Any (relatively) easy to breed saltwater nano fishes?

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

Well...any relatively easy ones? I know that there's no such thing as any that are truly easy to breed, but are there any that are within the range of an ambitious hobbyist?

[flatlandreefer]

I have zero experience with this but I think clown fish are the obvious one that comes to mind, that's why there are so many "designer" clowns out there. Good luck if you pursue this and make sure to post updates!!!

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

Thankx! Any other options would also be appreciated. Not going to try this with the 10 gallon nano reef I am setting up for my mum (for obvious reasons), but want to keep ideas on the backburner in case I try.

[Pinner Reef]

Bangi Cardnial Fish are by far the easiest as they are mouth brooders. The father holds the eggs until they hatch and are a bit bigger. Then all you to do is keep a culture of phyto/rotifers/copepods handy and feed them a whole bunch.

 

After they get too big for the parent to hold they are released into an urchin for added protection.

 

Cute lil buggers too if you ask me

[RayWhisperer]

Another addition would be green banded goby.

 

Getting fish to breed is actually pretty easy. Raising the larvae up, especially through metamorphosis, is the difficult stuff.

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

Hmmm...would any of those bottled reef nutrition foods work for fry? Obviously not the cheapest option, but for a small scale setup I was wondering if it would be useful.

[RayWhisperer]

Most marine fish start out as larvae(basically planktonic in nature) As such, no, those type fooods would only work sometime after metamorphosis, when they would be large enough to consume it. Perhaps cardinal fish, but I don't really know for sure.

[Pinner Reef]

Ray is correct when it comes to Clownfish larvae. I've never been able to catch a hatch big enough for me to try and raise them so I don't know much about them. The Cardinals will stay with the father until they are about the size of a pencil eraser before he spits them out for good.

 

In either case; it's always best to have live cultures of food for the fry. These little fishes have really high metabolisms and it's always difficult to keep up with their dietary needs. A live culture mix of Phytoplankton, Rotifers, and copepods would be the best option for them as it is far more nutritious than any frozen foods. We fed our Cardinals 3-5 times a day until they got to a decent size. The good news is that you can grow all of those together, cheap and easily, in a single bucket with an airstone (Search "Copepod Culture"). The first few months are the most challenging. After that you can usually slow the feeding and they'll be big enough to accept larger, frozen foods.

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

OK! Thank you. More thinking of using the reef nutrition foods as a supplement...still was planning on culturing the live foods (I already culture live foods for my freshwater fishes, after all).

[vlangel]

I have raised clownfish and I have raised seahorses. With clownfish my biggest challenge was keeping a rotifer culture going long term. My clownfish were tomato and they are among the easiest. I read Joyce Wilkerson's book and it was an excellant guide. The erectus seahorses were easier than clownfish from the standpoint that they don't start on rotifer, they start on newly hatched and enriched brine shrimp. For me hatching brine shrimp was easy. However seahorses are harder from the standpoint that their enviroment and their food must be cleaned diligently or they will succumb to bacteria. Also once clownfish fry morph at 14 -21 days they can eat crushed flake food and then life gets much easier. Seahorse fry on the other hand eat live food for 6 weeks or more and then must be trained to eat frozen. Finally seahorses are not ready to go for sale until 5-6 months old. That is a lot of care.