What to Feed Percula Clown Fry?

[KeyserSoze]

A friend just had a gazillion clown fry hatch in her tank. She turned off the pumps and got as many as possible out and placed them in a 5g hex tank with a heater and airstone. She has read that if they can make it past the first 10 days they have a decent survivability rate. All they could tell her at the LFS was to feed live phytoplankton until she can get some brine to hatch. Does anyone have any advice on how she can maybe get a few of these fry to survive? She would love to have her own "tank bred" perc's. If anyone has had success please let me know what to do. Thanks

[cheeks69]

Don't have any personal experience but rotifers is usually the food of choice for the fry. Here's some good info:

Prior to the eggs hatching you must make certain that food will be readily available to the larvae. At the time the larvae hatch their overall size will dictate the need to feed them live foods called rotifers. It is likely that the aquarist will need to grow their own live foods unless your local stores are doing this and selling it retail, which is doubtful. For extensive information regarding the culturing of rotifers, check here. Of course, rotifers will require food themselves, so that they are nutritious. Phytoplankton is best used to fill this need and it is rather easily cultured. For extensive information on culturing live phytoplankton, check here. Live phytoplankton can also be purchased from local or online sources, though it may be more economically viable to culture it yourself. You can expect the need to feed live rotifers, and thus culture live rotifers and phytoplankton, to continue for as short as seven days and up to fourteen days, depending on the size of the larvae. This is actually when the larvae metamorphose, and thus are capable of consuming live nauplii. Once again, the home aquarist will have to culture this live food. For extensive information on culturing live brine shrimp, check here. By day 15, or possibly sooner, you should make an attempt at transferring the clownfish from live foods to pulverized dry foods with anticipation of feeding exclusively pulverized dry food by day 25 to 30. The food is pulverized so it is small enough to be consumed by the small fish.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...hcs3/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...02/breeder.htm

[KeyserSoze]

Thank you. I had seen rotifers named in a book but didn't really know what or how to go about it. I'm going to forward this to my friend.

[cheeks69]

You must be a real fan of The Usual Suspects

[KeyserSoze]

Just an update... My friend got some phytoplankton and is working on hatching some brine. She was able to get some frozen rotifers. They appear to be eating and are still alive. I'll try to keep this going. When and if they get big enough to take pictures I'll get some.

[Warnberg]

Phyto and rotifers for about a week, then finally growned flake and newly hatched brine in addition to phyto and rotifers until they are about 21 to 30 days old. Be sure to clean any dead ones out twice a day, and clean the excess food out twice a day..... lots more to this but this will get you started... brine will be too large for them to eat for the first week.....

If you save 50% on the first hatch consider yourself lucky, 15 to 20% survival will be more realistic..... I have heard of some people getting 90 tp 95% survival rates after they get good at it......good luck

[Gina]

Keep us updated on her progress and let us know how many survive!
I bet they are sooooo cute!

[Dragon Wrasse]

Looking forward to seeing the pics...congrats on the hatch.

[KeyserSoze]

I spoke to her this evening. She says that she has only lost a few so far. She has hatched brine and as soon as they hatched she fed them phyto and then feed them to the fry. With a magnifying glass she says she can see the brine in their stomachs. Since they hatched Saturday night I'm suprised they've made it this far. I'm forwarding all this info to her so thank you. I'll keep you all up to date.