Gold Stripe Maroon clownfish fry issues

[liveround69]

I currently have a pair of maroons that have been breeding and laying eggs for the last few months. I have tried to raise the fry several times but no luck getting any of them past 5 days. They always end up hovering around the bottom of the fry tank and then die. I am raising Nannochloropsis algae with pretty good results and the rotifers are always plentiful due to my success with the algae.

The problems that i experienced were temp, salinity, and light but all have been solved. I am not sure about the reasons that they die at day 5 or earlier. I use a 10 gallon tank and then add water from the parents tank to it mixed 50/50 with fresh mix saltwater that is same salinity. I add rotifers but do not add the algae water to the tank , i just add it to the rotifers and then strain them and add them to the fry tank.i add enough of them to get the density pretty high. I do have problems with cleaning the tank due to no way to suck the debris off the bare bottom of the 10 gallon tank. Thus the deitrus builds up.


I guess being new to raising them and having no luck is pretty aggravating...before i give up totally i decided to throw a line out and see if anyone can help me get a little further down the road to success.

Thanks for any help that the fellow reefers can offer.

regards

 

[Centerline]

I currently have a pair of maroons that have been breeding and laying eggs for the last few months. I have tried to raise the fry several times but no luck getting any of them past 5 days. They always end up hovering around the bottom of the fry tank and then die. I am raising Nannochloropsis algae with pretty good results and the rotifers are always plentiful due to my success with the algae.

The problems that i experienced were temp, salinity, and light but all have been solved. I am not sure about the reasons that they die at day 5 or earlier. I use a 10 gallon tank and then add water from the parents tank to it mixed 50/50 with fresh mix saltwater that is same salinity. I add rotifers but do not add the algae water to the tank , i just add it to the rotifers and then strain them and add them to the fry tank.i add enough of them to get the density pretty high. I do have problems with cleaning the tank due to no way to suck the debris off the bare bottom of the 10 gallon tank. Thus the deitrus builds up.


I guess being new to raising them and having no luck is pretty aggravating...before i give up totally i decided to throw a line out and see if anyone can help me get a little further down the road to success.

Thanks for any help that the fellow reefers can offer.

regards

Dont give up. Once you get your process down the rest is fairly simple.
1) I have found that larval morbidity rates are often a product of prenatal nutrition. Are you feeding your brood stock heavily, lots of proteins and fats? If not give that a shot first to ensure you have nice healthy larval to start with.
2) Assuming the salinity in the larval tank is in the 30-35 ppt range, there is no slime accumulating on the bottom of the tank and ammonia is under control, you may want to take a second look at your rotifers. Are they moving around? Are they falling to the bottom of the tank and staying there? Can you see if they are still packed with food when the larval get to them? If not you may want to add a little green water to the tank water. Rotifers that haven't eaten are not worth much nutritionally.

 

[liveround69]

Dont give up. Once you get your process down the rest is fairly simple.
1) I have found that larval morbidity rates are often a product of prenatal nutrition. Are you feeding your brood stock heavily, lots of proteins and fats? If not give that a shot first to ensure you have nice healthy larval to start with.
2) Assuming the salinity in the larval tank is in the 30-35 ppt range, there is no slime accumulating on the bottom of the tank and ammonia is under control, you may want to take a second look at your rotifers. Are they moving around? Are they falling to the bottom of the tank and staying there? Can you see if they are still packed with food when the larval get to them? If not you may want to add a little green water to the tank water. Rotifers that haven't eaten are not worth much nutritionally.

I do have a problem with being able to vacuum the bottom the of the tank. As a result it does produce a slimy coat on the bottom. I was currently looking into making a kreisel tank which is what some people say they used to successfully raise their first fry. The larvae fall to the bottom of the tank but the rotifers stay in the water column and do move around especially when i light up the tank from the side when looking at rotifer density. The rotifers are fed Nannochloropsis algae everyday so when i introduce them into the fry tank they still have alot of the algae in their bellies. I do not think it is for long though. The fry last about 3 to 5 days and by day 5 all are on the bottom dead. I feed my clowns everyday and use PE Mysis Shrimp,LRS Reef Frenzy Nano, and mysis shrimp flakes. I do have some LRS Fertility Frenzy which of course is for breeding fish but have yet to use it.
I guess if i had to think where i am possibly failing at,... i think it would be..,,
1. not being able to figure a way to get that slime off the bottom of the tank.
2. possibility of not having enough or maybe too much light.
3. not adding nannochloropsis algae to the fry tank.
4. not feeding proper amounts to parents.

