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Clownfish Protecting Eggs
Hopefully your clownfish have laid eggs and are constantly taking care of them. They will fan the eggs with their tail and pick at them with their mouths. The first day they are laid they will appear orange. After a couple days they will appear grey and finally grey with silver eyes. When the silver eyes appear, the eggs will hatch the following night. Before the eggs hatch there will be some preparation to take care of.
- Hatchling tank- You must raise the baby clownfish in a separate aquarium. This will make sure that they are able to get the proper food without competition from other tank mates. A 10 gallon aquarium will work fine. I use a
24 gallon nano tank I no longer use. Lighting is a must. The clownfish fry will constantly be searching for food and their vision is not the greatest when they are born. Make sure that the lighting isn’t too bright, a single power compact fluorescent works fine. You will not be able to use any filtration in the tank. A filter would injure the delicate babies. The only circulation will come from an air stone. A small sized air pump and air stone will help to keep the water oxygenated and moving.
- Live Rotifers- The newly born babies will only eat live food. Don’t even try to feed the babies flake or crushed foods as they will not eat it, and it will only foul the water. Live rotifers can be purchased from Reed-Mariculture. I have tried several other stores, but Reed is the best. You also will need food for the rotifers which Reed also sells. The best food for rotifers is Nannochlopsis or Rotifer Diet. Keeping a rotifer culture alive can be more difficult than raising the clownfish fry. In a 5 gallon bucket prepare 3-4 gallons of saltwater with the same specific gravity of the water in the rotifer bag (usually around 1.017). After the water has been mixed you can add the entire bag of rotifers from Reed. Continue to add Rotifer Diet to the water until the water turns a green color. The water should be about this color (see picture below). You should add rotifer diet drop by drop until you achieve the correct color. Never let the water fade from this color. You will have to check the color of the water daily to make sure that enough food is in the bucket. The rotifers will also need an air pump and air stone for circulation. Make sure to set the air flow as low as possible. Just a slight bubble is more than enough air. You should have your rotifers at least a week before the clownfish hatch to get the numbers up to the proper amount. Do not take any rotifers in the first 3-4 days that you have them. This will allow them to reproduce up to a high count.
After a couple days harvest some of the rotifers. This can be done by pouring some of the green water through a coffee filter. You should harvest 1/3 of the rotifers each day to keep it multiplying. Once enough green water has passed through the filter, you should add the rotifers to your hatchling tank. Dip the coffee filter in the water and wash the rotifers off of it. You can also purchase a rotifer sieve on the internet like this one.
Don’t rush these steps just because your clownfish have eggs that are ready to hatch. If they laid eggs once, they will most likely lay eggs again in the next couple weeks. So if you aren’t successful you can always just try again at the next hatching.
Just set up my first Rotifer Culture from Reed Mariculture yesterday. Today, I sampled some of the green water and it is loaded with Rotifers! You’re right, Reed is good. Also, I am using the Rotifer Diet for food. My clownfish eggs will hatch this coming Thursday night. This will be my first attempt to raise the fry with live Rotifers. From what I understand, this is the ONLY way to succeed with the fry.
You are on the right track for sure. Might want to think about starting another culture once the numbers get pretty high. Couldn’t hurt to have a back up. Clownfish will only eat live rotifers. I have not found another way that works as well. Good luck with your saltwater fish. Keep us posted in the forums how things go.
Thanks for the info and advice! I *just* found eggs in my ten gallon tank this morning. That pair have been the only fish ever in the tank and seem to thrive in it… for several years, and this is the first time we’ve seen eggs. I am sure it’s too late to do anything with this batch as they appear ready to hatch soon, but I will definitely be ready for the next.
Thanks for the info. I’m going to give it a try. My problem is they are in my 46 gallon tank. I not sure how to get them out after they hatch. I also work during the day. I hope they hatch when I’m off work. Any suggestions. They should hatch wed or thur.
The fry will hatch after the lights go out so you can set your timer to a time when you know you will be there. Please see the forum.
Thanks for the comment Scott.I read the rest of the forum after I posted the ?. I missed the 1st hatching I was out of town for one night. 2nd group hatched last night. I put them in a 10g tank with about 2g. They are still alive this am. I have rotifers but, how do you know if your rotifers are still alive? I am feeding the rotifers and covering them. When I get home this pm I’m going to use a coffee filter to catch the rotifers. I just used a cup and poored them in the tank. I have alot of green stuff in the water. Is that ok or are all my rotifer dead. I may bag some up in the am bring them to work and look at the in the lab. Also my larvae didn’t have a silver stomach this am. I hope they live if not the female is fat again. I hope my rotifers are alive as they are $$ and takes alot of time to get them here.
Wow! Day three and I still have live babies with silver abdomens. They are very active. I have tried to count them. I’m guessing 20-30 alive. I may try to set up the brine shrimp tonight for hatching. Worried about how many will make it out of metamorphosis. Temp. around 82 in baby tank.
Thats awsome that you are having such good luck this first batch. Keep changing the water as much as you can an make sure they constantly have rotifers the first couple of days. Once it is brine shrimp time, things get a lot easier. Keep us posted in the forum and send us pictures!
Day 5 I still have babies. I did see 4 or 5 dead ones around 5:00pm. I have not changed the water because I’m worried it may kill them with a temp or ph change. I am going to get the dead ones out tonight when I get off work. I can now see what I think are rotifers. I went ahead and made 2 buckets of them. I have not got the brine shrimp going yet due to I need another heater. The local pet shop was closed today and will not be open till Monday. Wal-Mart only has large ones. All other pet supply places are 2 hrs. away. I guess I missed the heater in the pictures. As of 5:00pm no new eggs from the female yet. Alot of movement from the two at the nest. I’m shocked some are still alive. Not sure how many. They are hard to count and I keep the water green for the rotifers. I’ll work on a picture and see if a friend can put it on for me.
Alanna, you don’t need a heater to hatch brine shrimp. If you get the mix that I show on the site it is just a matter of dumping the package into some water and running an aerator. Brine shrimp eggs are easy to come by at a local fish store. You can just mix up some saltwater and let them hatch in that. You should get the brine shrimp ready and start trying to get them to eat brine. Join the forum at forum here. Post your progress there.
Tried to join the forum today. I’ll see how that goes in 24hrs and if it works I’ll start posting in the forum. New eggs on 4/17/09. I took pictures of the eggs and the babies and will work on putting them on the forum if I get in. The babies are just fuzzy spots in the pictures. Still have live babies and one has his head strip. I ran out of rotifer diet 4/19/09. Feed DT’s to the rotifers I hope I didn’t kill them. How do you culture green water? I did order more rotifer diet after calling all salt water stores within 2 hrs. One said they had it, I drove 2 hrs. They had rotifer feast. The babies are eating the brine shrimp. I did try to get the dead ones out with a net. Then I saw 2 babies doing the death spin so I left them alone. Still not sure about water changes. Can I put new babies with my 1 week and 5 day old babies?
Hi Scott- Thank you so much for your information. I have clownfish that are currently laying eggs. I wasn’t prepared as it didn’t know this was common. However I do not have another tank to put them in. I have a nursury net – But am concerned that the fry will struggle with the stregth of the water flow. Could they live in the original tank with a net/nursery tank that? Also how long do you need to seperate the clowns from the fry for? Can you re-introduce the babies into the tank?
Thanks Sarah
You can try to let them hatch and live in the main tank but I think you are going to have problems. The fry will have a hard time finding food in a large volume of water. Also they could get eaten. I think that the net nursery could damage the fry as they would constantly be bumping into it. The fry are very delicate when they are first born.