Help with baby fish please

[ac7av]

Lee, I hope you or someone can help me with my damsel fish. Several of my damsel fish have been laying eggs and usually they hatch in 2.5 to 3 days. I set up a 10 gallon tank with heater zoo med power sweep power head with a sponge filter attached to it and a light. On the power head I have a adjustment to turn the flow down so I have it to produce just enough flow to have all the water in the tank moving a bit. Nothing harsh at all. I put the rock in the tank Thursday night that had the eggs on it form my 3 line who just laid them on Wednesday morning. Last night (Friday) was the big day. Just about 1 hour after I turned the lights off I have babies all over. At least a couple hundred. Since I could find almost no information on breeding damsels in captivity I tried grinding up freeze dried brine and flake to as powdery as I could get it. It still seems too big for these little guys. I started giving them some of the powder every couple of hours but I think they are not able to eat it. By this morning I only have a few that I can see that are still alive. Any recommendations could help and Ill keep trying different thing until I get something that works.

 

[Aquanaut]

Lose the power head and use a bubble sponge filter from a LFS best to incorporate a sponge from a mature sump that can activate a small bioload for this. I have succesfully raised many fresh water fry this way. Any power head however adjustable is to much for breeding. Worry less about flow and more about small frequent water changes to counter the high protein foods that you'll be using. Good luck.

 

[ac7av]

Im not sure if you’re aware that there is an adjustment on this power head that goes all the way to no water flow. If I turn it down all the way you can have the pump on and no water flows threw it. It’s the smallest they make and trust me can be very delicate. I did not want to use a bubble sponge filter and have salt flying every ware under my tank. If there is some special reason about using a bubble sponge filter that I should know about, let me know. I am not trying to make a swirling reef tank, I’m just trying to have the water circulate a bit and filter threw the sponge. It’s hard to describe how the water is flowing but its probably less turbulent then even a bubbly sponge filter. The sponge has been in use for over 2 years and I clean the debris off of it once in a while so it should be of some biological use.

Since I was not able to keep any alive for even 24 hours my guess is the food is just not cutting it. Any idea how often I should try to feed and what to feed?

 

[NWDiver]

Hey ac7av, it sounds like you need some cultures of baby brine (enriched) and prolly some rots.
I will look tonight to see what is a good first food for Damsels.
Check out this website http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=168 for lots of info.

 

[thatguy559]

my buddy in this reef club i was apart of where i was stationed last just started breeding clowns. here is the link
http://www.cvreefers.org/showthread.php?t=15191

 

[lvsuckerfish]

damsels and clowns same thing really treat and raise the same. I also agree with the power head what your asking is a (human) baby to walk right when it is born. cheap air pump walmart and a sponge filter and you should be set along with have water to do changes. pre heated and ready. rotifiers will be needed also.

 

[rayjay]

A separate fry nursery is recommended using gut loaded rotifers and bbs to start and using gut loaded bbs after a week.
It helps to keep live phyto in the water and keep lighting on 24/7. This allows any uneaten live food to still be feeding on something, and, it allows for consumption of some of the ammonia produced by fry wastes and any decaying foods.
Air lines are best for water movement over power heads that can even the smallest, suck in the fry.
It works using no filtration method and in smaller containers, but just doing complete water changes every 48 hours with new live food and phyto with the new water.

 

[ac7av]

I’ve been doing some reading for the last few hours about the rotifers and phytoplankton used to feed them before feeding the fry. This just looks like a very time consuming attempt at raising these guys. My head is just spinning around after reading page after page of phyto and rotifer propagation to feed the fry. I’m going to give it a try but look or sounds really complicated. I’m looking at a couple of phytoplankton species for best nutritional profile of the rotifers and then to stager batch productions of the rotifers and have a backup if a batch goes down. I hope if just sound more complicated then it is.

 

[ac7av]

what is bbs?

 

[rayjay]

bbs is baby brine shrimp, usually fed to the fish within hours of being hatched to take advantage of the egg sack nutrition.
However, one can grow them out for about a day and then gut load them with various products to give different nutrient profiles depending on what is needed.
After that day they have reached instar II stage and have developed a mouth and anus and can be fed so you just feed the brine in a gut loading bottle, with Selco products, Algamac products, or DanU's special blend products (from seahorsesource.com). The gut loading should be done in two 12 hour stages with new water and new food for the second 12 hour stint. Then rinse and add to the fry tank. Any leftover store in a refrigerator for next feeding. They may look dead when removed from fridge but as they warm up everything becomes normal.
I don't grow different species of phyto anymore, but prefer to use nannochloropsis which is the easiest to grow, and then gut load the fry food. That way takes up less room for growing phytos.
Also, I use spirulina powder blended for two minutes in water, and added to the rotifer tanks for feeding the rotifers. I store in in a 2 litre bottle in the fridge.
Again, less room taken up for phyto growing and no crashed phyto cultures.
Now, I basically just use the nanno for the nursery bottles themselves. (I use 4 litre wide mouth pickle jars)

 

[ac7av]

So what Im getting from you is use nannochlorpsis and powder spirulina to gut load the rotifers, is this correct? That would make things a lot easer I think. Im sure these guys are too small for baby brine shrimp. I image they are smaller then clown fry.

