Life begins strangely

[nivek]

Hi all,

I came home today after work and went straight to my tank to relax. As I was watching my clowns playing with the anemone I noticed something moving in one of the small crevices in the live rock. I moved closer and was surprised to see a bunch of baby fish fries darting about everywhere in the crevice.

I can only assume that my Pecular Clowns are the parents as I only have a blue tang, a pair of pecular clowns, a lawnmower blenny, a sandshifting goby, a spotted mandarin and a cleaner shrimp. Oh yeah I forgot about the 3 spotted damsel in the sump .

My question now is what should I do? Leave everything as it is and let nature takes its course or...? How come the clowns don't look after their babies (unlike the Nemo show )? All of my fishes are very well fed and fat, will they eat the babies?

Thanks all and I will now glue myself back to my aquarium glass

 

[wooddood]

i really dont know the answer but i think i would let nature take its course this time and see what happens.they will more then likely be eaten but you never know.if they are then the clowns will spawn again and then i would try to get them out and into another tank by themselves and try to raise them.this is just what i would do,im sure some more answers are on the way.ill tag along to see others opinions.good luck on whatever you decide though.thanks dave.

 

[Witfull]

congrats on a healthy successfully tank!!

 

[Montanareefer]

Sounds way too cool!! Congrats!

 

[EdgeKrusher]

I've never heard of a Pecular clown... J/k
That's cool, maybe you should get one of those hang in breeding nets, get the fry out and put them in there... I'm just thinking "Store Credit" here.

Peace

EK

 

[one eye]

Good job, happy clowns. The fry will be eaten by your other fish..including mom and dad unless you get them protected. Unfortunately their chance of survival is pretty slim. They along with being on everyone elses menu require very specific feeding.
On the good side . They are alot like people. Once they start having babys they don't stop. It is comon for them to spawn regularly after the first brood. You should have time in between to find out about their diet and set up a safe house for them. I may be wrong but I believe you may want to look into rotifer cultures.

 

[nivek]

Thanks guys but all the babies were gone this morning presumably ending up at somebody's supper last night. Anyway will look for another 55 gal tank to start a spawning facility for the clowns. In the meantime I'm heading straight for the books and net for info :smirk:

 

[reefshadow]

hi, Nivek-

It's highly likely that what you saw may have been a type of mysid shrimp or some other type of microfauna. There are a few reasons why I would suspect that over larval clownfish, #1 being that a hatch will always take place after lights out, usually within an hour or two, and the larval fry are attracted to light, they don't stick to crevices or hide at all. So generally you will only see the fry with a flashlight, freely swimming about the tank, and they have always been 100% gone by lights on in my systems.

I've been lucky enough to have a spawning pair of clarkiis and perculas in seperate systems, and there are some cues you can watch for to know when your clowns will attempt a spawn. They will start to clean their designated spawning area by biting, and in both my pairs this has been on the rockwork somewhat protected by their anemone. They will also start to do their mating display much more often and with alot of vigour!! The male will arch and spasm in front of the female and she will be very gravid with eggs, to the point of obesity. The male will often agressively protect the spawning site, pushing away frags, hands, crabs, other fish, whatever gets too close. (my clarkii was much more aggressive than my perc!)

When they have spawned successfully, the male does most of the care of the egg mass, which is adhered to the rock. He will periodicly fan and mouth them, keeping them clean and aerated. In both my pairs the male was attentive to the point of not eating for the 7 or 8 days it took to hatch the eggs. The female did nothing for them in either of my pairs. That's another reason why I doubt you have had a spawn yet; you seem to be very attentive to your tank and you would almost surely have noticed the male caring for the egg mass. The mass itself is usually very conspicuous (though first spawns can be very small). It starts out as a bright orange mass of tiny eggs but quickly turns darker. By the last couple of days you can see the eyes of each of the larvae as a silvery glitter in the dark mass of eggs.

I couldn't help you much with rearing, I haven't tried that yet. You need to grow cultures of rotifers and start with a small 10 or 20 gallon tank painted completely black. If I remember right, metamorphosis is within 7-10 days. If you are successfull, you will need a 55 gallon tank, because spawns can be huge, numbering 500 - 1000 eggs. Even if you successfully rear only 10 percent, you will need accomodations for 50-100 fish!

If you find that you did have a spawn, you can look forward to a repeat performance every couple of weeks. Hey, free coral and fish food if nothing else!

I'm looking forward to my polymnus spawning (hopefully soon). they have stepped up the activity and I might try to rear a batch when they get down to it.

Good Luck!!!!!
Becca

 

[reefshadow]

here's a couple of pics of one of the first few spawns, only a day away from hatching.

 

[reefshadow]

2