Now that sounds interesting. Better get that new build done before 2020 lol.

okay so your pulling the pot out on day 4, how do you manage to keep the eggs from turning white or going bad? ive tried that twice i think and ive had them go bad next day, i tried to put bubbler on them and eben tried it to opposite bubbler away both times unsuccessful?? what am i missing here

Eileen turned me on (sorry Eileen) to a 4" bubble stick that you get at Walmart. It's hard plastic blue on one side and has the air stone material on the top. I use pots with the backs cut off and insert the bubble stick upside down (don't ask me why it works better that way - just does) on a medium trickle of air right on the eggs. With the back off - I know I can get the bubbles to hit in the right spot. I've gone 3 and even 4 days and still had great hatches.

looks like ill be at walmart tommorrow,,thanks for the heads up!

You're forgiven!
My picassos usually hatch out over two nights, so when I pull theirs, I usually put the pot in a small tupperware container with some of the parent's water and then add 2 drops of methylene blue. I only let them sit in it for a few minutes before moving the pot to a hatching tank. I make sure not to transfer any of the blue water. I think it helps keep the eggs fungus-free for an extra night. As a side note, I have a second picasso pair that I've had for 2 years that just had their first nest earlier this week.One is a snowcasso and the other is an A+ both from Doni. I'm curious to see what they'll produce!

Her first few with me were like that....but then they started to get bigger. How is that first nest?

I didn't hatch the first one - never pulled the pot. The nest was really thin and scattered so I figured she was just out of practice. They are eating like pigs and should spawn again any time. I moved them yesterday but they are in the same exact tank - nothing changed so I hope it doesn't throw them off. I just moved them to get the new brood stock system in the house.





Right on... can't wait to see what you get out of that pairing either... I bet you get some pretty awesome babies!

interesting,,, tonight i went and checked on picasso nest and still no fry swimming, so i pulled the pot put bubbler on them see what happens in the am.... arrggggg

I've had success with pulling the best on day 1. No methylene blue use either. You just have to bubble them strong and change the water every day so you get no build up

Congrats on the double hatch pickle
Christo was trying me that his layed every 6-7 days when he piled the nest on day one. I have only did this twice but have not tried in a while.

I guess expansion is the new years theme
I just built a new table for 18 more tanks but might be putting my house for sale to try and move on the water. So as you can see expansion is on hold

LOL... Rich you're in Florida... how much closer to the water do you want to get? Sheesh!
(no seriously I'm jealous - takemewithyou)


I've never tried on day one - but he told me something of the sort as well. Something about putting the pot in sump or someplace with good flow and aggitation. I've never tried... never really had to. Day 4 is good enough for me - I mean it works so why mess with it.

Rich - I've been looking at those split AC / Heat systems - do they operate like a normal home heating system? What I mean is I've seen some portable / window mounted home AC / Heat system but they don't cut out when they hit temp. They keep a fan running all the time. I can't imagine that being very effecient. I'm curious if the Split system cuts on and off when it is needed / not needed.

There is a small fan that runs but it's so small there is really no draw power wise. The window/portable ones are a waste of money. I have one of the biggest units that they make for a portable and it would never shut off. Ran pretty much 24/7
The mini split is so much nicer. If you can get one with a external thermostat, this way it has the features that you want not what the company offers. Wish I did that with mine. Oh well hind site is 20/20

I always dreamed about living on the water with a dock in my backyard. I live about 3/4 of a mile away right now if you took a few houses out of my way but I want to be right there. Plus it's now or never. Real buyers market

Get a thermostat that has a auto switch from cold to hot. This way no worries about forgetting to flip the switch

Got to play with the camcorder my kid got for Christmas tonight... not too bad.

15 dph: Snow / Ocellaris Hatch

http://youtu.be/NF6wU05xYcM

very cool video. i see alot of snows developing there.

i got a heat pump that heats and cools my house. its not that bad, but when the temp goes under 32f
they are not efficient anymore and you should switch to emergency heat which sucks mega power. my heat pump froze for a week or 2 last year and it cost me like an extra $300.
dont know why they use them in the northeast for heating, it cheaper to install them i guess and then the electric company gets to rape the home owner. would love to have gas or oil then use the heat pump for ac only.

i love Rich's idea of a mini heat pump. Mitsubishi make a a little heat pump type of unit. you install the ac unit on a wall and drill a 1.5" hole in the wall to run a line from the outside pump to the inside unit. then you can add ac or heat into a room or a floor depending on what unit you get.

if i ever move to florida i will do this for my garage for my clowns..

hey guys, im on my first attempt at raising my clown fry and i have three left at day 5, i just began feeding otihime A but they dont seem to be touching it, anyone have any suggestions on how to get em to notice it? thanks

That's a tough one - I start to to sprinkle a very small amount of Oto A about day 2 or 3 and by day 5 they are hitting it hard. I would suggest making sure you have enough rotifers in the water so they can still find them and continue to occasionally sprinkle in some OTO and they will eventually find it.

thanks ill give them a couple of days then since i did just began sprinkling it over a day ago, i gotta be patient lol

Alright - got a much better nest from my B&W pair this time - it actually looked like they knew what they where doing. Not huge but worth hatching out. Must be 2 inches by 1 inch and packed tight.

im annoyed at filter socks. my dual 7' socks fill up and only last 3 days before needing changed. which i cant seem to keep up on their cleaning cause i use the hose to clean them out and then reuse them.
i did seem some ideas out there about using a disposable filter sock. which would save me time and a headache cause i really hate changing the filter socks.

disposable socks a good idea, or does anyone have a better idea of filtering out out the food and crap than a filter sock??

