PDA

View Full Version : Maroons laid eggs, now what?


KPG007
02-03-2014, 05:09 PM
MY gold banded maroon clown fish laid eggs in the last couple days. If I decided to try and raise the young whats the best path to success?
I know the babies would need rotifers, ect. Where would I get that type of food locally?

Does anyone have some info or some links with some good info? I've been on MOFIB, but would like someone local with knowledge of local resources to do this successfully.

Slyguy00
02-03-2014, 05:13 PM
Hey kelly.
Talk to Timbits. He raises baby black ice clowns and has been quite successfull doing it.

Leah
02-03-2014, 05:46 PM
BREAK OUT THE CRACKERS

paddyob
02-03-2014, 05:51 PM
Unless you have several tanks available and lots of time, you will likely just feed your tank.

mike31154
02-03-2014, 06:08 PM
Most folks that raise them successfully will have separate grow out tanks & a good supply of phytoplankton to grow rotifers to feed the larvae for the first week or so. After that you'll need live brine shrimp to feed them after the metamorphosis stage. Need to have that stuff on the go well ahead of time. My maroons have been spawning for years now, food for the other critters when they hatch. Some day I may give raising them a go too, but don't have the phyto cultures & rotifers going to do so. It's fairly work intensive.

Better to wait for a while after the first spawn anyway. Give your maroons a bit more time to perfect their routine. Once they start spawning they'll likely continue with a break of only a few days between hatching & the next spawn.

KPG007
02-03-2014, 06:52 PM
BREAK OUT THE CRACKERS

Hmm, not quite the help I was looking for, but thanks :wink:

Unless you have several tanks available and lots of time, you will likely just feed your tank.

Most folks that raise them successfully will have separate grow out tanks & a good supply of phytoplankton to grow rotifers to feed the larvae for the first week or so. After that you'll need live brine shrimp to feed them after the metamorphosis stage. Need to have that stuff on the go well ahead of time. My maroons have been spawning for years now, food for the other critters when they hatch. Some day I may give raising them a go too, but don't have the phyto cultures & rotifers going to do so. It's fairly work intensive.

Better to wait for a while after the first spawn anyway. Give your maroons a bit more time to perfect their routine. Once they start spawning they'll likely continue with a break of only a few days between hatching & the next spawn.

Yeah, this is what I was thinking too. Family was hoping we would have a tank full of Nemo's soon. I really don't need the extra work, so I'll let nature take its course.

mike31154
02-03-2014, 07:41 PM
Joyce D. Wilkerson's book Clownfishes, although a somewhat dated publication these days, is nevertheless a great resource if you're planning to raise the fry. You can probably find a copy at a library in the big city, 'cause the book seems a bit pricey on the online sites that have it available. Good info not only on raising fry, but general care & species, anemones etc. She's been a pioneer with regard to successfully breeding the critters.

SeaHorse_Fanatic
02-03-2014, 07:49 PM
While Gold striped Maroons are the most beautiful clowns IMO, they are also the real A-holes of the clownfish family. Even if you could raise the young, they start beating up on each other at a fairly young age (so you'd want to separate them) and that aggression towards other clowns stays for their entire lifetimes usually. I saw this at J&L with a tank full of ORA maroons. Lots of tattered fins.

And yeah, almost impossible to raise any clownfish from eggs inside a community reef tank.

Timbits
02-04-2014, 01:06 AM
Congrats on the new eggs! :biggrin:
Monocus usually has Rotifers and phytoplankton available. I got mine from him before. He's in burnaby.

As mike said, that is the best book in the world. That's how I learned. And I borrowed from the library too!

And as Anthony said, yes they are super aggressive even when they are little. I used to raise maroons but stopped because they just kept killing each other even as early as 2-3 weeks old. Beautiful fish though.

monocus
02-04-2014, 03:00 AM
i also have baby brine shrimp that are smaller than normal hatches for feeding the fry

SpateD
02-04-2014, 02:39 PM
I breed clowns and know first hand, you can feed your baby clowns pellet foods as early as 7 days. You can order foods from Reed Mariculture called Top Dressed Otohime (TDO). This food can be extremely small. Reed also sells instant algaes, which instead of growing your own phyto, which can be a complete pain... You just add the instant algae to your rotifer culture once or twice per day, and they are more nutritional than would be if on phyto IMO. I've gone a different direction and used a pepper mill to grind down my regular New Life Spectrum pellets to be small enough for them to eat.

The main thing to think about when breeding clownfish is how long is going to take you to sell a nest of babies. If you think 6 months average growing period for ocellaris to be a salable size, and a nest of 200 fish... How much are you going to spend on foods for these 200 fish, are you going to be able to house them comfortably for the time period they're in your care.. Who are you selling them to.. and how much are you going to sell them for.

The thing about maroon clowns is not everyone wants one. Most people just want nemo for their kids to see... Or a clown for the sake of having a saltwater tank and a clown. So where someone could sell 200 ocellaris in a month or two to multiple stores... you're going to have a far harder time selling 200 maroons. Not to mention they'll take longer to grow I'm sure. (I don't have maroons)

If you leave them, they'll continue to lay eggs for their lifetime, random events may cause they to stop for awhile. You could also sell them to other breeders who are looking for a spawning pair.

KPG007
02-04-2014, 03:46 PM
Great information! This is their first clutch (that I've seen), so I will let them go through the process for a while before I try rearing the young. I would like to try more for the experience then to try and make money, but, as you mentioned Spated, when you have 200 fish at the end, what do you do with them?
Right now its a cool experience, and with my leopard wrasses doing a love dance every evening lately, there is always something new to learn and see.

I love this hobby!

SpateD
02-04-2014, 04:29 PM
Wrasses would be awesome to try and breed. I don't know of anyone who's had any recorded success with them though.

Breeding marine life is certainly an exciting thing. I still get excited when I see a nest hatch, and I've seen a few. I wish more people had success and tried to breed new species as well. Our reefs depend on us to control the wild caught population, which in turn means we need to be able to produce more tank raised fish for the aquarium hobby.

kobelka
02-05-2014, 12:48 AM
Hey there,
I raised 3 or 4 batches of occelaris for the exact reason kpg said. For the experience. It was work. I used the instant algae spated mentioned. I ground up my nls pellets and went from Rotifers to powdered pellets. it was amazing to see a 10 gallon tank full of little clowns. Most amazing was metamorphosis waking up to find the little brown fry turned into perfect little orange waggling clowns. I would suggest try it some day, when you have some spare time!!
Dave