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Pickle’s Guide to Breeding Clowns


Pickle010

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First off, Pickles, great information and thank you.

 

I'm going to start a little breeder setup to share the experience with my daughter and have a question and most likely more in the future. First:

 

There are all these ornamental clownfish types and I'm assuming folks have spent a lot of time creating them. How does it work for a small breeder wanting to breed say an Onynx pair? If successful, is it legal to say, "Hey, I've got Onynx clownfish, want one?"

 

What are the legalities breeding specific types?

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some names are trade marked - like Doni's Snowcassos and the name specifically refers to clowns bred at and delivered from her nursery. If you where to cross a picasso and snowflake and call them snowcassos - you might be hearing from her attorney if you don't cease. However - most of the names are used much more commonly - name like Snowflake, Picasso, Onyx, Black Ice all describe a specific breed of clown and are widely and commonly used.

 

I don't think there are many other names that are trademarked - most often the first person to breed a new cross is the one that names them and that name is pretty commonly used.

 

If you are starting with ORA Picasso's for example you wouldn't advertise the fry as ORA - but you could certainly state that the parents are ORA - Just like Doni's Snowcasso's the name "ORA" designates a specific hatchery. But if you did breed ORA picasso's you could certainly sell them as picasso's.

 

I honestly wouldn't worry much about it. Onyx is widely used to describe perculas with a lot of black on them and buyers are expecting that marking and not thinking they are produced anyplace specifically.

 

Hope that helps.

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  • 1 month later...
iprayforwaves

Is it possible to mix occellaris and percula fry? I'm out of space and my picassos just spawned for the first time. All the fry tanks are occupied with occelaris...

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  • 2 months later...
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  • 2 months later...

Finally settled into our new house and I'm eying the extra basement room...

Anything you'd change/comment on your original post after two years? Also, can I have the grow-out tank(s) plumbed to same system as the brood-stock tank(s)? Or, will the high temps necessary for the brood-stocks have a negative impact on the grow-out?

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You know what.. .that's a great question - I'll have to go back and read through this again soon and make any updates. But for the most part all it holds true.

 

I would separate brood stock from offspring just for the sake of managing water quality. There are some small breeders that do it (combine the two) I've used brood stock compartments as temp holding for some of my juvi's but in the end found it best to maintain another system for them.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Pickle010 I just finish reading your tread very good info thanks

I do have I few questions

why do you paint the bottom of the hating tank white?

you said you keep your water at 84ºf but you keep the water of the hating tank at 82 - 82.5 ºf? is that correct

thanks

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  • 10 months later...

Hey Sno... sorry or the delay - haven't checked in here in a while.

 

I read early on that it was good to have a white bottom and covered sides ust to give the fry more orientation... I don't know how important it is but it seems to work for me. The added bonus is that you can see how much crap is building up in the tank. If the sides and bottom are all black it would be harder to notice when the tank needs a proper cleaning.

 

My broodstock tanks run 83/84 hatching typically runs 82/83 - so they are close. On transfer night with the parent water in the tank the temps are more closely matched. I haven't seen anything adverse from a degree or two lower temp in the hatch tank. larger swings may have an impact (along with diet) on development.

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  • 1 year later...
hadiosbourne

Awesome Thread!

I see its been almost 5years since you've added that thread,

What would you change on that having extra 5years experience? :-)

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  • 4 weeks later...

Awesome Thread!

I see its been almost 5years since you've added that thread,

What would you change on that having extra 5years experience? :-)

 

 

WoW - great question - to be honest I wouldn't change much if anything at all. The process still works as I've outlined it. I played with feeding schedules and things of that nature but as for raising fry it's all the same. I would focus more energy on my mating pairs and their diet because the better fed and healthier they are - the better your eggs and survival rates will be.

