Flared Gills in baby clownfish "True Percs"

[Ms. Mermaid]

Need some help understanding what actually causes “Flared Gills” in young clownfish.

I have been reading several different forums from some very old post and they have many different reasoning’s that cause flared gills.
From quality of food being fed to the baby clownfish.
Poor culling. Which I am assuming this has something to do with the rotifers.
How does a person do “Poor Culling”?
Genetic
Injury. What type of injury could cause “flared gills”?

The reason why I am asking this is because I have found 3 out of 15 baby clownfish “True Perc” that I just put up for sale from my one and only batch that has made it so far. I still have eighteen babies that are still a little too small to be put up for sale. I am waiting for them to get at least ¾” to 1” before I will sale them.

Isn’t there a medication for Flared Gills?

[Dean]

I purchased a tiny snow onyx that had flared gills at about 1/2" long. Over the last 3 or so months he has grown out of it. So I can say that it is possible that it is not something that will effect them permanently. At least not in the case of this one.

[Mr Cob]

Hi Mary, no medications for flared gills that I know of.

Best preventative measure is good water quality, enriched rotifers (if you use rotigrow plus you don't have to enrich, if you culture your own phyto or use rotigrow complete then you need to enrich before each feeding) and bad genes can cause it as well (brother and sister parents). Examples of good water quality would be syphoning the larvae tanks out daily (sometimes even twice daily) especially during meta when the fish are laying at the bottom of the tank...detritus build up can be huge problem when the fish are laying in it.

The fish Dean got that had flared gills was from me. It did not have flared gills and then a week before Dean picked it up I noticed in a vid that it had developed some flared gills. To me this was a sign that the flared gills were related to water quality and there was a good chance the gills would go back to normal with improved water quality.

Prime and chlor-max help to keep amonia levels down in larvae systems and rotifer cultures (if you have rotigrow complete you do not have to dose prime or chlormax because it already has it, if you use rotigrow plus or culture your own phyto then you do need to dose once a week).

3 of 15 is not that bad if that is your only fish with anomalies. When I first started it seemed like half my fish had something going on. I continued to improve in my techniques and ramped up my water changes and for the most part I only have a cull or two for every 25-50 fish. I also try to have one fish in each of my broodstock pairs that is a wild caught or atleast not a washed out gene pool. Try to stay away from muted gene pools. For example...when making pairs for black ice... instead of going black ice x black ice go darwin x snowflake to get black ice, and even better if the darwin is wild.

Hope this helps a bit.

[Mr Cob]

...and to clarify; if you see a fish early on with flared gills, chances are it will remain. If you see a growing little clownfish after meta without flared gills and then suddenly it begins to develop them, it can go away. Same for adult fish. If you ever have amonia levels spike in your tanks your fish may begin to breath heavy and develop flared gills. Get the prarameters back in check and they settle down most of the time.

[moneytank]

From my experiments it's caused by poor water quality more than anything. And once they get it will never really "grow out of it" . The fish just gets bigger so it's not as noticeable.

[Ms. Mermaid]

Wow I did not even know I had responses to my post never showed up in my email....
Thank everyone.
This helps a lot.

[Ms. Mermaid]

Now were to find a wild caught male true perc that I could swap out with here in Houston.

[moneytank]

It should not transfer to babies.

[Mr Cob]

I agree that flared gills are mostly caused by water quality, diet as well. My point about non washed out gene pools and using a wild caught in pairs was to lesson the chances of anomalies.

Mary, do you use any products to control ammonia levels? Such as prime or chlormax? Start there first. Do you syphon daily? Do you enrich your rotifers? If not, is your phyto already enriched?


Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[Ms. Mermaid]

It should not transfer to babies.

These are the babies that the flared gills are showing up in. Parents do not have flared gills.

[Ms. Mermaid]

I agree that flared gills are mostly caused by water quality, diet as well. My point about non washed out gene pools and using a wild caught in pairs was to lesson the chances of anomalies.

Mary, do you use any products to control ammonia levels? Such as prime or chlormax? Start there first. Do you syphon daily? Do you enrich your rotifers? If not, is your phyto already enriched?


Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk


Rob
When I was first starting out I used Rotigrow Plus & chlormax in my rotifers and none of my batches would live very long. Before this batch came along I had switched to RG Complete to feed my rotifers with.
The first month I cleaned the tank their out daily but I did not use any ammonia stuff in their tank since I was using the broodstock water and the parent water always tested 0 ammonia & 0 nitrite but there was always nitrate and phosphate levels in the parents water. There was 75 fry in a 10gallon tank for at least two months then I would slowly lose some of the babies. I believe I moved them over to a 20 gallon long when they were about 4 months old and had 44 in there for several months after that then I lost a few more I am holding at 33 or 35 till I sold 5 babies last week. Then I moved the larger ones over to my 55 gallon tank using freshly mix salt water mix and left the runts in the 20 gallon long. I then moved 15 out of the 55 to sell them and that is when I saw two babies with the flared gills.

I think I started using the fresh saltwater mix after they got their second stripes I am thinking it was when they were 2 months old I cannot remember exactly but I only saw one baby with it in one of my videos.


The parents have been breeding since Nov 2012 but about 90% of the batches there would only be about 20 - 40 eggs left sometimes not even that much. If indeed they are brother and sister would that be the cause of poor batches?
Also if I should swap out the male for a piccaso would I have better babies? Are really strange looking babies since the female is a True Percula?

Are should I look for a wild caught adult male to put with her to keep the gene pool somewhat normal? If so where would a person find a wild caught adult male true perc now days?

[Mr Cob]

I would suggest getting on mbisite.org, that's where all the top breeders are and they have helped me a lot along with all of the information on the site. A lot of these questions have been addressed by some of the pros.

