Fry Friday

We now have four different pairs of clownfish in four different tanks. We have a pair of ocellaris clown (Like Nemo) in our fifty gallon, a pair of Maroon Clowns in our 77 gallon, a pair of tomato clowns in our 135 gallon, and a pair of clarkii clowns in our 65 tall. The female clarkii is the first salt water fish we bought. We got her and her mate at the Pets Unlimited in Moncton, not so long ago the male passed away and I got a new captive bred juvenile from Nobles in Moncton. The neat thing about clown fish is they all start out as sexually undeveloped males, then eventually a dominant clown will emerge from the group or pair, it will grown quite a bit larger than the rest and then change it's sex and become a female. If there's a group, the second most dominant will becoe a sexually developed male and they will be the only mated pair out of the entire group, the rest will remain juveniles for the rest of their lives or until something happens to one or both of the mated pair. That's why, when you're buying clown fish it's best to pick out two small ones (preferably captive bred so you know how old they are) and let them figure it out for themselves.

At any rate, our 50 gallon is still cycling so the conditions aren't stable enough for the Ocellaris to breed yet, the anemone in the 135 keeps moving around so the tomatoes won't breed either, and the rockscaping isn't done in the 77 so the maroons don't feel secure enough with the eel around to lay any eggs, but our Clarkiis had been laying eggs to beat the band until the male died. Now there is a new male in the tank and the egg laying has begun again.

Raising clownfish fry is not exactly an easy thing to do, and you can't just leave them in the tank and expect them to grow into little fish. They either end up as lunch, mangled by power heads, or starve to death. They need to be fed a tiny little organism called rotifers, and to culture rotifers you need to feed them phytoplankon.
We've been culturing phyto plankton for a few months now, because it's also good to feed your filter feeders in the tank and growing your own is a lot cheaper than buying it. I also got a rotifer culture started last month and they are growing and doing very well as well. I was on the verge of screwing up my confidence and trying to raise a batch of fry when our male clarkii died, so I had to wait for the new guy to start mating with the female. It happened surprisingly fast, so the first time around I wasn't prepared. Then the second time I actually got to witness them laying the eggs so I was able to count it out. Eggs hatch between 7 and 8 days after being laid, but I ended up buying the rearing tank and supplies the morning after they hatched so I missed out. This was a week ago Tuesday, so I figured I'd have to wait another week at least until tey laid more eggs, then another 8 days until they hatched, but the little horn dogs had a new batch by the next evening (wednesday night).

It's neat to watch the eggs mature, they start out little red glods, and by the time they are reay to breakfree they are like silver slivers and you can see the eyes glowing inside. We figured they would hatch wednesday night, so we turned off all the pumps and powerheads, then turned the lights off so there would be complete darkness....the Fry wait for dark to hatch. We waited quit a while, but nothing happened, so we gave up and turned the pumps back on. Thursday morning the eggs were still there, so we decided to try again that night. We once again turned all the pumps etc off, and left the tank and room in complete darkness. About fifteen minutes later we checked with a flashlight and the tank as full of little fry swimming about. Darrell took the flashlight and held it up by the water's surface and they all started being drawn to the light. (In nature they follow the moon light up to the surface and spend the first 8 days of their lives up in the plankton rich surface water). As they congregated at the light, Darrell scooped them out with a bowl into a jug and I put them in our little five gallon rearing tank. I then loaded up the tank with lots and lots of rotifers and left the light on for a little while so they could start learning to hunt. Yesterday was day one of them in their new homes and I think there were a few losses, but I managed to clean the debris from the bottom of the tank and did a water change to keep the ammonia and nitrate levels down. I'm keeping a heavy stock of rotifers in the tank so they don't have to look too far for food.
Today is day two and it has started out well. They are swimming and hunting and scooting about all over the tank, so fingers crossed I can do all the right things to bring them around to the day 8 metamorphosis. This is the day they all change from fry to actual fish, they drop down to the bottom and begin their change. According to my book this will be the day of the most losses, but if they're in good shape leading upto it, it shouldn't be all that bad.

To be quite honest, this being the first attempt and all, I'll be surpised if any of them manage to make it into actual little clownfish, but none of them would if I left them in the parent tank to hatch, so fingers crossed.