Breeding Frostbite - what’s your secret?

[bakbay]

Bought a pair of ORA Frostbite for breeding fun. I’m planning to keep them in a 25g frag tank until they lay eggs. I’ve been reading a lot on how to breed clowns but can be very intimidating and overwhelming!

Questions
1. Separate tank: do I really need a separate tank or can I partition the frag tank up to nurture the fries? I believe that they’ll need lower salinity so I suspect I’ll need another small tank anyway since the main tank and frag are running at 1.025?
2. I understand that I’ll need to harvest food IF/when I have a new clutch. Buying a starter pack is the way to go right?

What is your secret? If you’ve successfully breed them, can you share your method? I’ve never done this before so seeking for help.

Thanks

 

[Peace River]

You may want to do a search for "Pickles guide to breeding clownfish". I have always used a separate tank for the fry and I think you will find that it will be the common recommendation. The salinity in the fry tank does not need to be lower. Some commercial clownfish breeders keep their fish in lower salinities because it saves money on the cost of salt. Although clownfish fry have been successfully raised without live food, IME the most common first food is rotifers which will either need to be raised or purchased (typically these will be raised from a starter culture). The fish can be transitioned from rotifers to the various sizes of Reef Nutrition foods. Good luck with your breeding efforts!

 

[bakbay]

You may want to do a search for "Pickles guide to breeding clownfish". I have always used a separate tank for the fry and I think you will find that it will be the common recommendation. The salinity in the fry tank does not need to be lower. Some commercial clownfish breeders keep their fish in lower salinities because it saves money on the cost of salt. Although clownfish fry have been successfully raised without live food, IME the most common first food is rotifers which will either need to be raised or purchased (typically these will be raised from a starter culture). The fish can be transitioned from rotifers to the various sizes of Reef Nutrition foods. Good luck with your breeding efforts!

Thanks — yes, R2R has a ton of useful info/tips and have been reading like max.

It’s interesting to hear about the second tank. I already have 4 tanks so not fond of adding another one, although I do have another spare tank. I’ll look into partitioning / dividers to see if that will suffice. I don’t need to breed at scale — just get one clutch and go from there. It will be a miracle just go get baby clowns!

Rotifers: will read more. Again, have never done this so I might be way over my head! lol

 

[D-Nak]

Reed Mariculture sells a starter kit with everything you need:

CLOWNFISH BREEDER PACK W/ROTI-CLEAN®

For both seasoned and beginner breeders, this pack has everything you need: TDO Hobbyist Breeder Pack, 1 million Live Rotifers, 16oz of RGcomplete™, 1 Liter of Roti-Green™ Omega plus Roti-Clean™ Filter

reefnutrition.com

Actually, it's a bit overkill because you don't really need Rotigreen Omega. That's used for tinting the water, but you can get away with using RGComplete, though it's not ideal (Omega is much better suited for that). The problem is that they don't sell smaller quantities of Omega--the quantity provided in the kit will literally last you years. You also don't need the Roti-Clean filter, but without it you will have to clean your rotifer bucket more frequently.

They do sell another kit:

Rotifer Starter Kit

Rotifers are an essential first food for a wide variety of fish and invertebrates. Want to know how to grow your own? Order Reef Nutrition’s Rotifer Starter Kit and you will be on your way! The Rotifer Starter Kit includes 1 Million Brachionus plicatilis (L-type) rotifers, a 6 oz. bottle of Reef...

reefnutrition.com

But you'll need to add food:

TDO HOBBYIST BREEDER PACK

Reef Nutrition TDO Chroma Boost™ comes in a Breeder Pack of a 1oz pkg of pellet size A (75-250 µm) plus 3oz pkgs of B1, B2, X–SMALL, SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE (2.3mm) size pellets. Top-dressed with Haematococcus pluvialis, an excellent source of astaxanthin for color, health and growth...

reefnutrition.com

You'll also need to purchase a rotifer sieve:

Zooplankton Harvest Sieve

Reef Nutrition’s harvest sieve is a clear acrylic cylinder that makes it easy to see the animals being collected. Ideal for harvesting rotifers produced in Reef Nutrition’s Compact Culture System (CCS) and harvesting copepods. 41 Micron.

reefnutrition.com

I also use a separate tank for raising the babies. You'll want to black out the sides so that they don't bump into the walls. You'll also be cleaning it quite a bit so it's much easier without anything else in the tank. Clean water is the key to success, both in terms of keeping the babies alive and also minimizing defects (which are common for tank-bred clownfish).

