Breeding Journal, Species: Amphiprion tricinctus

General
Species:  Amphiprion tricinctus
Social Structure:  Pair
Size of Individuals:  Female: 4.5" Male: 3"
Age of Individuals:  Female: Approximately 3 years in my system. Male: Approximately 5 months in my system. 
Date added to Tank:  Female: 2010 Male: 2013

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  45 gallon cube (24" x 24" x 18"). System was shared a common sump with a 60 gallon cube. 
Substrate Details:  Aragonite, approximately 2" deep
Filtration Details:  Reef Octopus SRO2000, GFO reactor
Water Changes:  45 gallons every 1 to 2 months. 
Water Temperature:  80-82 F
Lighting:  2 x AI Sol Blue
Lighting Cycle:  8 am to 10 pm
Other Tank Inhabitants: Plesiops corallicola   

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Reeds Mariculture otohime, Ocean Nutrition, Sustainable Aquatics Hatchery Diet.
Feeding Schedule:  once to twice a day, as much as they will eat in 2 minutes. 

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  Probably 7/22/13
Spawn Time of Day:  Missed first spawn, subsequent spawns were in the evening around 6 pm. 
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  8/18, 8/28, 9/8, 9/18, 9/29, 10/6, 10/20, 10/31 for example
Courtship Details:  Prior to first spawn, I never saw any cleaning or courtship. Following spawns had tile cleaning, but mostly on the day of the spawn. 
Egg Size:  Typically about 3" x 3"
Egg Color:  Bright orange.
Egg Count:  Unknown.

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  approximately 7/29/13
Hatch Time of Day:  approximately 2 hours after lights out. 
# Days after Spawn:  10, 9, 8, 9 days for example
Larvae Description: Tiny, fast swimming, standard clownfish fry
Consecutive Hatch Dates:   8/24, 9/5, 9/15, 9/26, 10/17, 10/28  


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  84-86 F
Size of Larval Tank:  10 gallon, with approximately 3 gallons of water 
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  None
Filtration Details:  Sponge filter for up to 20 gallon 
Lighting:  single 18w T5
Lighting Cycle:  8 am to 8 pm
Water Changes:  2 gallons daily

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Rotifers
Feeding Schedule:  Twice a day

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  Not recorded
Days after Hatch:  Approximately 8- 10 
Date of Settlement End:  Unknown
Description of Fry:  Black with a distinct silvery stripe down its dorsal midsection. Yellowish tinge to tail section. Has started the trademark bob up and down swim.

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:  82-84 F
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  10 gallon
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  None
Filtration Details:  Sponge filter for up to 30 gallons
Lighting:  Single 18w T5
Lighting Cycle:  8 am to 8 pm
Water Changes:  5 to 8 gallons once every two days
Size at Transfer:  No transfer
Age at Transfer:  No transfer, kept them in same aquarium, used additional tanks for newer spawns

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  Live cultured copepods, crushed Otohime C2, B1, A
Feeding Schedule:  Twice daily

Additional Information
Both fish were collected in the Kwajalein Atoll. The male arrived as a solid black specimen which turned yellow in only a matter of weeks. Most likely due to the change from carpet anemone in the wild to my purple crispa in captivity. 
Its possible their very first spawn was a day or two earlier than when i first noticed on 7/22 (putting it closer to 7/21 or even 7/20) but i suspect i would have noticed as i was pretty attentive on a daily basis. All my records begin on 7/22. 

Additional details of their development will be posted below. 

Here is the day by day adventure with raising my A. tricinctus. 
 
http://reefcentral.com/fo...owthread.php?t=2315788
 
Ill summarize the following events below, but with pictures! 
 
7/22/13 
i noticed the first spawn of my fish.  the tile had been present for quite some time and ignored. 



 
on approximately 8/6 the fish began to spawn on my removable tile.
on 8/20 i took a picture of their nest, a few days old at this point
 

here is the their grow out tank all ready to go: dark. ammonia alert. sponge filter. heater.
 

 
two buckets of rotifers cooking. 

 
here is my phyto set up. i will have two bottles of nannochloropsis, tetraselmis and isocrysis. 

9/13/13

 
so the first nest i tried out did not do well because i was struggling with my rotifer cultures. initially i purchased some frozen phyto from a fellow reefer, who had originally received it in bulk from reeds mariculture. 

when i thawed this out and used it, my rotifer water would always be a yellow green. instead of the water turning clear as they consumed the phyto, it would turn a hazy white. i would battle high ammonia and very low rotifer density. even when i sieved the rotifers they were white, instead of a nice rich brown. about 20 fry lasted about a week, mostly due to my inability to maintain any sort of rotifer density. over the next few weeks i nailed down the issues. today while changing the water i was shocked to see that my density seemed to have exploded. this is good since i have a hatch coming up on sunday evening. i also added some copepods from a fellow breeder and they seem to be reproducing rapidly and doing well coexisting with the rotifers. 

i have two colonies going, each in 5 gallon buckets. salinity is at 1.019-1.020. one is heated to 80 degrees, the other maintains around 75 degrees.
 
