Send in the Clowns - Clown Fish Breeding

[IanWR]

Thank you so much for documenting this! I look forward to this far more than the disappointing new fall tv shows.

What are your plans for your ever growing hoard of clownfish?

- Ian

[titus]

Hello

Thanks for sharing this. This is one amazing thread.


Titus

[Ross]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Originally Posted by IanWR

What are your plans for your ever growing hoard of clownfish?

Despite my daughters desire to keep every one of them, I will have to sell most of them off.
I will keep a couple through to adult hood to see how they color up over the long haul.

I've talked to one store in about the potential of buying batches of them.
They were not all that interested in "mixed clowns".

A few of the other stores are already well stocked by other local breeders.
There are enough stores around I don't think it will be a concern.

Canreef members will get the first go at them.

[SpateD]

Hybrid clowns are going to be tough to sell! On a side note, I have raised Mocha (Black O x Orange O) clowns... With some DaVinci grades (also known as Gladiator/Fancy White), and they are proving difficult also.

Stores in Calgary are not keen on getting back to us breeders about these things. It's likely I'll have to look towards selling to a wholesaler.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by SpateD

Hybrid clowns are going to be tough to sell! On a side note, I have raised Mocha (Black O x Orange O) clowns... With some DaVinci grades (also known as Gladiator/Fancy White), and they are proving difficult also.

Stores in Calgary are not keen on getting back to us breeders about these things. It's likely I'll have to look towards selling to a wholesaler.

Why are stores not hybrid friendly?

[SpateD]

I think it may be as simple as owners of LFS' don't see them on their lists... and therefore either don't know what they are (marketing/name wise), or what to list them for.

Or that big name breeders are not mixing species that often, if at all.

I offered to make some grades of Davinci (C-Quest named them Gladiator) clowns available in Calgary, and have not heard back on it yet.. I also have asked around for prices on regular Davinci's and store owners don't have prices on those.

[Ross]

In preparation for the next batch of eggs hatching, on Wednesday evening, I transferred the first batch of clowns over to a new 24" x 12" x 12" (15 gallon) tank from Concept.
Apparently they also make small tanks, not just 16' display tanks.
I tossed in a sponge filter/air stone that has been seeding in my sump for a month, matched the temp and salinity as close as possible to the 5 gallon fry tank the day prior.
30-40 fry have survived my blundering's and are now rather fast swimming little guys when they want to be.
Counting will have to be done via a photo to really have any accuracy.

Based on the first batch taking 9 days to hatch, the current batch should have hatched last night and it did to some degree, but we will get to that in a bit.

My DIY LED lights usually dim from 8:30 to lights out at 10:30. I reprogrammed the apex so that lights out would be at 9:00 so that I'm not up till 1:00 fishing.
The return pump and wp-40 also would shut off at this time. My basement, where the tank is located, was completely black and they were left to hatch in peace.
Around 11:00 I snuck down to peak in on them fully expecting there to be 150+ fry darting around picking off rotifers that I dumped into the display earlier.
Well there were a few free swimming fry. By a few I mean 3... ...yes, 3...

As my wife and I were shining a flash light into the tank several more started to emerge from the cluster of eggs. Typically after the male fanned hard at them to dislodge them.
We siphoned up about 25 fry before declaring it too late to be doing this.
More than 3/4 of the eggs were still stuck to their rock when we headed off to bed at 1:00.
I restored all the default settings in the apex and went to bed.

Shockingly, this morning, the remainder of the eggs were still firmly attached to the live rock, So I'll be vacuuming up more fry tonight from the looks of it.

[Ross]

My fish are now 34 days old.
A fair bit has changed since my last batch of photos.
First off all except 1 of the fry have transformed into fish. For some reason 1 of them is special and not progressing like the others, yet hasn't died so he remains.
I changed tanks to a 15 gallon as my previous post indicated. This transition was smooth with zero losses!

They are only 25-50% longer than when they first hatched. They are a lot larger in girth though. Probably close to 3-4 fry tall and 3 fry across.

Their stripes are forming well.
They appear to grow in sections at a time that eventually form a singular line. The last photo illustrates this the best. They change the color of a small section and it fades in, then change the next small section until it is one.
Their Pectoral fins are all coming in black.
They look hilarious darting around and flashing them to stop.

Some have attitude and chase others around. Some just chill in one spot for a bit.

Currently I'm, well actually more accurately my wife is, feeding them powdered tetra bits a few times during the day. One of the perks of a stay at home mom is I get a full time fish sitter... (I imagine the back of my head will hurt for that one)
Anyways, the food is reddish in color and you can really see the quantity in the stomachs of the fish.
They also occasionally get crushed flake for a bit of variety.

Here are the pics...

This is the left side:


This is the right side: