Breeding Amphiprion Ocellaris aka Clownfish, Part 2

Setup

I started out with a 1-gallon container. Many people use a 10-gallon filled up halfway; 1-gallon works for me to keep the food dense enough for the larvae. I put in the container a heater set for 84 degrees, a thermometer, a bubbler with airstone going at a couple bubbles per second, and an ammonia alert badge. It’s important to place the tubing underneath the heater so that the bubbles can disperse the heat. Then I cover the container with a black trash bag. You can paint it black instead. Try to keep the nursery as dark as possible -- ambient lighting will be plenty. If the fry are diving to the bottom of the tank or if they’re spinning in circles, there is too much light.

At 3 weeks old, I transferred the fry to a 2.5 gallon container and added a couple fake anemones. These are actually rubber hair balls purchased from Walmart. I filled in the insides with small rubble so they won’t float. You’ll have to wash them once a week. At this point I have about 150~200 fry.

At 2 months old, they need to be moved to a 5~10 gallon tank, just a regular set up with a HOB filter would be fine. Just upgrade tank size as they get bigger. We put ours in a tank connected to the main tank. We don’t have to worry about temperature, aeration, or cleaning after this point.

Laying Eggs

The eggs are usually laid about two hours before lights out. You will see the parents busily cleaning their home to prepare the eggs.

Here are some videos of them cleaning:

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8880784457385258064
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-914302733 886267229
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=994738178903733361

In this video, if you look closely, you can see a tube hanging off the female’s belly

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8117607541397379395

In this video, you can see the female rubbing her belly against the pot to lay eggs

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8771748278921913156

Eggs are laid. The male takes care of them:

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3741955272030487928
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8639079414607793140

Once the eggs are laid, they will be orange and then they turn black. The eggs will begin developing silver eyes at about day 6~8, that’s when they’re ready to hatch within a day or two. Let’s say, on day 6, you see the eggs with silver eyes, then you’ll need to get a flashlight and wait by the tank after lights out for about two hours. May need to turn powerheads off. Shine the flashlight at the eggs. If you see larvae hatching, quickly remove the egg mass from the tank and put it in the nursery that you set up for the fry. From this point on, every batch will most likely hatch on day 6, you won’t have to play the waiting game anymore. If after waiting about two hours, you don’t see them hatching, then
turn the powerhead back on and go to sleep. Repeat the steps tomorrow night.

Capturing Fry

I find that the best way to hatch the clownfish fry is to put a terracotta pot near anemone hosting the clownfish pair so that they will lay their eggs in the pot. I’ve seen people use tile and plastic, but the pot works better for me because the parent pair usually prefer to lay their eggs in a cave. By doing so, you can remove the pot the night of hatching and put it in the fry tank instead of trying to find them in the main tank after the lights go out.

When hatching the eggs, this is the set up:

Some time before the eggs are ready, you want to already set up the nursery so that the temperature is the same as the main tank. On the night of hatching, after lights go out, remove the pot from the main tank and place it in the nursery. The pot has a small hole underneath. Put the tubing through the hole from the bottom, and attach the airstone from the inside of the pot. Do this very gently in the nursery tank, don’t crush the eggs. Place the airstone near the egg mass so that the bubbles keep the eggs moving. Turn the bubbles to about medium strong, not too strong or it’ll blast the eggs off and kill the fry. Last thing, cover the tank completely so no light penetrates through. You can actually
set up the tank in a room or bathroom without windows and just close the door. Wait about an hour and you can check on them. If not all the eggs hatched, wait another hour or so. After the eggs hatch (some eggs may not hatch at all), place the pot back into the main tank. Turn the heater up to 84 degrees. If your nursery is a 10 gallon tank, you may want to empty the tank half way, 5 gallon of water is plenty. Or if you have another smaller nursery set up, you can scoop the fry up and transfer them. Make sure that the walls of the nursery tank are covered in black all the way around, so that no light penetrates through from the sides. You can put a desk lamp near by or set the nursery near the main
tank to get some ambient lighting. If the larvae are diving to the bottom or spinning, then there’s too much light, just move the lighting source and the nursery farther apart. Add some phytoplankton to the nursery (to help diffuse light and also feed the rotifers). It’s probably past midnight now, so before heading to bed, feed them some rotifers.

Next month, we'll go through Feeding, Cleaning, and Other Important Factors.