I think they are filling up fast because of the amount you feed (cannot fix) and the way you clean them (can fix) - I know a lot of people wash them in the washing machine with plain - unscented bleach.

I wouldn't think that a garden hose would get all the crappage out of them and make it clog / dirty up faster. If you started with a cleaner sock you'd have better results.

HOWEVER - with the new brood stock system I have going up - I've been stocking up on the filter socks - I could change daily if needed and wash them all out over the weekend.

i have 28 socks. i wash them every 2 weeks. mine last a day but they are 25 micron i believe. catch much more crap

I'm thinking Rich and I buy our socks from the same supplier (FAOIS?) I change mine out every other day, I am fine with that. All my systems have NO3 and PO4 levels that are better than most reef tanks. It's ok to have to change your filters out often.

i dont mind changing them, its the cleaning part i dont like. hehe
on another reef board someones wife sews them and makes felt socks with a ziptie built in and i am gonna get a few to use them and see if the are good. they are gonna be cheap enough where i can use them and then toss them out. i might clean some out to reuse them. but i dont want to spend hours cleaning them out all the time. just a pet peeve of mine i guess.

wife wont let me come near the washing machine with the socks. hehe

my clowns are on day 8 now and going through meta looks liek one is done since the first white stripe is forming!

That's what I'm talking about! Very cool - how many do you have left?

I only have 3 fry left but this my first time raising them so Im really happy to get this far with them!

my last darwin hatch got some of their stripes. so meta is almost done. got 20 from the first hatch remaining.

if your darwin wouldn't have laid, i would have won the bet. my Clarkii laid today for the first time. got like 50 eggs in a small nest. kinda excited of a new laying pair. gonna wait till their nest gets bigger before collecting them.

GSM are hatching tonight. hatching a monster nest. see how many i can get to survive.

I have a question when would it be ok for me to put a sponge filter in the tank?

How many days post hatch are they? I would hold off until they are all through meta and use a seasoned sponge.




LOL.. I know it was close... my B&W's are on the second nest. Hopefully they let them go 4 or 5 days so I can pull the pot and hatch them out. The first nest was nothing to write home about.

they are 8 days post hatch and yea i will def wait till all are through meta one down and two to go.

Glad to hear its a little better. Hope it gets even better. I am quite disappointed that they have taken this long, but kind of to be expected I guess. Glad they are doing well so far.

Keep up the great work!!!

Wow - you really got this rockin' and rolling! you offer tours for locals?

Once I finish this transition I'm in - tank changes and what not I'd be glad to. Not much to see right now but a big mess. Are you a member of CVR?

So the B&W's ate most of the last hatch - I should say all of it.. they left me with like 5 eggs. I already had the hatch tank set up so I figured what the hell... why not. So I pulled the pot and 3 of them hatched. I know... HUGE numbers right? Anyhow, of the 5 3 hatched that night and the 3 amigos are 2dph. Now I'm straining rotifers out of the water every night because I know they can't possibly put dent in the rotifer count. Hopefully the fresh pot and water changes help them stay on track for the next one.

Otherwise my other hatches are still going really well. Last month I hatched out a clutch of 200+ snow / O's and they are all hitting 30 dph with no problems. Then last week I hatched out another clutch of the snow/o's and it's the largest hatch I've seen in a long time - must be 400 + in the larvae tank sitting at about 4 dph right now.

Any pics of the new guys?

I'll put something up this weekend.

I know this has been answered before, but I can't find the answer anywhere by Googling, so thought I'd ask it here.

Why can't we just put a hunk of well seasoned liverock in our fry tanks? Is it because there isn't enough oxygen exchange because all we can run is a little airline tubing? I can't think of any other reason not to do it. Or maybe the possibility of introducing hydroids?

I didn't have as much of a problem with no filtration when all I fed initially was live foods, but now that I use Otihme starting at day 4, I have far more nitrite so need even more frequent water changes. I don't mind doing them but can't help but worry at each change if I've matched the water well enough not to cause losses.

I'd be alot happier if I could just put my fry into a tank that has some form of filtration early on.

I honestly wouldn't think you could put enough LR in the tank (with enough flow through the rocks) to make it effective. Water changes are the best thing you can do. I just got in the habit of doing them daily. To be honest I don't worry about matching up my water perfectly - if you drip the replacement water in over the course of a few hours the fry do just fine.

