Picassos breeding project

[gar732]

After 3 years my picassos are finally breeding. This is the first clutch that I've noticed but I'm thinking its not their first. It's a good sized clutch and its laid pretty tight like they've done this before.


This pic is from yesterday. If you look close you can see the silver eyes. They are crappy pics but it's the best that I could do with my phone. If they don't hatch tonight I'll break out the macro lens tomorrow and get some decent shots.


They were laid on 07/07, unfortunately I'm not ready to raise this clutch. I expect them to hatch today or tomorrow. I've been gathering everything I need to hopefully get the next clutch going. I should have my rotifers going by the end of the week. This will be my first go at raising fry so it will be a learning experience. I will use this thread as a log to track my progress. The picassos are the first of four pairs to lay, hopefully the others will start soon also. I'll try to get some good pics of the proud parents tomorrow.

 

[jasonp87]

Very cool! Following. Be sure to post pics of your phyto and rotifer set ups. Those things always get forgotten for the cooler subjects like the fry themselves but I know I still like to see them.

 

[Waffo]

Love Picassos.. Any pictures of your pair.?

 

[gar732]

Very cool! Following. Be sure to post pics of your phyto and rotifer set ups. Those things always get forgotten for the cooler subjects like the fry themselves but I know I still like to see them.

The plan is to try and document as much as possible if for nothing else to see where I may have made mistakes along the way. I'll try to get as many pics of every thing as possible along the way.

Love Picassos.. Any pictures of your pair.?

It's not the best pic but it the only one I have on hand, I'll try to get some better ones tomorrow. These guys both came from doni, the female is about 6 months older and I've had them for just short of 3 years.

 

[Waffo]

Very nice.. Good luck on your project.. I Subscribed.

 

[neddog]

I'm really excited to see how this turns out for you please keep us posted. I would also like to see the feeding setup. congratulations!

 

[Mattiejay6]

Gorgeous pair! If you need any help let me know! Following along

 

[gar732]

Thanks guys.

Gorgeous pair! If you need any help let me know! Following along

I take it you've breed them before, good to know. I'm sure I'll have some questions once I get going. As for right now I'm just collecting supplies.

I ordered a 53 micron sieve on ebay and they had a package deal that included some rotifers and feed so I just got that. I've been having second thoughts about the ebay rots though and had to place an order with reed mariculture anyway so i got some rots from them also. i've read that they are supposed to be of very good quality along with some rotigrow+ and otohime A and B1. I'll run both cultures and see how they compare.

On another note, the eggs haven't hatched yet. From what I've read they should have hatched yesterday or the day before. They seem well developed and still good but no hatch. We'll have to see what happens tonight. the female is quite plump and looks ready for another clutch. I've got some better pics of the eggs and my brood stock which I'll get on here soon.

 

[Mattiejay6]

You should stack a 120 micron sleeve on top of the 53 I learned that from Brian @ Clownfish depot...

Reed Mariculture is a great source and a lot of people go to them..I use L type rotifiers

 

[gar732]

Is that to strain particulate matter before straining the rots? The "L" type rotifers are what I ordered from reed, after looking back at the ebay rots it's not specified which type. Any ideas on the eggs not hatching yet? They were laid on 07/07.

 

[gar732]

Here's a better pic of the eggs and the parents, still not great but better. I need more practice with this lens and I could use more patience with these clowns that won't stop moving, lol.


Here's mom.


And dad.

 

[gar732]

We finally have a hatch! About half of the eggs have hatched out at this point. There are tons of fry all over the tank, I kind of feel bad that I can't do anything with them. Everything I've ordered should arrive tomorrow or Friday so I'll be ready for the next clutch.