 

[bakbay]

Reed Mariculture sells a starter kit with everything you need:

CLOWNFISH BREEDER PACK W/ROTI-CLEAN®

For both seasoned and beginner breeders, this pack has everything you need: TDO Hobbyist Breeder Pack, 1 million Live Rotifers, 16oz of RGcomplete™, 1 Liter of Roti-Green™ Omega plus Roti-Clean™ Filter

reefnutrition.com

Actually, it's a bit overkill because you don't really need Rotigreen Omega. That's used for tinting the water, but you can get away with using RGComplete, though it's not ideal (Omega is much better suited for that). The problem is that they don't sell smaller quantities of Omega--the quantity provided in the kit will literally last you years. You also don't need the Roti-Clean filter, but without it you will have to clean your rotifer bucket more frequently.

They do sell another kit:

Rotifer Starter Kit

Rotifers are an essential first food for a wide variety of fish and invertebrates. Want to know how to grow your own? Order Reef Nutrition’s Rotifer Starter Kit and you will be on your way! The Rotifer Starter Kit includes 1 Million Brachionus plicatilis (L-type) rotifers, a 6 oz. bottle of Reef...

reefnutrition.com

But you'll need to add food:

TDO HOBBYIST BREEDER PACK

Reef Nutrition TDO Chroma Boost™ comes in a Breeder Pack of a 1oz pkg of pellet size A (75-250 µm) plus 3oz pkgs of B1, B2, X–SMALL, SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE (2.3mm) size pellets. Top-dressed with Haematococcus pluvialis, an excellent source of astaxanthin for color, health and growth...

reefnutrition.com

You'll also need to purchase a rotifer sieve:

Zooplankton Harvest Sieve

Reef Nutrition’s harvest sieve is a clear acrylic cylinder that makes it easy to see the animals being collected. Ideal for harvesting rotifers produced in Reef Nutrition’s Compact Culture System (CCS) and harvesting copepods. 41 Micron.

reefnutrition.com

I also use a separate tank for raising the babies. You'll want to black out the sides so that they don't bump into the walls. You'll also be cleaning it quite a bit so it's much easier without anything else in the tank. Clean water is the key to success, both in terms of keeping the babies alive and also minimizing defects (which are common for tank-bred clownfish).

Thanks -- this is very helpful! Since I'm an absolute idiot & noob, I'll likely just get the starter pack since I don't know what I don't know!

Separate tank: my frag tank is plumbed to my main DT with full filtration. Why do I still need a separate tank if I can partition the 25g lagoon frag tank? Sure, I'll use black panels to isolate the babies.

 

[D-Nak]

Thanks -- this is very helpful! Since I'm an absolute idiot & noob, I'll likely just get the starter pack since I don't know what I don't know!

Separate tank: my frag tank is plumbed to my main DT with full filtration. Why do I still need a separate tank if I can partition the 25g lagoon frag tank? Sure, I'll use black panels to isolate the babies.

How do you plan to partition the tank? The babies are so small that they almost need a solid barrier to prevent them from escaping. The rotifers are even smaller and need to be fed in a high enough concentration that the babies can get to them.

 

[D-Nak]

I forgot to mention that lighting is also completely different from a frag tank, too.

 

[bakbay]

How do you plan to partition the tank? The babies are so small that they almost need a solid barrier to prevent them from escaping. The rotifers are even smaller and need to be fed in a high enough concentration that the babies can get to them.

Oh got it! Even with just a return pump, these babies will get suck up through the overflow box and down the main sump. Sounds like I need a little 10g tank to get going. I actually have a 20g sump that can be repurposed for this.

Do you mind sharing pictures of your "breeding racks"?

