cabrego

Well, it has been about a week since my last picture so I thought I would give a little update. So far I am down to about 12 fry and have been holding steady for the last 3 days. The fry seem to be growing a little slow, I think there are two factors 1) I really only had the temp at a steady 80 degrees for the last 4 days and 2) I have read that true perculas are much slower growers oh yeah and 3) the newbie factor! In any event, the fry seem to be doing good they are stuffing there bellies with BBS and I try to give them crushed NLS pellets at least once a day. I missed my second hatch last night, but I am OK with that since my rotifer culture is recovering from a semi crash and I am going to be out of town for a couple weeks.

Well, I missed my hatch last night so I am not in dire need for rotifers at the moment. Last night, I went through a few milliliters of the culture and hand picked (using the microscope) some drops of water that contained only rotifers. I placed them in a pint glass with DT's, I must have grabbed around 10 rotifers. Hopefully I will have close to 1000 today

PM'd

http://www.luciopesce.net/copepods/intro.htm Interesting read, these guys look a lot alike! I am going to have to figure out which phylogeny matches what is in my culture.

Well, I don't know what it is exactly but the picture I posted is nearly identical to what I see in the microscope. I am by no means a microorganism expert, but I have spent quite some time under the microscope over the last couple of days and I see that little bugger. Does A.tonsa feed on rotifers? by the way I am not feeding phytopaste, I am feeding live very fresh DT's which contains Nannochloropsis oculata, Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Chlorella.

INteresting that you mention A.tonsa as I believe that is the picture I posted. The problem I see is that they appear significantly larger than rotifers so I think freshly hatched larva would have major troubles munching on them...

Hey everyone thanks for all the responses. What I am seeing are definitely a type of pod I still am not 100% sure if it is copepod or amphipod. Yesterday, I was convinced it was amphipod, who knows, maybe tomorrow I will think it is artermia!! I have a massive pod/shrimp population in in my fuge and display tank (especially behind the eggcrate of my foam wall) so I am not terribly interested in culturing pods unless I know I can feed them to my fry. The good news is that there are still rots in the culture just not a whole lot, I hope to seem them bounce back. I will continue to observe under the microscope. by the way I did some digging and found this image online, this is nearly matches 100% of what i saw under the scope. Maybe only a slight variation of this image, any thoughts on what type of pod it is? BTW, these critters move very fast and they are easily visible on the drop of water, for size comparison a rotifer was about the size of the spot on the upper right.

What do you mean by your last sentence? I am only culturing rotifers, I think I missed the point. I suppose I could try to build a culture from only a few rotifers, that would be challenging and interesting. As far as seiving goes, I think I would end up letting larva or someting else by, so I think I would be better off starting from scratch or trying to build a culture from what I have...

OK, so I have seen a massive decline in my rotifer population and upon microscopic inspection I have found that there is a significant number of pods (amphipods and probably copepods) in my rotifer culture. can these two critters coexist? Has any experienced this before?

Take a look at my build thread in my sig. I used a pond foam to build my Wall.

Letting someone else raise them like Doug is definitely a possibility. I know he super busy with all of his babies! Here is a little update, I am down to about 20 total fry, I suspect that a combination of my temperature being a tad low (76-78) and light reflection coupled with perculas being generally slow growers might have caused some of the casualties over the last few days. Next time around I will definitely maintain at least 80 degrees and I will probably figure out a better lighting system since reflection off of the tank has been an issue for me. Most of the dead fry are obviously not eating as much and the strong survivors have large bellies that are actually full of BBS. There is still a reasonable amount of BBS in the tank so I am holding off on feeding more BBS until I see a strong decrease in the BBS population.According to Joyce Wilkerson, some of them fry can actually over eat and their bellies will burst, or the BBS gets lodged in their digestive system. Thus, I hope to err on the side of caution. To support maintenance today, I also feed with many rotifers and I also feed my main tank rotifers too. I then proceeded with about a 40% water change in my rotifer culture and dosed with DT's. I was able to get a couple of reasonable photos of the fry today. Here is day 7.75!

Thanks Der. I have been able to get my rotifers online- thanks to the WAMAS community. I am trying to get some pics of the fry but it is very difficult to get a good pic, even with my SLR CAMERA. Clownfish are worse than rabbits aren't they? I was going over my notes and realized that it had been about 14 days since I estimate the first spawn. I figured I might as well check since I had been so busy with the fry, and tadaaa there they were!