 

[gar732]

Still waiting on the next clutch but the female is huge so I'm thinking any day now. I've got all my orders in and I should be ready for the next clutch. I got my order in from reed and I have my rots going, hopefully I did everything right. I'm impressed with reed mariculture so far. Everything was very well packaged and the were a ton of rots, especially in comparison to my ebay rots. I almost didn't even bother with the ebay rots but I have them already and figured I give them a try for comparisons sake. I know the reeds culture will do better just based on the density but I want to see if the ebay rots are a viable option since they are cheaper. I opted not to use the the feed that came with the ebay rots, I'm using rotigrow+ on both cultures. Ok, on to the pics.

Here are the rots and the rotigrow+. They came packaged in a styrofoam cooler with 4 cold packs to make sure it stays nice and cold.


The wife wasn't too happy when I told her that I'd spent over $200 on fish food but unless I start a fish farm I shouldn't have to buy food again. And I read that a little goes a long way.


These are the basic supplies for the the rots culture. I'm basing everything I do on a very informative thread I read on raising clowns along with other reading. It's a starting point but hopefully it works out and I won't have to change much.


Here are the rots acclimating to temp. The water isn't really tinted anymore, that's basically all rotifers you are seeing in the bag.


This is the culture all set up. The ridged tube I purchased on ebay from the same seller as the rots. I'm using one air pump to a splitter and an air valve before each ridged tube. I've seen some people use air stones but that tends to give you a foam on the surface. Just the ridged tube has worked well for my reference thread so I'm giving it a try. I guessed on how much to tint the water, it should take about 12 hours to lighten up so we'll see how it goes.

 

[jduck]

Are those the 1kg bags of A & B? The 1 oz bags I bought are going to last me a long time... Unless your doing big scale may want to look at selling some before it expires.

 

[ReeferMadness09]

You're off to a great start! Can't wait to see the progress

 

[gar732]

Are those the 1kg bags of A & B? The 1 oz bags I bought are going to last me a long time... Unless your doing big scale may want to look at selling some before it expires.

I know but I could not find anything smaller for sale anywhere. I think your right, I should sell off some of it while it's fresh.

You're off to a great start! Can't wait to see the progress

Thanks, now that everything is together I'm growing impatient for them to lay again, lol. The female looks like she is about to burst I don't know what she is waiting for.

 

[jduck]

feed everytime you go by the tank. It won't take long

 

[gar732]

They finally laid yesterday 7/19. Another good sized tightly laid clutch. The last clutch hatched on the 9th day so I'm wondering if these will be the same. I'll be still work so I'll have to pull the pot. I didn't want to since I'm worried about messing it up but it looks like I'll have no choice. I want to pull it as late as possible but I'm worried about pulling it too late so we'll see what happens.

On another note the rots seem to be doing well, that is to say the reeds rots are doing well. I'm not completely sure how dense they should be on day two but when I pull a cup of water you can clearly see thousands of tiny specs in the water. The ebay rots might have crashed, I can't see them like I can in the reeds culture. The reeds rots are clearly the winner here but I'll give the ebay rots a couple more days to catch up before I just scrap them.

The ball seems to be rolling now and I'm excited for this clutch to hatch so I can give raising the fry a shot. I'm hoping that I can get some of them through meta. I'm going to have to start planning a grow out system, in the meantime I plan to use a 34 solana I have laying around. I don't want to start building a new system until I'm successfully raising fry. I'll take some pics of this new batch soon.

 

[gar732]

The tank is ready, just needs some fry. I want to pull the pot as late as possible so I'm going to pull it on Monday, the fry should hatch Monday night. That is if they hatch in 9 days like the last clutch, if they hatch in 8 then I'll miss it. I've read of others pulling the pot up to 3 days before but not knowing exactly how much air I should be putting on the eggs I don't want to pull them early. Hopefully I'll have a tank full of fry on Tuesday morning.

 

[jasonp87]

I don't think you're supposed to expose the eggs to any air. My suggestion would be to have a container you can put into the tank, then but the pot in the container, then put the container into the fry tank. This way the transition for the eggs is as smooth as possible with no air exposure.