Reef Discussion

[Dr. Schell]

Hi all,

It has been a while since I was last on this forum, my appologies for that. Thought that I would post this tread showing the breeding setup and subsequent fry of my Premnas. Ths fish live in a standard 2 foot tank which is filtered by a canister filter, has a protein skimmer and lis lit by T5 lighting.

Enjoy, Chris.

 

[chimaera]

Awesome. Your first batch?

 

[brendore]

:welcome Welcome back Doc! Your post have been missed!

 

[Dr. Schell]

this pair spawn like clockwork. The eggs take 8 days to hatch, onced hatched, the fish lay a new clutch on the 2nd or 3rd day. They do not spawn over winter (my tanks are unheated in Brisbane. I usually do not attempt to raise the fry due to time constraints associated with work. However, I have a bit more time now days, so can start rearing marine fish once more.

 

[Sarg]

Nice work Doc! Good to see your taking it a bit easier atm :)

 

[Aspidites]

Hey doc, you are sooo lucky. I could never get mine to spawn on location.

 

[Dr. Schell]

this pair first spawned on a tile, and now they ONLY spawn on a tile. If I take it away, I get no eggs!

 

[Dr. Schell]

:welcome Welcome back Doc! Your post have been missed!

Thanks, I will try to find some interesting things to post about. The sorts of things that you never knew that you always wanted to know :-D

 

[Dr. Schell]

Here is a video of the pair spawining. Filmed with time-lapse photography with 1 frame every 0.3 seconds.

 

[Aspidites]

It's soo cool when they spawn is sight of you. My three year old yells "dad, nemo's having babies again!" About every two and a half weeks when he sees mine spawn. My Occys spawn at about seven to eight pm. Do yours spawn early evening aswell?

 

[Dr. Schell]

T

It's soo cool when they spawn is sight of you. My three year old yells "dad, nemo's having babies again!" About every two and a half weeks when he sees mine spawn. My Occys spawn at about seven to eight pm. Do yours spawn early evening aswell?

This pair spawn around 11am

 

[Dr. Schell]

So after having no power for 3 days (floods in QLD) my Premnas managed to keep their batch of eggs alive (when many of my other fish died). As a result of this, I will do my best to raise this batch of fry (the eggs of which were filmed being laid in the above video). Below is a short clip of the hatched fry swimming in their rearing tank. These fry are being co-cultured with Nannochloropsis (phytoplankton) and marine Rotifers.
As these animals survived the hardship of a power outage, I am hoping that the fry will be indistrictable. Will be interesting to see if the hardship experienced as eggs has any impacts on the subsequent fish (in terms of survivability, colouration and/or behaviour).

 

[Dr. Schell]

Well here we are at day 5 in the life of these GSM clownfish. Surprisingly high survival rates in this batch. I am still co-culturing the larvae with Nannochloropsis. However, the diet has been switched to be 80% day-old brineshrimp and 20% 'gut-loaded' rotifers. The larvae have now doubled in size and are much stronger. Temperature is kept at 28-30 degrees C. Partial water-changes are being conducted at daily intervals (there is noting quite as messy as clown-fish fry). Below is some footage of the 5 day old fry in the rearing tank. Larvae are still pre-metamorphic but are beginning to develop dark colouration which is typical of larvae nearing metamorphosis. Raising the young at relatively high temperatures reduces the larval stage by up to 2 days in some species and thus increases the chances of batch survival.

 

[chimaera]

That's a lot of fish!

 

[Dr. Schell]

yes, a lot of very hungry mouths to feed

 

[Dr. Schell]

Hi All,
Since my last post, many of the fry have not survived. However, those that have survived are at day 12 (day of metamorphosis). Below is a short video that shows the clownfish DURING the metamorphic process. You may notice that those that have metamorphosed are in the dark areas of the tank (look for the 3 whide bands where the tank is sealed with black silicone). Many are mid-process (ie dark bodied but without the bars and still swimming at the surface.

 

[ethana123]

are you going to sell these ?

 

[Dr. Schell]

Yes, will be selling once they colour up. May take up to 6 months to colour and will be 12 months before the gold in the bands are apparent

Looses have been high with this batch due to the poor quality NSW that I have used, but subsequent batches will be reared.

 

[ethana123]

wow for some reason i thought the coloured up and matured fast lol

 

[Dr. Schell]

they colour up (metamorphose) over a period of 1-2 days (go from clear to tark with white bands). However, the colours refine for a longer period. The gold in the white bands is not apparent until at least 12 months of age. For the first 2-4 months, they look like really ugly A. oscillaris!