Breeding Maroon Clowns

[GaryP]

If I had a fish room I'd do it. Larry and I were talking about the idea of setting up a tank with all the kinds of critters that require a green water drip to survive. I like the idea of a green water reactor that could be set up above the main tank and gravity feed. basically you would just need to refill the SW to the reactor every day.

Occupants could include cauliflower corals, feather dusters, clams, and flame scallops.

BTW, Larry claims he gets high population densities in his green water than what you get from DT's. I had always thought that DT's was concentrated before shipping by filtration.

Gary

[Instar]

Puter is fixed now...

Well, Robert, its somewhere between a PTA and easy. Parts are easy, parts are not. The green water is perhaps the easiest part. The rotifers are easy to grow, but, a bit of trouble to maintain. The clowns are a blast once you get thru the first week but, that first week is a killer. Literally. I started out with around 1000 babies the first time and had 9 survive with intense care. I still have my favorite of the lot from that group from 2 1/2 years ago. The other 8 were perfect and sold. It was on the next bunch I learned that if you can do it, you better have lots of space cause GSM's will not be overcrowded. They take care of that on their own by killing off their siblings so I lost about 50 of that 75 to fights. I raised another 80 or so, freeks and all after that and then stopped. I don't have nearly enough tanks to grow them out. It was not fun loosing them because of lack of space and I mean lots of space. If my estimates are even close, that 75 would have taken a 2 foot by 6 foot tank to rear to saleable size and 7 to 10 months time at least. That and constant water changes for the fry tanks were the 2 hard parts for me. At 7 months the babies don't have much body weight so they are likely to be at the mercy of an older fish of any species in a community tank.

[RobertG]

Well I have the space I think. Just need to do some research I guess, or if anyone could tell me how or where to look would be cool. I have a 55G tank that I could use for them only. How long would it take to raise these guys? 7 months how big are they then? Sounds like a big PIA!

[Tim Marvin]

I have a 6 foot tank we can do a trade on...... I think you should go for it!

[RobertG]

Whats the trade? Tim I am interested let me know.....

[Instar]

I think you should go for it too. You need something small to get them to metamorphosis in though, not a huge tank cause that with green water and rotifers is way too hard. At 7 months many will be about a lightweigt inch if you're lucky. Including all that tail fin. Florida aqua farms has rotifer starters. $10 or $12 plus $35 shipping. Then you need a green water culture going to start them multiplying. You need a set up for both.