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Clowns ready to spawn???

K

KennyZush

I have noticed some unusual behavior from my two maroon clowns over the past day.
The female has been out and about and acting fairly normal.
The male is spending all his time "hiding" behind the BTA in the rocks. I can see him from the side of the tank. He is "hovering" but not emerging from the rocks.

I can't see any eggs at this point.

They also do not seem to be aggressive to any other tankmates, but the only time the male came out from behind the BTA is when the female went in. (not even for food...he ate, but waited for food to filter back behind the anemone in between the rocks.)

What do you folks think?

Could they be getting ready to spawn?

Could they already have laid eggs that I just can't see?

Any info would be great.

Kenny Z.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
There are eggs there that you can't see. That is typical "watch the nest behavior"!
 
K

KennyZush

Hmmm...
What type of action do I need to take?
If there are eggs, I don't want them becoming food for the other fish...

Kenny Z.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
The first thing you need to do is take a deep breath and realize that it is inevitable. Did you see the other thread I responded to about clownfish breeding? Very likely you'll miss your first 3 clutches while you figure out the cycle. After that it is tricky, but can be done. You just have to anticipate it and be ready with pumps off when it happens. Let me know your thoughts after you find that other thread.
 
K

KennyZush

Yea, I just found it.
Sounds kind of depressing...
Also sounds like timing is everything.

We have been toying around with getting a nano, maybe it can be a clown nursery one day.

My wife swears she can see the eggs (I don't). But from what she has told me it looks like they are around day 6 (no silver eyes yet).

I will keep you posted...

Kenny Z.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I thought the eyes changed at day 3. Is it really day 6? Glad you found the info. You really do have to get the timing down though. That takes some practice. I never did get it down before mine stopped spawning (or started hiding it better). I swear I have eggs right now, I just can't see them. My male is sticking by this one rock and won't move. But if there are eggs there in a way/place where I can't see them.
 
K

KennyZush

Phyl can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this was the post from Phyl, under the heading "Has anyone had the pleasure...":

"I can tell you all of what I know about it in about 5m, unfortunately. I had a pair that bred regularly until we upgraded our tank. Since then they haven't set down another set of eggs. We were never successful at capturing the hatched clutch though. They typically hatch somewhere between 10-16 days from lay down depending on your water temperature. They will lay down orange and then turn silver and you can see their eyes in the eggs. They hatch typically just after lights out. Shining a flashlight at the tank when they hatch you should be able to scoop some of them up, just make sure that you'd turned your pumps off before the hatching. Yeah, the timing of that was always a little too tricky for me, lol. After they hatch you need rotifers (another piece of the puzzle I never did master). My clowns would lay down eggs and 10 days later they would hatch. By day 14 they were laying down another batch of eggs. They were religious on their schedule until the tank move.

There. That's it. You now know everything I know about breeding clownfish."
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Yeah Kenny, that's all I know about raising fry in a nutshell!

Congrats on Clutch 2, Bill. Nagel did the whole clownfish breeding thing and lost the all to some sort of tank "crash". I had talked to him briefly about it, but never did document our conversation. I think that clownfish breeding book is a great place to start. There's also a clownfish breeding forum over on RC.
 
blange3

blange3

Phyl said:
Yeah Kenny, that's all I know about raising fry in a nutshell!

Congrats on Clutch 2, Bill. Nagel did the whole clownfish breeding thing and lost the all to some sort of tank "crash". I had talked to him briefly about it, but never did document our conversation. I think that clownfish breeding book is a great place to start. There's also a clownfish breeding forum over on RC.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kenny and Phyl!

I'll be heading over to RC sometime this weekend.
 
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