Picasso Percula Pairs

[colby]

I just thought I would share a couple videos of two of my pairs.

The first video is a pair that I expect a spawn from in the next week or two. The female is a regular true perc, believed to be from the Solomon Islands. The male is a Grade A Picasso. You can see in this video that the female is getting chunky and the male was not vey happy that I was pointing the camera at him...



The second video is a pair that I am expecting a spawn from within the next three months, they have been showing some signs of cleaning, but not a ton yet. The female is wc from Bali and was purchased from another hobbyist in NY. They male is a low grade Picasso. They should make some very nice looking offspring.



Here is an updated video of the second pair, they seem to know whenever the camera comes out and stop cleaning lol, but they seem to have picked the spot for their eggs. I am pretty impressed with the speed at which they have settled in seeing as how they have only been together in the tank for a few weeks.



Enjoy!


Colby

[BigAl07]

[Woodstock]

Beautiful fish!!!!

[razorvines]

That's awesome. How long have you had them together?

[colby]

Thanks! The first pair has been together for six weeks and the second pair has been together for around two and half...

Like I said I'm hoping for spawns from both pairs by the end of may.

Colby

[piepiepie]

what size tank do you have and whats your system (light, critters, filtration))

i was thinking about doing this (in the future) but i'm unsure how to take care of the fry and have the best chance at spawning

[colby]

Well the two pairs I posted are both in ten gallon tanks. However ten gallons is plenty of physical space for clownfish. In fact I have had them breed in 6"x6" cubes for me.

If you would like to try breeding them then a ten gallon tank with a flower pot, heater and HOB filter is always a giod way to get your feet wet. I have bred many species of clowns and I would have to say Ocellaris are typically the easiest to spawn and rear.

HTH,

Colby

[piepiepie]

Thanks! ill have to give it a try

[colby]

Here is an updated video of the pair. I have been feeding them black worms and flooding the tank with copepods and phyto on a daily basis and they have increased in activity big time. You can see in the video that the female has joined in the cleaning.

[razorvines]

That's awesome! What kind of lights do you have over the 10 gallon tanks?

[colby]

Thanks. I have a single tube over the first pair and the second pair with the anemone has 36 watts of PC lights, 1 actinic and 1 50/50 bulb.

[razorvines]

And that Carpet is doing okay in there with the PC lights? I know the 10g is really shallow, because I have one for my black onyx percs. I also have some of my frags in there under similar lights and they are doing great. I didn't think it would keep an anemone happy though.

[jellyman]

I wish I could get mine going. They are in 20 gallon tanks with red bubble tip anemones that house in the flower pots. I have placed the tile in at different angels they seem to be dancing around but no luck?? I increased the photo period a few weeks ago to 14 hours and this last week started dumping in live freshly hatched baby brine shrimp.

Any suggestions??

[colby]

Razorvines, I actually changed the lighting this evening to a t5 fixture with again a 14w Actinic and 14w 10,000k bulb, I still have a 50/50 18 watt PC on the tank as well.

Well, yes and no in regards to the anemone. As we all know anemones are animals that host a primitive form of algae in their tissue walls, zooanthellae, which is why the anemones need light. So, the algae in their tissue walls uses the light for photosynthesis, and photosynthesis produces C6H1206, which is glucose...essentially sugar. So really, the zooanthellae does not produce anything other than glucose for the anemone which is not enough for any animal to sustain itself. There seems to be a very basic misunderstanding of this in the hobby which leads people to over do it on the light and not feed enough. Carpet anemones do come from shallow water, and yes, it is very bright in shallow water, however Haddon's carpet anemones tend to come from muddy silty lagoons that are frequently very turbid, which does not allow much light to penetrate. That's not to say they don't need light, just that they don't need 400w of metal halide baking them all day. Virtually every species of anemone will do very well under moderate lighting so long as its nitrogen and dietary needs are met. So, the reason I have success with carpet anemones in low lighting situations is that I feed copiously, my anemone gets a silverside a day as well as lots of zooplankton in the form of various benthis copepods and amphipods that thrive in my tanks due to daily doses of phytoplankton. I also keep the tank at 84f and the specific gravity at 1.020, all out of the suggested range for anemones. As long as you keep in mind the biotopes of the animals and the physiological adaptations they have developed you can normally keep an anemone happy under low lighting.

Jellyman, how old is the pair? Assuming the pair has been in the tank long enough and are of breeding age there are a few things you can try that have worked for me. Remember that although it is true that marine fish enjoy stability and usually do not need the environmental triggers needed by various freshwater fish, there are in fact some seasonal changes that you can replicate to induce spawning.

On the reef, spawning usually coincides with the wet season. Many coral reefs are built off of the foundation of an island etc, so they are very close to land and can be drastically affected by the wet season. For example, imagine a little reef off shore of some beautiful south pacific island. When there is a big storm a large amount off freshwater is dumped both in the land and the reef, this will lower the salinity of the reef slightly. Furthermore, the water draining into the ocean from the land will bring with is a large cache of mineral deposits that will often times bring about a phytoplankton bloom. And of course when there is a phytoplankton bloom a plankton bloom (ie larval clownfish food...) Is sure to follow. Finally there is typically a small temperature increase.

So to sum up, during the wet season the salinity drops, plankton blooms and the temperature rises.

All of these thing tell a clownfish that its time to spawn. They inheritently know that their offspring will have a better chance of surviving when there is a plankton bloom and therefore more food. And passing your genes along is of course the name of the game. Moon cycles that affect the tide also stimulate spawning in many marine fish. Many spawning events on the reef are typically coincide with the full moon and therefore stronger tides. It is advantageous for species dispersal to have eggs hatch during a strong tide. This is why larvak clowns are phototropic, they hatvh during the full moon, see the light and swim towards it. This takes them right into the plankton layer and the strongest tides which pull them right off the reef where they can eat and grow in a soup of plankton that typically contains fewer predators than the reef itself....

Sorry for the rambling, but I wanted to explain the reasoning behind my seemingly drastic actions for inducing spawning.

Basically by following the rules set in place by nature its possible to coax captive fish into spawning. I would raise your temp, do a large water change dropping the salinity, add phyto along with your nh bbs and feed foods high in lipids. Black worms are also a great food for stimulating spawning in fish. They contain an enzyme that is thought to be beneficial to spawning females.

Good luck!

Colby

[razorvines]

Great write up! Thanks Colby!