Pickles Clowns

That's right... In short I run a 16 hour photoperiod, SG down to 1.020, temps up to 84 degrees and feed, feed and feed again. Prior to spawning my pairs would get 4 or more feedings a day. After they start spawning I still feed at least 3 times a day and focus on getting them protein rich foods.

 

Pickle,

I have a question about inbreeding please.

If you find a desired trait, lets say one or two out of the same hatch has that trait, do you keeping trying with further hatches to find 2 from different hatches, with the same trait, rather than pairing the two from the same hatch?

Not sure that even makes sense.

Is there some ball park range as to how many times you can breed two clownfish from the same hatch until you start to see significant genetic issues?

 

Great question - I've done a lot of research on the subject and I have to say that opinions do vary to some degree.

First off fish generations are noted as F1, F2, F3 and so on. F1 being the parent pair and F2 being 2nd generation and so on.

Now most researchers agree that most clowns on the same reef are related. So you have to imagine that the inbreeding goes back pretty far.

Most breeders do not like to go further than F4 or 5 - but it's been noted that you can go as far as F10 before seeing any issues.

I don't see a need to inbreed - one clown can and will pass genes to offspring regardless of the mate - and a breeding pair can produce fry for a very long time. My pairs are F1 so anyone who purchases a pair from me can be confident that they will not run into any problems should they decide to breed them.

 

You won't get platinums from a platinum pair, that's for sure!

 

Why not?

 

What about a platinum female and a premium Picasso?

 

rrgc 50 on N-R has platinums from his premium picasso pair. He's actually selling some right now. If you check out his ad you can see them in the video - pretty sweet. He also has some really awesome patterns on some of the juvi's.

I mentioned I had a huge hatch the other night. Today was the first time the green water lightened up to get a good look at them and this is definitely my largest hatch to date. There are around 300 fry in the tank.

I was also expecting a large nest from my female today and did she ever deliver!!! She normally looks like she swallowed a marble on spawn day but this morning she looked like she swallowed 2 of them! The high protein diet is paying off!

 

Sorry if you've already mentioned this somewhere, but what dies your high protein diet consist of?

 

Blended seafood - whatever is fresh (slim pickings here in the central valley) along with clams (very high protein) mixed with cylopeeze, spirulina and other fish foods. Liquefied in the blender and frozen flat in zip lock freezer bags.

I basically googled seafood with high protein content, made a list and went to the grocery store to see what I could find. My fish and juvi's love it.

The next time I make a batch I'm adding some fresh veggies.

Seriously worth it, it makes great feed and it's cheap to do. I think I spent $10 at the grocery store the last time I did it and made 3 and half freezer bags worth of food. That will last me a long time.

 

So I've been saying this last hatch is large... well I tried to get a count tonight here are a couple of pics:



And then counting:



I got to about 240 and that's a shot of 3/4 of the tank and there where at least another 100 on the sides.



Funny part is my wife walked in and told me to stop counting and to feed them because the water was too light and they needed rotifers!

I'm going to make a (fish) breeder out of her yet!