gladlatezonatus clownfish breeding

[Blue Lip]

I thought I would start a thread on my experience attempting to raise latz clownfish fry. I have learned a lot & continue to learn each batch. Suggestions are greatly appreciated! Hopefully I can help others trying to raise clownfish as well.
For starter, I would say I go through a large amount of salt. I use 2 Brute garbage cans. One for rodi water & the other for fresh "aged" saltwater.
I have been culturing phytoplankton. I started with nannochloropsis. I have read that it is one of the easier types of phytoplankton to culture. There are a few benefits to using this algae. I add it to the fry tanks & turn the water green tinted. It will help control amonia. It is also a food source for the rotifers in the fry tank. I read that clownfish hatch without a complete digestive system. When the rotifers are full of nannochloropsis & ate by the fry, it aids in their digestion. Clownfish fry have sensitive eyes. When the light is too bright they dive to the bottom. Adding nannochloropsis to their water also helps to keep them from doing this. Unfortunately, nannochloropsis doesnt provide enough nutrition so other algaes are needed.

 

[Lrood]

Agree with your thoughts on nanno - very easy to culture & useful for greenwater in the larval tank, but not really nutritious as a sole food for the rotifers. I always fed RG Complete as my main rotifer diet, just used nanno for greenwater (I did pour excess into the rotifer bucket rather than waste it though). Once I started culturing t-iso & tetraselmis, I would use these to gut load the rotifers for about 30 minutes before feeding to the larvae.

Looking forward to seeing your progess with the latz. I've never had any, but they are one of my favorites!

 

[Blue Lip]

I had ordered 125 ml of isochrysis galbana from 2 sources. I have read that it can be finicky but probably the best micro algae to culture. I definately received different densities. I had one culture really take off but I ended up diluting it to much & it crashed. The other culture seemed to take a long time before it started to darken. I split it into 2 jars. I ended up loosing one of them. This algae definately doesn't like to be pushed. I would like to raise an assortment of coppepods to feed the fry. I was told by reed mariculture you need live isochrysis to culture parvocalanus copepods. Alagen has a product to keep copepods alive so I ordered some. Turns out it only has a 2 week shelf life. The ingredients are isochrysis galbana & chaetoceros gracilis. I also have a starter culture of the chaetoceros. It requires silicates as well as f2 fertilizer. I have been looking into culturing other algaes as well. It seems to me that each algae has some kind of benifit that others lack.