Clownfish eat the breed

[CoralsDE]

My clownfish are breeding every 2 weeks but they eat their breed a few hours later. Does anyone has an idea why they eat their breed?

 

[Rmckoy]

My clownfish are breeding every 2 weeks but they eat their breed a few hours later. Does anyone has an idea why they eat their breed?

Unless you’re set up to remove the eggs prior to hatching they are doomed to be food anyways .

the male will pick at them , remove dead ones and even flutter his fins to circulate water around them periodically

 

[CoralsDE]

I prepared everything to grow them up. The first time they breed most of the breed survived and they hatched at the 10th day. But since I am prepared to grow them up they eat the whole breed a few hours later. What could be the reason for this?

 

[CoralsDE]

Unless you’re set up to remove the eggs prior to hatching they are doomed to be food anyways .

the male will pick at them , remove dead ones and even flutter his fins to circulate water around them periodically

Do you think that they really die so fast? Cause the first time everything worked till they hatched.

 

[James M]

You have to remove the clownfish from the eggs. Clown fish won’t recognize them as their own offspring and think it’s food

 

[CoralsDE]

You have to remove the clownfish from the eggs. Clown fish won’t recognize them as their own offspring and think it’s food

Ok thank you. Do you think it's better to remove them before they breed in a breedstation or to separate them after the breed?

 

[Andrescol87]

If it is the male the culprit, you'll need to change the male (observe if he is fat after your eggs dissapearing). If you're unlucky enough and it's the female, the only option you have is step parenting (you'll need another breeding couple who has a clutch), cuz at such an early stage, you'll end up losing them anyway without dad's care.

 

[djm193]

This happened to me several times as the male would eat the eggs quire quickly after being laid

I then started to feed my clowns, fish eggs or lobster eggs, as something was missing from their diet thats why they consumed their clutch.

Since then I have have great results and ongar lasting eggs

 

[OrionN]

Unless you’re set up to remove the eggs prior to hatching they are doomed to be food anyways .

the male will pick at them , remove dead ones and even flutter his fins to circulate water around them periodically

I agree. The fish will remove the eggs that is not doing well, or dead.

You have to remove the clownfish from the eggs. Clown fish won’t recognize them as their own offspring and think it’s food

This is not true. The male need to watch over and fan the eggs, remove dead one's. He works really hard at it too. I and most breeder remove the eggs the night they hatch and put them in the hatching tank. Other breeders siphon, or capture them as they hatch in the DT. This takes a lot of work IMO.

@Tim2505,
Usually the first patch or two won't go well. The brood stock need to be well fed inorder to produce good eggs. Clowns cannot live on just frozedn food. They need flakes, or pellets which have a lot more nutrients and vitamins in a good formulation since it has a lot of different things in it. I feed my brood stock exclusively dry food and they produce a huge amount of healthy eggs. I have not raise clowns in the last 10 years, but it is really easy.

 

[Rmckoy]

Do you think that they really die so fast? Cause the first time everything worked till they hatched.

I think it’s 7-8 days from the time the eggs are deposited on the rock to the night they hatch .

as soon as they hatch , and the dad isn’t looking over the eggs to fan them or pick out the dead eggs.
think of how much other clean up crew is in that same system in search of food .?

if you can get collect the eggs the night they hatch .
or collect them as they hatch to put in another setup .
I was going to do this years ago .
I had a par that would do their egg dance every 14 days religiously .
Sourcing the rotifers to feed them at the time proved difficult .
Even a good culture of phyto ( green water ) wasn’t that easy to find

I have a pair of cardinals . I’m going to try breeding them in my reef .
if this goes well , I might look into other breeding options .