some with complete first and second stripes, but there are also some misbarrs. Although there are very few fish on this system at the moment, there used to be way too many, and probably not enough water changes since the tanks were vacated. My nitrates are a bit high. Time to go mix up some more saltwater. 

Jan 1, 2009

Jan 2
These are supposed to be black ocellaris. The parent fish are black, completely, but when purchased, the parents were orange faced, and not that black. Within a year they were completely black. 

The other batch I raised from this pair took a loooooong time to blacken up. But it was during a time when I overloaded my system, water quality was not what it should have been, and the fish were crowded up too long as they grew. 

This latest batch is sharing a 110 gallon system with 8 adult fish, 1 year old, in another tank, 5 of which will be sold today. They are the leftovers from that first hatch of blacks. 7 of them are reasonably black, but the largest one is remarkably, and unsellably orange. I would have guessed that she is one of the oranges that may have jumped into the blacks' tank, but she has a black tail and all the beginnings of the black color that I saw as the others progressed to black. I think she is just the slowest of black developers. If I can, I'll try to get some pictures. 

That said, the babies I have right now are getting some black on their lower fins as all orange clownfish do, and the largest one is getting a blackened tail. I have hope that these guys will have a faster progression. 

this time, unlike last time, I have not added naturose to their food. Another local breeder who has blacks that blacken fast also does not add naturose.

Jan 11
this batch did have some die off at about a week. It seemed that some did not undergometamorphosis and died. About a dozen. They were also very skinny. I have a UV on my system, but it is not as big as I think it should be, and I plan to exchange it for a 40 watt one.

 
 
March 3, 2009

OK< I need to finish off this species with a HATCH!  It's the only piece missing.  Here's the nest:


 

I scraped most of the eggs off with a soda straw, and put them into broodstock water in a brine shrimp hatcher with a microdrop of methylene blue.  Bubbling….we await a hatch.

 
 

seems like i always pull them too early….

Patience, young Padawan... lol

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

I picked out about a dozen early hatchers, and put them in a sterile 10 gallon static tank with a heater and airbar.   They are fine without rots as they have a really big yolk sac.
I am waiting for the rest to hatch, which should be tonight.  Then I'll feed them like crazy.

The majority still have not hatched, but I have around 40 in the 10 gallon with rots and greenwater, heater, and bubbles.

Keeping them in greenwater and rots.  Today I threw in some pods from the polyglot culture and a drop of povidone.  I am trying to see if I can get some full barred blacks this time.
 
In general, I've noticed that the black ocellaris larvae are more energetic than my orange ocellaris.  These larvae are constantly cruising the tank.

 
What's the methylene blue for?
 

It prevents fungus from attacking the eggs and killing them.