Can you tell me more about how you are growing the rotifers and how often you’re feeding the fry? What kind of fish are you rising and what is your survival rate?

 

[rayjay]

No, I grow the rotifers on spirulina, and then take out what I need and gut load them in a separate container with in my case either Algamac 3050 (powdered equivalent of selco) or Algamac Protein Plus, or Dan Underwoods blended mix, depending on how old the fry are.
After placing the gut loaded fry in the nursery, not all the fry are eaten up right away, so the nannochloropsis that I have placed in the nursery will be eaten by the uneated rotifers or bbs, thereby still maintaining a level of nutrition that while not as good as gut loaded, it's better than nothing.
The phyto also when under lighting, consumes ammonia produced in the nursery.
It means I grow very little phyto now compared to what I used to do.
I buy my powdered spirulina in 1lb containers from Brine Shrimp Direct, and my Algamac Products and Dan Underwoods blend I can get at seahorsesource.com.
Look under "food" and then "enrichment" and you will find all he has.
These enrichments all work for gut loading rotifers/brine shrimp of all stages/mysis/other shrimp, fed to all kinds of fry, not just seahorse fry.

 

[leebca]

Just following along ac7av. You've gotten good advice in general. The smallest/best foods for newborn marine fishes of the 'very small' category is rotifers.

It is a challenge to raise the fry. They need small foods and preferably living. Then you have to culture the food on a large enough scale. Sometimes you even have to raise the food to feed the food for the fish! The nutritional requirements of fry is different from those of young adults.

There are a few books out there on marine fish breeding, which include fry raising info. Even if the book isn't about the specific type or kind of fish you have, you'll find its information very useful.

 

[ac7av]

Thanks everyone. I really want to try and do this and maybe try other fish like clowns if I can get it down. I may have to find a good book on it. From what I’ve read online it seems all things required to do this are subjective. A technical person like myself, where I deal with numbers and accuracy all the time, subjective is something hard for me to calculated, expectedly when there talking about a tint of green when feeding the feed. A level of green tint may be different for everyone. Since these fish seem to lay eggs on nearly a weekly basis I will just have to give it a try and hopefully I can get it dialed in.

The think I’m really having a hard time understanding is the feeding of the rotifers. Rayjay, I was hoping you could tell me more about how your propagating them.

 

[rayjay]

Well, for rotifer culture I think most people use live nanno to feed them with, and some use cryopaste.
I have used both, but now, I just use the spirulina powder.
I have three 5g water bottles (old ones without handles) and fiberglassed the necks to hold water and cut the bottoms of the bottles out. I have them sitting in a stand with holes for the bottles to sit on the rim.
These used to be my brine shrimp rearing containers before I went to 26g garbage pails for the shrimp.

All I do is make a blend of the spirulina and water (blended 2 minutes) and add some to the container.
Here will be your problem in that it took me a while to figure out just how much to add, and that also depends on how much spirulina you mix to a given amount of water.
I prefer to add multiple times a day with small amounts of the spirulina so there is less time for any settlement.
The more settlement the sooner you have to clean out the container again. Experience is the only solution to knowing how much.
I prefer not to clean more than once a week, longer if I can.
If I don't need rots for fry, then I remove some about once a week and feed them to my tanks.
When feeding to my seahorse fry, I gut load them for a few hours in Algamac 3050, and with Dan Underwoods blend, and when the fry are 2 or 3 weeks old, I use Algamac Protein Plus and Dans blend.
The "Dan's Blend" I have contains Beta Glucan so I alternate so as not to create problems with using too much Beta.
http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Foods-Enrichments
Once gut loaded, I rinse them under the tap before adding them to my fry nurseries which in my case are up to a dozen 4 litre wide mouth pickle jars that also contain nanno.
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/rayjay/fry.html
Looking back at what I've written, it makes it look complicated but in fact it's really simple.
Add salt water to container, add rotifer starter culture, feed spirulina blend 3 times or more a day in small amounts, and then harvest as needed.

 

[Willb_253]

i love baby fish

 

[Inconservatory]

The Complete Illustrated Breeder's Guide to Marine Aquarium Fishes is an excellent all-around reference for breeding marine fish. Mr. Wittenrich goes into great detail on everything from coaxing a spawning pair, setting up a hatching and growout system, to feeding and raising larvae. It's definitely a good buy if you're looking to pursue the rewarding experience of rearing your own marine fish.

Also, as mentioned above, the MarineBreeder.org forums are a wonderful resource of up-to-date breeding methods and advice.

Best of luck to you. You've already got a breeding pair of damsels, so half of the work is already done... kinda!

 

[ac7av]

I’m unclear on what you’re rinsing under the tap before adding them to the fry nurseries?

 

[rayjay]

Whatever I'm using for fry food at the time, rotifers to begin with and later bbs. I do it to lessen the chance of introducing bacteria to the nursery containers from the rearing containers of rotifers or brine shrimp. Rearing and hatching containers of live foods are excellent breeding grounds for bacteria and you don't want to transfer that to your nursery.

 

[ac7av]

I think I’m not on the same page with your or I’m missing the obvious. How do you rinse rotifers or bbs before introducing them to the nursery? That seems imposable. Sorry if it seems like a dumb question.