i do a quick squirt of prime into each bucket every morning and feed 1 mL twice a day. copepods are all attached to the heater. and the haze is the mass of rotifers. i have been using RGcomplete for over a week now. the water stays clear and not murky, ammonia doesnt rise and my populations of rotifers and copepods seem to be doing quite well. i am pleased.

the phyto i had been growing is a different story however. 

none of my colonies lasted long after their first split. the iso was the first to fail. it grew well for several days, i leave for an over night camping trip and come back and both bottles are now hazy white. my tetraselmis was doing very well. i split it after 10 days and three days later they both went white. my nanno lasted the longest, but then failed as well. initially i had my grow lights on 24/7. i have since switched to a 16/8 schedule. 

i will have some new samples of tetra and iso arriving next week. i have a new bottle of dense nanno i plan on trying to maintain and grow out. my plan is to use the phyto i grow as a supplement to my RGcomplete. 

i was also told that i should feed some selcon to my rotifers 8 hours before feeding them to fry.
 
 

9/15/13
last nest, i thought i had one more day before they hatched. came in the morning to find the nest gone. very annoyed. 

this nest, i was a little jumpy, so i pulled the tile and set up the hatchery tank....only to find no hatch the following morning. so, with crossed fingers i kept them in the hatchery tank and put the tank dark this evening....two hours later a million fry loose and swimming. 

tomorrow early morning they get rotifers. lots of them. i am substantially more prepared this go around and am excited to see how this part turns out. 
 
9/16/13
well sadly i will not have the really awesome up close, magnified photos of the fry as they develop. but....for all you low quality photography nuts out there....this should knock your socks off:

 
this is a top down shot of the hatchery tank. there are approximately 50 fry as of this morning. all of the living fry are congregated towards the top of the 10 gallon, away from the bubbles and sponge filter. the sponge filter has been maturing in my sump for the past month and should help out tremendously with my filtration.

i had to swap out my heater as the temperature was at 86 in the tank and 72 on the heater. i would like to keep the temp closer to 80.

 
9/18/13
end of day three. still about 50 swimming tirelessly. they are definitely putting on size. i am putting in rotifers twice a day. tomorrow is a water change day. i also will be moving the heater, bubbles and sponge filter to the back of the tank, so that the fry utilize the viewable space more. this will allow better pictures of their development. 

i was finally able to catch a spawn tonight. i took a riveting two minute video of this and was surprised how calm the female behaved. when my chrysopterus spawned, my female seemed like she was hyperventilating. please disregard the annoying buzzing sound. its the air pump in the garage taking care of phyto, rotifers, and fry. its ancient. 
 
http://youtu.be/HW03rwl1pZk
 
and this was the final result. 



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9/20/13
digital photos are such a blessing. if this were 20 years ago, it would have cost a fortune to get just these few pictures. 

day 4 fry



 
9/22/13
day 7 update
today i noticed the fry actively hunting copepods in addition to rotifers. the copepods are larger and much faster than the rotifers, actively swimming through the water column. 

the last 48 hours i have been showing ammonia on my ammonia alert. i did a 50% water change yesterday, i will probably do another today. 

i am down to about 16 fry. i suspect i actually had closer to 30 fry by the end of day 4. and have had closer to 16 for the last three days. i am not seeing any bodies though which is interesting. 

i have been largely unsuccessful with phyto. my batch of nanno is doing just fine, very dark green and healthy. but my second and most likely last attempt at tetra failed. i have one more sample of iso coming this week i will try my hand at. i will probably stick to using solely the RGcomplete. it appears to be working very well. i feed about 2 mL of RG complete to each rotifer bucket and 1 mL to my fry tank twice a day. i am also adding about 1 mL of selcon to my rotifer buckets once a day. 
my temperature is running consistently at 86 degrees. this does not seem to affect the fry. anyone notice problems keeping the temperature this warm? they are certainly not starving so the higher activity level and metabolism created by this warmer water shouldnt be an issue, or am i completely wrong?

9/23/13
day 8

here are the little guys in moving pictures! theyre tireless. most are very developed, at least one looks like it hasnt changed since day one. some have lots of yellow in their tails. there is lots of detritus to suck up throughout the day now that wasnt present before yesterday. i tried a small amount of otohime A this morning. i got the impression they could smell food in the water, as their activity seemed to pick up. but there was very little interest in the powder now floating on the water. 
 
http://youtu.be/IwUZz0ri-uU
 
9/24/13
There are 13 of them as of tonight. At least five of them are very developed, a few still remain almost unchanged since they hatched. I tried another feeding of otohime A this evening. There seems to be interest, particularly if it is dropped into the bubbles and mixed into the water column, as opposed to just floating on the surface. No definitive signs of actually eating it yet though. 

Another observation: there are no more little copepods skirting around the waters surface and glass. They must be delicious. Two days ago I purchased some tiger pods from reeds mariculture, poured them in a bucket with a bale of chaeto and some phyto and as of today there certainly seems like they have been reproducing. This will hopefully supplement the transition into dry, prepared foods. 

