First Successful Batch

The weekends work best for me, but  I would be more then happy to come over :). We can get all excited over our fish nerdism.. lol.

 I can understand your frustration, I did the same thing. It took me about 5 hatches before I got it down.  I would definitely stick with your percs rather then maroons, they are far more difficult.

Mark, if you look at the second pic you'll see the light is to the side of the larva tank, not right above it.

In my tank the larvae just kind of dissolved soon after they died.
Maroon larvae are so much smaller than Percula/Ocellaris, If it were me, I'd just focus on the Percula larvae. They are much more popular than Maroons anyway.

I also noticed that bright light right over the larvae. I can see from the pic that it's much closer to the larvae than I would do. My larvae tank had very little light over it. Have you seen the pics? Before I left, did you see my Clownfish Nursery?

I'm wondering if we might start at the beginning to evaluate your setup? Would that be okay?

What size is this tank and why is it divided into 6 sections?


Edited by Mark Peterson - September 13 2011 at 6:14pm

Ahhhh ok. What about the lighting? Is it directly over the acclimation box? When mine first hatch I use a paper towel under my light so the light is not too bright, but bright enough for them to search for rotifers.
 What kind of lighting?

 Pam

How do you clean the sand?
 Pam

Mark is going to be much more equipped to help you with your set up. From what I have seen of yours and his, they are very close to the same kind of set up. I raise my clowns in 10 gallon, bare bottom tanks. If I have a problem with the rotifers I can just vacuum the bottom of the tank to clear them. I can clearly see the free swimming rotifers and I keep my water much greener then yours.

  My basic set up is a sponge filter, heater, cheato and bubbler.. that's it. I don't use sand, rock or anything else. Once the babies get a little larger and go through meta I add a clay pot and maybe a piece of LR.

 Remember one they go through meta it is very difficult for them. You will also have loss there. I have found depending on the species it usually is between day 7 to 12. They will get kinked tales and mine usually are less active and hover on the bottom.

 As I have said before, the first few batches were very hard for me and a learning experience. In my first batch, I was only able to keep 1 alive. After time I was able to find what worked for me and tweaked things which in turn I had better success.

 What kind of filtration do you have?
 
 Pam

  I LOVE it!

This is awesome! Yep, their cute little bellies are nice and silver when they are full of rotifers :). You should be very proud.

  Russ and Kathy had a crash and lost a lot of babies. They since have been so busy I don't believe they have been raising larvae lately.
 I was able to raise 8 baby maroons :). I know that sounds lame , but these little buggers were hard for me compared to my Mochas.

 I can't wait until my clowns start laying again.
 Pam

I was giving them to pam but they stoped laying although I think they might be laying behind the rock but I cant really tell

Edited by davser - September 11 2011 at 12:38pm