Hey guys, thanks for all the responses! Just a little update. So far I am on day 6 and the fry are doing ok. I have lost at least 50 of the original batch so I am down to like 30-40 max. I hatched my first batch of baby brine shrimp and gave them a little taste last night. I only gave them a few maybe like 100 or so and I was still able to see some today after work. I will probably not feed them any more until this weekend. Probably friday or so. Also, today is about two weeks since the first batch of eggs hatched and guess what?! I have another clutch of eggs in the same spot. These guys work like a clock. I am not sure if I will be able to raise this batch, I am going to be pretty busy with work so I will have to play it by ear.

I am in the same boat. I just purchased a Nikon d3000 (my first slr) and the 18-55mm (macro mode) is having troubles with my new fish fry. I am still exploring some of the settings but, I don't think it is going to cut it. I suppose the magnifying attachment might be a good option. I have been looking for used macro lenses but they are far and few.

My tank was inspired by the "minimalist approach". It is not obvious but there is a cave built in to the wall on the left had side of the foam wall. The bottom right had side of the rock wall also has another large cave. I made the caves by using the "egg crate" to create platforms that I could fill in with the foam. There are also caves in the pile of rocks for the smaller fish. I did it because I really like the looks of some of the minimalist tanks I saw online-it does take a fair amount of time to build it correctly which is mine is kind of so so, I was not patient enough to be creative. this is a 90g tank.

So far, it does not look like I have lost any more larvae so that is great. I do have a problem with them grouping at the corners of the tank, I am not sure why but I think they are fine as long as they are eating. I covered the sides with wrapping paper but that did not seem to have any affects on their behavior. Doug, I think I am going to go with an order of nanno and some other things I need like more brine shrimp eggs. Where can I buy the frozen nanno? I can't seem to find it online..

I have been reading that you should cover the sides of the tank with when the fish are first hatched. Can any one explain why? i have seen white and black covers, I am not sure what the difference is...

A little update, I estimate the total hatch that I captured was about 90 or so, and close to 40 did not make through the night. So I estimate I have about 50 little guys going in the tank. For some reason they like to stay near the corners of the tank, is that why I have noticed some people wrap their tanks ?

Whew!!! We've got larva!! Just finished up for the night. I had a great hatch so far :clap: So my first hatch is officially a success, I am sure that was the easy part! Thanks to Doug and all who shared to help me get to this point!! I just had a crash course in raising clownfish this week- it's hard to believe that 7 days ago I just noticed the eggs and was completely unprepared and today I have managed to rescue a good number of larva, and have there first meal ready for them! All with minimal investment! Of course, it helps that I had a bunch of stuff in the dreaded fish closet. I am not sure how many I rescued I will have to do a fin count tomorrow, I feed them rotifers tonight and they were muching them up!

OK. No hatch last night! I am happy about that hopefully I can keep my rotifer population up in the mean time. It also gives me a little more time to prepare. Almon, Thanks for the offer -Doug hooked me up with about a gallon of rotifers, I hope that is enough to get me started. Der, Thanks for the compliment, I was lucky to have my father in law in town so I could use his Nikon SLR to take some pretty decent pictures! I have had the pair for maybe 4-5 months. I picked them up from a fellow wamas member along with a red anemone. I can't remember his screen name :( but, from what I remember he told me these were wild caught from the Solomon islands. They are great fish! I will keep you guys posted with my progress...

I don't know when they were layed, but we first noticed the eggs on the 26th. They already had the eyes showing, so I estimated it that it was at least day 3 or 4 from what I have gathered making today the 6th day or so. I hope they are not hatching tonight because I just got back from doug's and the lights just went out!

Thanks for the replies guys! gtipower, I am going to go with the larva dip method the night they hatch. I am also planning on having live rotifers hopefully today from Doug. Here is an updated picture... I think they might be ready to hatch tonight or tomorrow night..

Doug, Thanks for the offer and the link to the book. Will you be around today or tomorrow so I could make the drive out there? Assuming conditions are correct, how long should it take before I can start harvesting start harvesting? What is the Ph and salinity and temp of the Rotifers you culture?

Hi all, I am looking to jump start a Rotifer colony, does any one have some live cultures they would be willing to part with. Please PM me if you can, my clownfish just layed eggs and I think the eggs are on day 4. Thanks!

Thanks for the link, I actually had book marked that particular link earlier I think it is very useful. Do you happen to know if I can use DT's phytoplankton to feed the rotifers. It appears to be exactly what I need and I have a bottle of it already. From what I have gathered, I have everything I need to start growing my rotifers, except of course the most important part a starter culture!