Yes. Brother and sister fish or inbreeding will cause more anomalies and funky looking fish but normally the problems don't get to be an issue until several generations of inbreeding. Not sure of how far down the line.

It's also recommended to not breed anything that you can't prove lineage.

Having a wild caught fish in each pair sure does help to eliminate a lot of problems and questions.

I'm not sure what you should do...but hope that you have some info now to help you make some decisions.

Check out mbi too.


Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[moneytank]

what type of filtration are you using on the 10, 20, and 55 gallon tanks ? Mainly the 10, and 20 gallon tanks since that is most likely where the flared gills are happening, even though you say you dont really see it till they go to the 55.
you said 75 in a 10 gallon and that is when you would slowly loose some babies....I would bet during this time something in the water quality would be the problem. Once they get past meta phase you should not loose many at all. If you do it is either because off poor diet or poor water quality. Seachem makes some things that go in the tank that monitor amonia.


Now about breeding brother and sister, while its not the best idea a lot of people do it without any problems but it should still not cause flared gills.
You said 90% of the batches you would only end up with 20-40 eggs. Are they eating them or are they rotting away (turning white) ? If they are eating them then its not because they are brother and sister, some pairs just do that. Could try feeding them real heavy to see if that helps.

with all the clownfish breeding going on now its harder to find true wild caught ones since stores are going with the captive bred ones. Check with the local stores to see if they can order some because some of the suppliers still offer them. Could also check online places like live aquaria. However I dont think a wild caught one would solve the problem of the flared gills.

[Mr Cob]

I agree for the most part but there is some contradicting evidence that I have seen in regards to flared gills. I'm just not completely sold on flared gills not being an anomaly. I think it can be caused by poor genes, poor diet and poor water quality.

Explain this... If flared gills are not an anomaly caused by genes... why then wouldn't this issue be able to be corrected if it was only related to water quality? I agree that for the most part flared gills aren't going to be corrected once you see them but that's not an absolute in my experience.

I'm not a scientist, marine biologist or professional breeder but just know what I have seen and I have seen both flared gills in fish that had no hope, and then in fish that did not have flared gills and developed them... which were then healed later. I have even purchased adult fish that showed signs of flared gills and then they did not have a couple of months later.

Just saying, there is more to it than most people realize.

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[moneytank]

Maybe. Not disagreeing with you.
Just going off my own experience. I've never seen any where the flared gills goes away, but have seen as the fish grows it becomes less obvious.

But in the original posters statements and when they are loosing fish I would bet the problem is with water quality more so then genetics.

On a side note, then how could two totally separate wild caught fish paired up sometime produce flared gills ?
(Just a thought more so than a question)
And, also how can I force flared gills with purposely letting water quality decline.
Similar to the way you produce misbars from two perfectly barred parents.

So from me (and my experience/experiments) I'd still say water quality over genetics. Doesn't mean I'm right though....

[Mr Cob]

Yah, I agree with that totally, I too think it would be water quality contributing to the flared gills and 9 times out of 10 it is probably water quality or diet.

Really was just thinking out loud that I don't think flared gills are always 100% related to only water quality or diet and that it seems genetics could also play a roll from what I'm seeing.

Your point about two wild caughts producing flared gills would make for easy trouble shooting in my opinion because it would mean it could only be related to water quality or diet which was my whole point to having a wild caught in the first place. It just rules out a lot of questions and problems because you are starting with good genes in the first place.

I have enjoyed following some of the breeders on the MBI site and seeing their results and comments about breeding. Such as the lightning project where Matt had so many fish with anomalies... majority if not all of those anomalies were related to water quality and fighting. He did not even really have to question genetics as a source of the anomalies because the fish were wild caught.

I think yes, you could force flared gills by letting your water decline...and I bet you could not reverse the majority of them unfortunately, but I do think you could manage to get some of the ones with slight flares to tame back down.

Anyways.. I didn't take any offense to your comments or mean any toward you, I just enjoy talking about breeding is all.

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[KING]

Hands down on water quality..An yes...flared gills..CAN...Go away..100% seen it in my own experience..Not a book or word of mouth..Also had had a male that iv purchase an did not inspect the fish closely enough to notice it when i got it....an breed it. .bbys all were good with out the problem. A few months later the male was good..
BUT hey..maybe i was lucky..lol

[moneytank]

it sounds like were all pretty much in agreement, just say it different ways. Didnt think anyone was offended, including myself.
If either of you could get the flared gills to go away thats great, I personally could not. In all fairness maybe I just didnt try hard enough.

If you ever do regular barred clowns such as orange and white or black and white and want to do some experiments, try to force misbars....gets pretty interesting.

[Mr Cob]

I was getting misbars on my snow onyx and picassos and I think it was King that told me about lowering the heat on the larvae tanks to get complete bars... which worked. I thought that was pretty cool. So I guess to force it...you just raise the heat?

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[KING]

Man if your not getting misbars..Then your doing a **** good job..iv never had a hatch with out a few..im workimg on a 100% black an white now...ill keep u posted..
My big thing on black an whites is the org face...i dont like them..I want all black..

[Mr Cob]

KING... I still get a couple every batch but not like before when half the clutch was misbars. I'm keeping heat at about 79-80, when I was doing 82-83 I would get tons of misbars but they grew fast!

Sent from my HTC VIVID using Tapatalk

[Ms. Mermaid]

Thanks guys I think this has giving me the information that I was needing to go and correct for my next batch if I should be so lucky to get another good size batch to hatch.

I was keeping the water very warm during meta phase like 82-84. So I will make sure I turn down the temp to 79-80ish and more water quality control.

[Ms. Mermaid]

Rob I did register for the MBI website back in April of last year but forgot my password and I cannot get anyone to help me with my logon over there. Not even an "contact us" button to click on to get help.