Breeding Amphiprion Ocellaris aka Clownfish, Part 1

Introduction

Breeding clownfish can be extremely fun, but also tiring! It’s like having newborns, but hundreds of them (if you know what I mean, moms and dads). The important thing to understand is that different breeders have different strategies of breeding clownfish, and depending on the type of clownfish, the methods would somewhat vary. For example, Perculas grow slower than Ocellaris, so their feeding schedules are different. In this article, I will explain my method of breeding Ocellaris Clownfish.

Getting Started

Materials:

½ gal, 2 gal, 5 gal, 10 gal tanks	Siphon made from rigid and flexible
Air pump w/ tubing and air stone	Pipette
A tubing valve to adjust the bubbles	Coffee filters or rotifer strainer
Small 25W heater	A dense rotifer culture
Thermometer	Baby brine shrimp
Ammonia Alert Badge	Marine flake food
PH Alert Badge	Selcon

Timeline (more photos can be found on the DFWMAS forums here )

Day 0 – Eggs laid – eggs are orange, turn black the following morning

Day 5~6 – Eyes on the eggs (about to hatch)

Day 6~8 – hatching within an hour of lights out
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5379792190255865723

7 days old – Pink bellies from eating rotifers
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3405353085273591211

¬9 days old – Some began metamorphism
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7951364583078468252

11 days old – Some began 2nd stripe
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7194387265019837939

12 days old – Size compared to the heater and airline tubing
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7968450487206047681

14 days old – Increase aeration a notch
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-180844083659102186

18 days old – A lot of them already began developing the 3rd stripe as well as black on the bottom fins; they’re clustering together in tight groups
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2425072497756996830

21 days old – They’re about ½” now. Transferred them to a 2-gallon container; introduced a fake anemone
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6164908567795921042

6 weeks old – Some of the bigger ones pick on the smaller ones
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2448525129966344613

7 weeks and 2 days old – Went straight for the mushroom in a 1.5 gallon pico
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7923894977653928896

9 weeks old – began developing black on the tail, look pretty much like an adult clown now After this, they pretty much remain the same, just grow very slowly. Generally, they would be ready to sell in about 4~6 months. Some of the runts will remain smaller, may be even half the size.

*More videos can be viewed on the right column of Google video*
Next month, we'll go through Setup, Laying Eggs, and Capturing Fry.