Catching true perk larvae
- Thread starter dizzy
- Start date
clwnphish":1w3f8he5 said:
clwnphish I would highly recommend Joyce Wilkerson's book Clownfishes.
Here is what we spent. Nanochloripsus algae culture $36.25 includes shipping, Microalgae growth $19.82, Rotifers $7.15 plus $25.00 shipping =$32.50, Rotifer Sieve$18.68, Roti Rich $20.00, and Huffa protein $27.00.
This totals to $153.90. In additon we already had 3 ten-gallon tanks, two air pumps, gang valves, tubing, brine shrimp eggs. A couple of hundred bucks ought to get you going nicely. Then you can just kick back and wait for the money to start pouring in. Just keep in mind that it is a 7-day a week job, but very satisfying if you can pull it off. I think it took less than 10-days to have the green water going and rotifers producing well. Part of it was our learning curve. Good luck.
Here is a picture of day 25 in our first attempt at raising clownfish. (we were not prepared for the first 3-spawns) The tiny true perks actually look like tomato clowns at this stage. They have been collected and moved into a new 10-gallon tank for further grow out. Sixteen survived the move and our learning curve. We collected spawn number 6 last night (8-31-02) this time we have several hundred larvae. Spawn 5 only yielded 13 larvae captured, but they have now morphed and are doing well. Three hatchings in August. More people should try this. I got a feeling tr clowns will be cheap in the future. PVC fitting in photo is 1.25" tee.
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Louey":39hdrxsi said:
Louey,
I don't want to cheat Joyce Wilkerson out of a book sale, but I would have to say I reckon it depends on big you get into it. Watching our clowns spawn and knowing the larvae were just dying made us take the plunge. We also happen to care about our store livestock so we pretty much work 7-days anyway. I think you could do a lot in 30-minutes a day if you do it every day. It is actually not much more trouble to raise a lot of clownfish than it is to raise just a few. We are going to set up a few more pairs. I have the jet black ocellaris who are false spawning and driving me batty. I also have another pair of true perks that are very black and should spawn sometime. I recently put three different pairs of gold stripe maroons together and three pair of black saddleback clown A. polymnus. Dottybacks are next on the list with orchids getting the early nod. I really want to raise Centropyge angels oneday, but you got to learn to walk before you can run. Always try to keep fish in pairs when possible and who knows what might happen.
fwiw-
the hose end was lit w/a small nitelight-drained into a 5gl. bucket placed in the sump-bucket was cut near the rim w/'windows' of mesh all around.
height difference between tank and bucket is adjustable-to control strength of flow.'my' fry got gently sucked in and transferred w/apparantly no prob.
the male beau greg. is tending the eggs at nite-gives an idea of clutch size-he's about 2"
(nice coralline power cord, eh? :wink
the hose end was lit w/a small nitelight-drained into a 5gl. bucket placed in the sump-bucket was cut near the rim w/'windows' of mesh all around.
height difference between tank and bucket is adjustable-to control strength of flow.'my' fry got gently sucked in and transferred w/apparantly no prob.
the male beau greg. is tending the eggs at nite-gives an idea of clutch size-he's about 2"
(nice coralline power cord, eh? :wink
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Bingo":25nboeau said:
Brett,
I'm not sure it will ever be economical to ship three small clowns. What I am suggesting is that in the coming years a lot more hobbyists will be successful in home rearing projects. Once people accept the idea that marine fish are more enjoyable in pairs home spawnings will become more common place. People will be bringing baby clowns to the swap meets along with the acropora frags. I'm not suggesting that it will be cheaper or less work to raise the clowns, only that when enough people are doing it, the laws of supply and demand will drop the price of the fish.
IMO it will be rather easy (not exactly easy) to raise more clowns than you can sell at premium pricing. This same sort of senario developed for the freshwater discus breeders as the breeding secrets became more common knowledge. Some discus breeders actually chose to destroy excessive offspring in order to artifically keep selling prices high. I don't look for very many clown breeders to do that. E-mail me when you see me post a picture of the true perks at 1" and I'll see what I can do. I guess what I was trying to say was don't go into breeding clownfish expecting to get rich.
Here is a picture of the true perk babies at 39 days. We combined the first two spawns so only the larger ones are 39-days old. Many of the babies now have their second stripe, which began to show in some at around 33 days. The largest are slightly over 1cm in length and growing stronger day by day.
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