Clownfish Fry Raising Journal Update 05/24/12

One off the things that I've done that has greatly reduced the misbars is moving them to grow out sooner. I was keeping the hatch together in the same 10g tank for almost a month before moving them to a grow out tank - now I move them at around 18 days of age. Makes a huge difference.

Good work though!!! and you'll laugh because when you run out of misbars people will start asking you for them. I get requests for misbar snows all the time.

 

Since putting the babies in their grow out tank we new we wanted to get them an anemone. We put a rose bubble in there and in less than 24 hours later they found it! Their parents won't have anything to do with anemones. Here's a quick video and pics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyueChxXQFQ

 

We were pumped! It just goes to show that the widely believed myth of captive bred clowns will not associate with anemones is bogus. =) Can't wait until there are a dozen or more of them trying to cozy into the same nem... that would be cool to see. Even cooler would be them feeding it chunks of silversides!

 

And one more video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysJd1tFiOMU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Very cool, I just read this thread the other day and I really hope to give this a try at some point in the next year. Congrats on your success, watching your steady learning curve was exciting and very encouraging.

Also, I just bought my two clowns a nem and after two days I still haven't seen them near it. Granted, the nem is hiding in a gap between two pieces of LR, but still!

 

Ha ha... that is awesome - and you're right... I think that rumor was started by someone who sells wild caught clowns. The desire to find a host is ingrained in them and they will do it naturally. Some clowns that have been raised in tanks without a nem typically take longer to discover nems because they've been so used to being hosted by a power head or a frog spawn.


My babies all start with fake rubber nems (cheesey I know) but when my customers get them and introduce a real nem the clowns take to them right away. Time after time I keep getting asked if they will take to a nem and every time they do.

There will always be those skeptics.

 

We've actually looked for fake nems but haven't been able to find any other than online shipped from China!

 

Ah, that might explain my problem (being tank-bred), albeit it's been two days. However, I do like the idea of moving them to a smaller tank with just them and the nem for a few days to 'force' them to choose it as a host. I just really REALLY don't want them falling in love with my power head and would prefer to nip this in the bud should that turn out to be the case. What's your opinion on this?

 

Where did you find your fake nem?? As Joey said we can only find them from China!LOL

 

I've seen them in Petsmart on a regular occasion? If you guys can't find them, I'll pick a couple up and mail them...they always make me chuckle but now that I see they CAN have a purpose, I'm a lot less judgemental.