9/25/13
day 10 

i believe at least one fish has reached metamorphosis. this fish is black, has a distinct stripe in its midsection, and has started the trade mark bob up and down swim. it has also adopted a suction cup as its anemone. 
here is a dramatic photo stream:
 

9/26/13
day 11, most of the fry are dark in color with what appears to be vertical stripes. ill get some more pictures up. this particular little guy still hasnt left his beloved suction cup. 
the pearl eyes could be interesting....but i suspect its just the light reflecting off the top of their eyes through their scales and not reflective pigment. 
 
This was the best picture of the day. You can clearly see the stripes and their current size. I'm trying to feed dry foods throughout the day, but am still not seeing any conclusive enjoyment from them. Nor do they seem particularly interested in the tiger pods which I find surprising. 

 
9/28/13
day 13

they just dont seem to want to get close enough for me to get a good picture. but of the nine that remain, at least 5 of them have gone through meta and look like little clownfish. they have also started to stake out territory and bicker with each other. sometimes relentlessly. i have seen them take bites out of the dry foods i have been putting in, but then spit them out. i am alternating types frequently throughout the day to find one they will finally take...but no dice yet. rotifers and copepods it is. for some reason they do not like tiger pods....are they too big? too spiky? i do not understand. 

 
10/1/2013
day 15
i thought it might be easier to see some of their development if i scooped them into a viewing box. unfortunately these little guys are fast, and i wasnt able to catch the most developed of the group. they look like little fish now though and that is exciting. 

as of this morning i have 11 remaining. two of them are refusing to change over past metamorphosis. the rest of them more or less have bold complete stripes....and love to bicker and chase each other off. no friendly ball of clown babies for this species. 

they still are reluctant with the dry foods. they certainly respond when it hits the water but do not seem to like it once its in front of them. they often will target a piece and then spit a little jet of water at each little morsel and then swim off. i have seen a few pieces consumed though. i am keeping rotifers plentiful and adding tiger pods more frequently.

the second nest that hatched late last week made it only two days. some standard losses day 1 and 2...and then the morning of the third all 50+ remaining fry were dead. a handful of them were completely red. 

what would have turned so many red and also killed off so many simultaneously? bacterial infection of some sort? 

as for the very dead and very red fry, no other problems. this nest didnt hatch the night it was supposed to, so that was annoying. and i suspect that could have been the case for the problems after they hatched. my gut feeling was something chemical got them. no idea where it would come from unless it leached from the aquarium itself, but that was just my initial gut feeling. as for the ammonia, i do not test for it. but watch the seachem tester, and the water. they get a water change a day, with a few spritzings of prime throughout the day as well. 
the morning i came to find them all dead, the water was crystal clear but teeming with rotifers. nothing else moving. the tank has since been scrubbed out and is ready for the next nest hatch early next week. 
 
 
10/4/13
day 18

10/6/13
day 20

they are now consistently eating prepared foods. formula 1/2/spirulina flake combo. crushed sustainable aquatics hatchery diet. and the otohime B2. this pleases me. 

i woke up a batch of brine shrimp the other day, and have been feeding these once or twice a day. once i get my breeder boxes tomorrow, i will probably move the fish to my displays so that i can really up their feedings and not worry about water quality. 

there are 11 of them remaining. next hatch is tuesday. 
 
10/10/13
day 24
http://youtu.be/bhbJT9rniY0
here are the kids today. bright yellow. eating voraciously anything i put in there little home. the aggression has subsided which is a blessing. as you should be able to see there are also some distinct variations in growth and development. 
unfortunately i have not been able raise any other nests since these guys. but am optimistic their next nest wont a)die suddenly after a hatch or b) be eaten by a camouflaged tuxedo urchin in the parents aquarium. 
 
10/20/13

10/30/13
day 44

ive moved them into my garage system with a h. malu and s. mertensii. they seem to prefer the mertens. and it shows: their color has darkened since it was introduced. i would like to see them turn completely black soon. 

 
they seem to only squabble when i am around

 
11/5/13
i wish i could say that every nest since has been a glowing success, but this is not the case. i only have 2 more that are about 18 days and another 2 that are a week old...out of nests of hundreds. plenty of discouragement with this whole process. 

massive die offs within the first 5 days. i havent been able to find the reason. i used fresh new saltwater with this last nest, and the fry lasted several days. which was exciting since the previous nest lasted barely 36 hours. but then they too all suddenly perished. i was shocked that two little guys were still swimming around.... 

1/27/14
day 133

here is a video of the remaining 10 offspring. they are all assorted sizes. some are well over an inch, and a few are barely the size of a grain of rice. i introduced them to the parents about 2 weeks ago and thought for sure i had made a terrible mistake. the parents were relentless in chasing them. i feared most of them would end up killed. i didnt see any for days at a time. 

but all of a sudden this week, i noticed far more tolerance of the little guys. they still get chased off, but its with only half interest. most of the time theyre swimming out in the open too which i find both surprising and exciting. 

the video isnt the clearest, but you should get the idea. ill see if i can get a better quality video soon. at about the :35 mark you see a glimpse of one of the smallest offspring. 
http://youtu.be/aV2891Suo40

day 276
some updated pictures of my two remaining fry! these are not easy fish to photograph!