Rick Cavanaugh
Active Member
I have built a fairly cheap and easy to maintain fry system that I raise H. Eretus and ocellaris Clowns. I started out with a bare 10gallon with a foam filter and fought ammonia and then nitrites and watched many fry die in a short period of time. I found it almost impossible to keep the fry going with a simple bare bottom tank with a foam filter.
What I ended up with was two 20 gallon tanks plumbed to a common 10 gallon sump located behind the lower 20 gallon. The sump has 3 areas. A deep area with filter socks, heaters in the winter and fine deep sand bed. Next is a sand filter area with small rocks and a sand flow through filter. Last is the pump area loaded with small pieces of rock. The water exits this area and goes to a canister filter loaded with biomedia and it has a uv light. Water then returns to the two tanks. Once I went this route, Ammonia is always zero and nitrates are always zero. With the bare bottom tank and sponge filter, the fry quickly overwhelmed the sponge filter and I was doing 50% water changes and losing the battle. I now vacuum the bottom once a week (or as needed) and replace that water with new salt water (roughly 1-2 gallons per week). I do not have a protein skimmer or I should way I have not found one for this system that I like.. Since I am doing Seahorses, I try to keep wattage down so water is at 72F or below. So external skimming is a requirement. I do my best to avoid large heat generators. I will be experimenting with a DIY peltier cooler in the next couple of weeks.
The lower tank has the top 3 inches blacked out. I have submersible LED light bars, that can be lowered to attract baby brine shrimp (BBS) and rotifers away from the surface. You do not want fry ingesting air as they will not be able to swim. Blocking all light from the surface prevents this and a light at mid tank attracts BBS into a concentrated feeding area. The lower tank also has a large overflow bar that is has a fine mesh sponge covered with a stocking. This prevents fry from getting into the overflow. Water flow through this must be kept low. This is not perfect as occassional a fry will get stuck on the upper edge of the stocking. The subsurace light helps reduce this.
Once the fry hit about 4 weeks they are placed in the upper tank. and the lower tank is ready for more fry.
I have 2 buckets of rotifers going at all times while breed clowns. I am lazy and use APBreed RG complete to feed the rotifers. It is more expensive, but it makes it much easier to keep the cultures going. Right now I am doing my first culture of apocyclops. So far, I am not impressed with their ability to reproduce as fast as the rotifers. Time will tell
For the H. Erectus, I have 2 cones of BBS growing at all times. For the first 1o days they get get BBS that just hatched that morning. I put 50% of the BBS from that day in the tank in the early morning and the remaining later afternoon. I have seen HUGE die off of H Eretus at about 14-21 days. This is due to a nutritional deficiency. I now start feeding 3 day old BBS who have been fed various enrichments at this point. The enriched 3 day old shrimp have drastically reduced the die off. I enrich using selco, Dans Feed. Astaxanthins and other enrichments alternated between days. I am sure this is an overkill, but a more varied diet should be better.
At roughly 1 month I start weaning the H. Erectus to frozen. The first batch is the hardest. It takes 3-4 weeks of adding small amounts of small frozen foods into the diet in the morning when they are most hungry. For the first week, they ignore the frozen, then maybe one or 2 start snicking. Once a few are snicking the frozen, the rest will start as well. Next is finely chopped mysis...... The second batch is easier as the older ones in the tank are devouring the frozen food and the younger batch picks up on this.
Clowns are similiar, but I use dried food. I use very fine ground food that is about the same size as the BBS that they are on. Clowns are much easier to transition.
I have included a few photos. The system is not pretty, it is meant to be functional, cheap and easy to operate. I am doing this in my unheated and non air conditioned garage. Clowns in the summer and SH in the winter. H. Erectus are native pretty far north. so water temps in the winter are in the 60-70 range. Water temps for clowns are 78-82 in the summer. The tanks are insulated and have cheap amazon fans blowing across the surface. UV is off in the summer due to excess heat.
Hopefully this helps some of you with how do you raise clown and SH fry. This is NOT the only way to do it. Figure out what works for you and make it work. I have found keeping Ammonia and Nitrites at zero with minimal work and water changes was important. Nutrtional value of the BBS at weeks 2-3 are critical for the H Erectus. Keeping both the SH and the clowns from eating off the surace is vital for the first week. This may seem like a lot of work, but it really is not. I hope others chime in with what tricks they have learned to encourage more to raise fry and for captive breed to be the norm have people shun wild caught.