Here is a quick video tour of my new broodstock set up - no brood stock in yet - It has some over stock and overflow juvi's in it while I'm working to redo my grow out system.

http://youtu.be/__3fdtmEs0I

Looks good!

Thanks for the video. Very cool setup. Looks like you have it in your house? For some reason I thought you were set up in your garage. Do you have any video of your growout system?

Yes... it is in my house and that's why I've been really limited in what I can do. My grow out system is a fish store wall unit - 4 levels - bottom being a 150g sump and the top 3 levels being compartments like you find in a regular fish store. It is aweful and I'd never recommend doing it that way to anyone. It was a cheap quick fix that made the most out of the space I had available at the time.

On my property I have a 30 x 40 steel building with garage doors at both ends. I can park an RV in it... it's pretty big with 15+ foot cielings. At any rate the plan is to build a room within the shed for grow out. That will happen this spring / summer. The room will be climate controlled, insulated very well and have enough space to house 6 or 7 100g black round tubs and a filtration system. (plus a little room to grow) I plan on it being modular in that if there comes a time in the future that I out grow that section I can simply add on to it and make it longer and allow for more space. All along I've worked under the principal that I don't want to go in debt to do this hobby. Yes... it's still a hobby. And I don't want to build too big for a couple of reasons - 1st is cash - I will only do it with cash on hand. 2 nd is cost of operation. I don't want to make the room so big that it would cost a fortune to heat and cool. Where I live it can get as high as 110 in the summer and it drops to freezing in the winters. So a large room would take a lot of energy to control the climate in. I would most likely only consider going larger if I can install solar power at the same time.

I think you hit on the head with cost of operation. I've been looking at setting up something in my house and my big concern with it is cost of operation. I've been looking specifically at the pumps and heat. That is where people really run up their bills without realizing it. One thing is insulating tanks and the sump. Have you tried that at all? Would it be worth the hassle? The other is low-wattage pumps. It's amazing the different amount of wattage certain brands of pumps use and with them running 24/7 that can be quite the expense. I'm hoping to get setup in the next month if everything goes according to plan. I have 2 pairs of B&W's I want see if I can get them laying.

Right on... and yeah the cost of running the set up is a lot - I envy some of these guys that live in those climates with a constant 78 degree temp year round.

I haven't insulated the tanks I have now - the grow out room will be very insulated and I plan on wrapping the tubs / sump and lines when I do that build. We keep the house pretty comfortable year round but the brood stock tanks are kept at a higher temp so I get a lot of evaporation and it takes a few heaters to hold the temps stable. I do use an RKL to manage the heaters though and it helps. One heater is constant on, and the other two are set to different temps and only come on when needed. Being that it's a large volume of water I'm not worried about the one heater getting stuck on and cooking the tank. The RKL will shut off the other two.

When I do the grow out room I also hope to be able to control the tank temps by maintaining the room temp.

Quick update:

Tiny B&W hatch - the three amigo's are still doing well - all are through meta. One of them is noticably darker then the other 2. The two of them look just like my regular orange ocellaris fry at the same stage of development while the 3rd looks almost all black already. It's the first time raising the B&W's so I'm not entirely sure what to expect. Caring for a small hatch is more work then the large hatches - seems like it would be real easy to let the rotifer population explode and suffucate the fry. I've been pulling rotifers from the larvae tank since day 3 and only fed rots the one time on day 1.

Snow Hatch - in meta right now - 300+ fry all looking great, healthy and developing headstripes.

Next snow hatch should be Saturday night. I pulled the pot this morning and got it set up in the larvae tank.

Last Snow hatch is all in grow out - huge number of snows to standard O's in this one. I've seperated them in grow out and stopped counting at 50. At one month they are all looking solid.

Waiting on the next spawns from my percs and B&W's - the B&W's last spawns where 15 days apart and the last one was on the 16th - so I am expecting one anytime.

Three of my pairs spawned over the last 3 days. Percs, B&W's and Snow's - looks like next week I get to see if I can pull off a hat trick!

Whoa! Better not make any plans, you are going to be busy!

Question for all of you using 10 gallon tanks in your setups: How hard/nerve wracking was it drilling those things?!

For the brood stock tanks I used 20 L's the length of the tanks let me make 3 compartments in each one that was a comfortable size for a standard pair of clowns.

As for drilling it's pretty easy - the first tank I drilled some time ago I went on gl#######s.com and watched a tutorial on how to do it and it was no problem. I've drilled several tanks since and haven't had any issues. The key is to take your time and let the bit do the work.

I've never drilled a 10g though - the glass just seems to flimsy and I wouldn't trust any weight hanging off of it. Even the 20L's I made sure to support the drains so they don't put any extra pressure on the glass.

edit - I still can't believe you can't say "gla ss hol es .com"

If you don't mind me asking, where do you sell your baby clowns?

three ameigos thats a funny name for them,i wish you luck in there care.