Not Clowning Around

[jswinberlin]

OK, for the past month or so my clownfish have become down right hateful and attack my hand when I move stuff around in the tank during cleaning. Today I found out why...I believe they are expecting! I'm attaching a picture of the rock with what I believe are eggs attached. I need help! How do I take care of the fry? What should I do?

 

[little_fish]

Looks like it could be eggs! But clowns are also very mean in that way too, even without eggs :(

 

[Smitty]

+1 lil fish...that's just their normal behavior.

 

[Bifferwine]

I don't see eggs in the picture. Where do you think they are?

It is doubtful that you will be able to raise the fry. They require a very specific set up, very specific feeding requirements (you have to grow several types of live food yourself in cultures for their different life stages) and usually they will just get eaten by everything else in the tank as soon as the eggs hatch.

I've tried breeding clownfish. I failed. :( It was a massive time and money investment and I couldn't get their three food source cultures growing in large enough numbers without having one type crash every so often.

The eggs/fry also need to be kept in their own tank with their own special filtration/flow set up.

If you are interested in trying, it can be very rewarding, and there are lot of sites out there dedicated to clownfish breeding. Start researching -- you won't be able to save this batch of eggs in time, but once clowns start laying, they usually get on a regular schedule (mine laid eggs every 10 days, on the dot).

And like others said, it's completely normal for clowns to just attack you anyways. That's how they are; they can be pretty aggressive fish. Some will even draw blood.

 

[jswinberlin]

The eggs are on the upper right side of the hole in the rock. My clowns were never aggressive before this.

 

[FishyReef]

I agree with LF - I see a nest inside the hole, upper right. Raising fry is hard - do your research on it. Once clowns start spawning, they tend to spawn regularly, so I'd just let this batch and the next several become free fish food. If you are serious about wanting to try to raise the fry, check out the Marine Breeding Initiative website (MBI - Marine Breeding Initiative) as a place to start. You will need to spend quite some culturing at least rotifers and nanno to feed the fry until they settle (go through metamorphosis), usually around 2 weeks or a little earlier post hatch. Google green-water technique for instructions, or read through the forums on the MBI site. You will also need to get a separate set up for the fry. Some people use a 10g tank, but I think the 5g black round tubs (BRTs) are the most popular way to go. And you need to figure out how to equip it with very light flow and water changes. This isn't an easy project, but is very do-able if you prepare right and do your homework. Otherwise, your fish will just appreciate the free food in the tank :)

 

[Bifferwine]

I agree, a 5 gallon container is better than a 10 gallon container at first, but the fry have to be moved to a 10 gallon when they outgrow the 5 gallon.

At a minimum, you will be culturing phytoplankton, rotifers and brine shrimp. The rotifers rely on the phyto as their food source, and that's where I kept running into problems -- the rotifers would eat through my phyto culture so quickly, then starve, and crash. Each of these cultures needs their own set up as well -- I had six bottles of phyto going at one time. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, the cultures are very sensitive so if you have multiple containers of each going at one time and one crashes, you won't lose everything.

 

[FishyReef]

Yes, you're right Biff. I said nanno, but I meant phyto - sorry about that. And I totally forgot to add the piece about brine to my post above, which to the OP is what you would begin to feed after the larvae settle. And yes, you will eventually have to move the babies to a 10g or even 20g, or several 10g depending on how many you have. And remember you have to be doing daily water changes in all of these because you won't have any sort of live rock, etc., in there to process ammonia. Its a balancing act and you have to get the cultures going on a schedule so, as Biff said, you don't run out of one and have another crash, etc.

 

[jswinberlin]

Here's a better picture.

 

[jswinberlin]

Wow, that sounds like way too much work! I think I'll just be thankful for free fish food.

 

[Bifferwine]

Those would be clown eggs! Congrats! If you want to watch them hatch, it happens at night so maybe if you're lucky you won't miss the "big event". There are sites online that have pictures of each day of development, so you can try to get an estimate of which night it will happen.

 

[Waddi]

My clowns always used to attack me. But now weirdly when I moved them into the 125 and added my Yellow Tang, my Yellow defends my hand. Haha the clowns are to scared of the Yellow to attack me.