What I ended up with was two 20 gallon tanks plumbed to a common 10 gallon sump located behind the lower 20 gallon. The sump has 3 areas. A deep area with filter socks, heaters in the winter and fine deep sand bed. Next is a sand filter area with small rocks and a sand flow through filter. Last is the pump area loaded with small pieces of rock. The water exits this area and goes to a canister filter loaded with biomedia and it has a uv light. Water then returns to the two tanks. Once I went this route, Ammonia is always zero and nitrates are always zero. With the bare bottom tank and sponge filter, the fry quickly overwhelmed the sponge filter and I was doing 50% water changes and losing the battle. I now vacuum the bottom once a week (or as needed) and replace that water with new salt water (roughly 1-2 gallons per week). I do not have a protein skimmer or I should way I have not found one for this system that I like.. Since I am doing Seahorses, I try to keep wattage down so water is at 72F or below. So external skimming is a requirement. I do my best to avoid large heat generators. I will be experimenting with a DIY peltier cooler in the next couple of weeks.
The lower tank has the top 3 inches blacked out. I have submersible LED light bars, that can be lowered to attract baby brine shrimp (BBS) and rotifers away from the surface. You do not want fry ingesting air as they will not be able to swim. Blocking all light from the surface prevents this and a light at mid tank attracts BBS into a concentrated feeding area. The lower tank also has a large overflow bar that is has a fine mesh sponge covered with a stocking. This prevents fry from getting into the overflow. Water flow through this must be kept low. This is not perfect as occassional a fry will get stuck on the upper edge of the stocking. The subsurace light helps reduce this.
Once the fry hit about 4 weeks they are placed in the upper tank. and the lower tank is ready for more fry.
I have 2 buckets of rotifers going at all times while breed clowns. I am lazy and use APBreed RG complete to feed the rotifers. It is more expensive, but it makes it much easier to keep the cultures going. Right now I am doing my first culture of apocyclops. So far, I am not impressed with their ability to reproduce as fast as the rotifers. Time will tell
For the H. Erectus, I have 2 cones of BBS growing at all times. For the first 1o days they get get BBS that just hatched that morning. I put 50% of the BBS from that day in the tank in the early morning and the remaining later afternoon. I have seen HUGE die off of H Eretus at about 14-21 days. This is due to a nutritional deficiency. I now start feeding 3 day old BBS who have been fed various enrichments at this point. The enriched 3 day old shrimp have drastically reduced the die off. I enrich using selco, Dans Feed. Astaxanthins and other enrichments alternated between days. I am sure this is an overkill, but a more varied diet should be better.
At roughly 1 month I start weaning the H. Erectus to frozen. The first batch is the hardest. It takes 3-4 weeks of adding small amounts of small frozen foods into the diet in the morning when they are most hungry. For the first week, they ignore the frozen, then maybe one or 2 start snicking. Once a few are snicking the frozen, the rest will start as well. Next is finely chopped mysis...... The second batch is easier as the older ones in the tank are devouring the frozen food and the younger batch picks up on this.
Clowns are similiar, but I use dried food. I use very fine ground food that is about the same size as the BBS that they are on. Clowns are much easier to transition.
I have included a few photos. The system is not pretty, it is meant to be functional, cheap and easy to operate. I am doing this in my unheated and non air conditioned garage. Clowns in the summer and SH in the winter. H. Erectus are native pretty far north. so water temps in the winter are in the 60-70 range. Water temps for clowns are 78-82 in the summer. The tanks are insulated and have cheap amazon fans blowing across the surface. UV is off in the summer due to excess heat.
Hopefully this helps some of you with how do you raise clown and SH fry. This is NOT the only way to do it. Figure out what works for you and make it work. I have found keeping Ammonia and Nitrites at zero with minimal work and water changes was important. Nutrtional value of the BBS at weeks 2-3 are critical for the H Erectus. Keeping both the SH and the clowns from eating off the surace is vital for the first week. This may seem like a lot of work, but it really is not. I hope others chime in with what tricks they have learned to encourage more to raise fry and for captive breed to be the norm have people shun wild caught.