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  • 4 weeks later...
ClownfishPro ;)

Hey pickle, I have recently started breeding clowns ( I have yet to hatch a batch of fry). I have been in the hobby for almost 5 years, I am thirteen. I was wondering if I should use krylon fusion spray paint to paint my plexi glass broodstock dividers, do you think this would be safe?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey pickle, I have recently started breeding clowns ( I have yet to hatch a batch of fry). I have been in the hobby for almost 5 years, I am thirteen. I was wondering if I should use krylon fusion spray paint to paint my plexi glass broodstock dividers, do you think this would be safe?

 

Not to interrupt, but once it dries it should be inert. Let the system run with carbon for a few days after just to remove anything that might be residual.

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  • 2 months later...

Hey pickle, I have recently started breeding clowns ( I have yet to hatch a batch of fry). I have been in the hobby for almost 5 years, I am thirteen. I was wondering if I should use krylon fusion spray paint to paint my plexi glass broodstock dividers, do you think this would be safe?

 

 

Any updates? I'd love to hear about your progress!

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  • 2 weeks later...
ClownfishPro ;)

Yeah, I managed to acquire a spawning pair of black and red clowns. So far they have spawned at least 6 times in my tank. I have been able to raise clowns past meta buts never through grow out, can't figure out why. HELP PLEASE!!

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Wow... ok... you are getting your clowns through the most difficult part which is to Meta. Beyond meta it's a matter of consistent feeding and water quality. I heard of one guy who didn't have a light over his grow out tanks for a while and had major losses because the fry didn't see the food. The only other thing I can think of is your feeding transitions. Are you overlapping your feeds as your progressing your clowns to the next stage?

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ClownfishPro ;)

No, I think that may be my problem, I can get them on baby brine shrimp but can't figure out how to get them to crushed pellet. Also one thing I have found extremely helpful is to put a few copepods from your display into your larval rearing tank, they multiply on the abundance of food and help filter the water and serve as a food source for larvae. also I was wondering if you think it possible to have cross species pairs breed?

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I'll be honest... I've never hatched shrimp in my life. Except sea monkeys when I was a kid if that counts.

 

I start feeding dry foods right around day two or three. I feed extremely fine (crushed by mortar and pestle) high quality grow out feed. Typically the first few times I add the food in a well-lit spot in the flow of the air bubbles to give it movement in the tank. After a couple of days I can see the fry hitting the powdered food and I'm off to the races. I still feed rots through meta but start relying more and more on the dry feed earlier on. I am just very careful at the start since I know most of the food I add to the tank will be getting vacuumed up later on.

 

I will also tell you that 90% of my problems went away when I fed the bejesus out of my broodstock. The better you feed them, the better the nests, the stronger the hatch and the easier your fry are to raise.

 

And yes you can definitely cross clown species it's been done and documented pretty well. Percula / occy hybrids such as percularis are pretty well known. There are other variants of Maroons and other clowns as well. Most of the time the trick is trying to pair some of those variants or species. Maroons can be very difficult to pair and half the time the end result isn't really desired. I would say that you'll often find that breeding more desirable clowns from the start will make your life a lot easier.

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I get my foods, rots and phyto all from the same place. Reed Mariculture. You can pick up a breeder pack of the TDO Chroma boost will give you a good variety of food sizes to try out. Remember that even the smallest size is still kind of large to start with which is why I grind it up even finer before I feed. And seriously... pull your personal contact info down - you can PM it to me if you want - but you can reach me here or on FB - PM me and I'll send you a link to the page. If you leave your stuff here you'll have guys like StevieT calling you at all hours of the night.... khakis... and no one wants that.

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  • 2 years later...
downsouthreefers
On 4/17/2011 at 11:03 AM, Lalani said:

Awesome thread, Mike! :D

MD - Ya, 4 30gal square tanks (one is leaky so empty) are plumbed into the 40gal tub. Those 10gal tanks on the left are broodstock tanks that I'll eventually plumb into the purple tub. I've actually switched out bulbs in that big t5 fixture so that only 2 are running for now. Thinking about raising the salinity in the growout to keep BTAs in there with the babies and prop them. :)

you weren't worried about the weight on the rack system?

 

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