I forgot to mention that lighting is also completely different from a frag tank, too.

I do have a cheap LED strip light -- do you need a different spectrum for this? Assume you don't want anything too bright?

 

[D-Nak]

For the first few weeks or possibly months, they fry will live in the 10 gallon tank. You won't have any filtration for the first few weeks so you'll be doing a lot of water changes. Once they're bigger you can move them into a grow out tank.

Let me see if I can dig up any photos of my old breeding rack.

 

[bakbay]

For the first few weeks or possibly months, they fry will live in the 10 gallon tank. You won't have any filtration for the first few weeks so you'll be doing a lot of water changes. Once they're bigger you can move them into a grow out tank.

Let me see if I can dig up any photos of my old breeding rack.

I'm lazy and sounds like a lot of work to do water changes, daily or every other day. How about?

1. Build a "fry" tank with multiple chambers
2. Put all the babies in the first chamber with extremely low flow & add some baffles
3. On the last chamber, recirculate the water using gravity & recirculating pump from/to main DT. Option 2 is to use a canister filter. Goal is maintain water stability, prevent babies/rotifers from getting sucked up into filtration system, and to do extra work!

The goal is to build an "All-in-One fry tank" that is already cycled and constantly running. I will basically take fertilized eggs and put in this tank. With some rotifers feeding, boom!#@$ - I got a bunch of babies swimming around with minimal effort!

Doable or I'm dreaming?

 

[Fishnut]

Dreaming.
Raising clowns is a lot of work and definitely not a $ maker. Fun challenge though if you have the time to put into it.

 

[bakbay]

Dreaming.
Raising clowns is a lot of work and definitely not a $ maker. Fun challenge though if you have the time to put into it.

Thank you -- I think that I can handle the truth!

However, the truth is -- I'm not in this for the money. It's purely for fun and self-satisfaction that my son & I can do it together. I believe that the experience & bonding are worth more than money, perhaps?

 

[D-Nak]

I'm lazy and sounds like a lot of work to do water changes, daily or every other day. How about?

1. Build a "fry" tank with multiple chambers
2. Put all the babies in the first chamber with extremely low flow & add some baffles
3. On the last chamber, recirculate the water using gravity & recirculating pump from/to main DT. Option 2 is to use a canister filter. Goal is maintain water stability, prevent babies/rotifers from getting sucked up into filtration system, and to do extra work!

The goal is to build an "All-in-One fry tank" that is already cycled and constantly running. I will basically take fertilized eggs and put in this tank. With some rotifers feeding, boom!#@$ - I got a bunch of babies swimming around with minimal effort!

Doable or I'm dreaming?

Closer to dreaming than doable, unfortunately. You'd need to get the flow just right where the water is slowly moving. Too fast and you'll suck up all of the rotifers, and too slow and it becomes worthless. The problem is that you'll still need to vacuum up the detritus and fish waste (they eat a lot so they poop a lot).

 

[Jimbo327]

Hit up Jamie1210 at SCR. They are local and breeds clowns.

 

[bakbay]

Hit up Jamie1210 at SCR. They are local and breeds clowns.

lol - yup, I’ve heard of @jamie1210 since I’m on SCR with the same name. Definitely will milk his brain on breeding. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[bakbay]

Closer to dreaming than doable, unfortunately. You'd need to get the flow just right where the water is slowly moving. Too fast and you'll suck up all of the rotifers, and too slow and it becomes worthless. The problem is that you'll still need to vacuum up the detritus and fish waste (they eat a lot so they poop a lot).

You’re squashing my dream already? lol

I understand— if it’s easy, everyone would already be doing it and we will have millions of these designer clownfish swimming around already! I just want a challenge since I’ve done pretty much everything: SPS, mixed, and nems. I have not personally breed anything so would like to check that box for fun & satisfaction.

I will look into how to creatively automate this. Sounds doable to control flow while providing a stable environment for the babies. Well — important part now is to wait to see if they can start laying eggs. I heard that once settled, they will lay every 2 weeks? We shall see…I just need to get the process going and iterate. Understand that it’s going to be an arduous process but I got time…

Again, appreciate the feedback