 

[Nothead59]

I am not an expert at all. Had some of the same luck. The best batch I raised had 35 at 4 months. I had transitioned them into a small 5 gallon tank. I removed two of them to a Nano tank. One is still alive at one year. Lol. The remainder in my 5 gallon all died overnight due to a heater issue. I tried several more times and never got any past a month. Why I answered your post was to give you an idea to clean the bottom of the tank. I attached a straightline tube to a small line and siphon out the tank each night and in a few minutes I could remove about 2 cups a night and clean the bottom pretty well. Then I would replace it with 2 cups from my display. It may not work for anyone else it did a little for me. Not real advice just an idea.

 

[liveround69]

I am not an expert at all. Had some of the same luck. The best batch I raised had 35 at 4 months. I had transitioned them into a small 5 gallon tank. I removed two of them to a Nano tank. One is still alive at one year. Lol. The remainder in my 5 gallon all died overnight due to a heater issue. I tried several more times and never got any past a month. Why I answered your post was to give you an idea to clean the bottom of the tank. I attached a straightline tube to a small line and siphon out the tank each night and in a few minutes I could remove about 2 cups a night and clean the bottom pretty well. Then I would replace it with 2 cups from my display. It may not work for anyone else it did a little for me. Not real advice just an idea.

Hey Nothead59,..Yea i tried that but the problem was i kept sucking them up and then watching them die after being sucked through the small tubing. I didnt get much slime off the bottom that way either. I might try to see if i can come up with some sort of backwoods engineered vacuum.

 

[Blue Lip]

Use a piece of rigid tubing and airline tubing to clean the tank. You can get larger sizes but risk sucking up fry easier. Rotifers don't store food. Tint your fry tank with phytoplankton and you will most likely make it past day 5.

 

[liveround69]

Use a piece of rigid tubing and airline tubing to clean the tank. You can get larger sizes but risk sucking up fry easier. Rotifers don't store food. Tint your fry tank with phytoplankton and you will most likely make it past day 5.

The only confusion factor i have about tinting the tank with phyto is that i culture the phyto at 1.019 and the tank is set at 1.025. Im not sure how to add phyto without screwing up the salinity. Unless i add fresh salt mix to bump it up from 1.019 to 1.025. But i think that would kill the fry as well.

 

[Blue Lip]

Culture your phytoplankton at 1.023 and your fry tank at 1.023. I recommend ordering phytoplankton concentrate from Reed Mariculture/ Reef Nutrition along with the various sizes of TDO fish food. They sell concentrates that you can freeze and you only need to break off a small amount. They work great at tinting the water.

 

[liveround69]

Culture your phytoplankton at 1.023 and your fry tank at 1.023. I recommend ordering phytoplankton concentrate from Reed Mariculture/ Reef Nutrition along with the various sizes of TDO fish food. They sell concentrates that you can freeze and you only need to break off a small amount. They work great at tinting the water.

What kelvin rating of light are you using to grow the Nannochloropsis Algae? I use a 5000k and it grows but not really dark. I harvest it after a week and put it in the fridge for storage, feeding rotifers and seeding other jars.

 

[Blue Lip]

The plant and aquarium bulb is 2700K and the other bulb is the day light 6500K.

 

[Blue Lip]

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Keep in mind that Nannochloropsis sp lacks DHA. DHA is an essential fatty required for marine larval fish development. You will need to incorporate more lipids into the rotifer culture diet. We have solved all of these problems with our blends, so you don't have to culture multiple species of algae and worry about culture crashes. Check out this paper on the subject: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-7345.1993.tb00004.x/abstract

It's also advantageous to use green water tinting in the larval rearing tank. This will keep the larvae off the glass, swimming around and it will keep the rotifers enriched and fed while they are consumed by the larvae. GSM can be a little tricky. Are you feeding rotifers to the larval rearing tank multiple times a day? I have raised this species, and they tend to eat a lot of rotifers.

Chad