October Picassos

At some point last week I realized that my Picassos had not spawned on schedule. It was a busy week but I made sure to check their Frogspawn nesting site daily. To my surprise I discovered that for the first time they changed nesting locations. They spawned on a patch of live rock directly behind the Frogspawn. I guess their normal nesting site was getting a little crowded.

I took this video last night before lights out. The clutch looks really good this time. Lots of eggs packed closely together. I stayed up just incase they hatched but nothing to report. I’m guessing they will hatch tonight based on how frequently the parents are fanning the nest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDxjPmlVEM

WoW, that is a large clutch of eggs. Hope every single one hatch for you. Looks really nice.

10.18.12… Another split hatch.

I managed to collect a hundred or so fry last night. The hatch began around 10:30PM. By midnight I could tell that it was really slowing down so I stopped.

I checked this morning and sure enough, a majority of the eggs are still waiting to hatch.

In my past experience with split hatches, the 2nd night of hatching usually results in significantly more fry. As an added bonus they should hatch within a smaller time frame.

I’m going to add tonight’s catch to the existing group. I normally like to run 24 hour lighting on the first day so this complicates things a little. The current fry will be ready for a rest period at the same time that the new ones are hatching. I don’t plan on denying them that rest period so the new fry will just have to wait until morning to begin hunting for rotifers.

mine used to do that too. kept me up two nights in a row. but i dont collect them now. i have a banggai cardinal in the tank with my pair of clowns. he seems to know hatch night. then he hangs around downstream from the eggs and snacks on larvae as they hatch. Hes a night feeder. i also keep some pepermint shrimp in the same tank. when they spawn their larvae, he swims around and gulps them up too.
fresh food.

how long do you grow them out to for sale size? mine used to take 8-9 months to get to a size i liked sell them at.

[quote=“kaptken, post:4, topic:5894”]
mine used to do that too. kept me up two nights in a row. but i dont collect them now. i have a banggai cardinal in the tank with my pair of clowns. he seems to know hatch night. then he hangs around downstream from the eggs and snacks on larvae as they hatch. Hes a night feeder. i also keep some pepermint shrimp in the same tank. when they spawn their larvae, he swims around and gulps them up too.
fresh food.

how long do you grow them out to for sale size? mine used to take 8-9 months to get to a size i liked sell them at. [/quote]

My old cleaner shrimp new when it was hatch night. I’d drop some sinking pellet food to distract him if I was collecting.

I also like the way the fish look right around the 8-9 month mark but the way demand is right now I’ve been listing them closer to 6 months. I mean, I don’t have a single picasso in growout right now. So if they’ve got enough body mass to safely ship, I’m ok listing them as early as 6 months.

I’ve seen pictures and video of designer clownfish for sale by other breeders and I swear they are selling fish as early as 4 months.

oh, then you are doing good. and feeding the fry well to grow fast and plump. in nature they can grow up and mature even faster and can spawn as early as 9-12 months. you know, the constant supply of live food and all on the reef. feeding a little, many more times a day, helps them grow faster and stronger.
Keep em comin. maybe grow more larger live foods like pods and stuff for them as they grow up. and then switch to flake and pellets to be tank ready.

[quote=“kaptken, post:6, topic:5894”]
oh, then you are doing good. and feeding the fry well to grow fast and plump. in nature they can grow up and mature even faster and can spawn as early as 9-12 months. you know, the constant supply of live food and all on the reef. feeding a little, many more times a day, helps them grow faster and stronger.
Keep em comin. maybe grow more larger live foods like pods and stuff for them as they grow up. and then switch to flake and pellets to be tank ready.[/quote]

I suppose I could give a brine shrimp hatchery a try. But it feels like a lot of work when I’m already feeding them frozen spirulina brine shrimp, mysis shrimp and cyclopseeze in addition to prime reef flakes and thera +A pellets. I think my slow growth is more due to tank size and population. I keep 25 juveniles in a 10 gallon until they get aggressive and I’m forced to separate them.

So much the better when they eat dried or frozen foods. much easier. that is the goal to get them ready for tank life in their new homes. I raised Banggai cardinals for a while, and they wouldn’t take anything but fresh hatched brine shrimp for the first 3 months. what a pain. Still i raised 60-100 ocellaris in an 10 gallon tank until they are about 3/4 inch. then up to a 29. and mixing generations some. Hey you could try adding some pepermint shrimp to the grow out tank and they will give lots of live food, while cleaning the tank of wasted food.

WIN WIN!!

I’m assuming peppermint shrimp are hermaphrodites so any 2 will do? Are they ok in an empty bare bottom tank with no overhangs?

probably. but they do need a hiding space to molt once a month. they are soft and exo-skeletonless over night while their new, soft skin hardens. and then they can walk again. give them a small rock pile or pvc tubes with holes drilled in them to grasp. i bet that works.

I forget how they go about it. but once grown, it seems my old peps used to each release a bunch of larvae every 21 days. so if you had 6-8 shrimp you might get live food every couple nights.

So it looks like this clutch wasn’t meant to be. Looking back I think the split hatches were a clear sign that something wasn’t right with the incubation process and the fry simply weren’t viable. I believe it has to do with temperature swings in the broodstock tank.

In my old apartment the tank was temperature was pretty consistent. But now that I’m in an older farmhouse I’m seeing some pretty big fluctuations in temperature between day and night. I’m adding a second heater to the display tank and increasing the minimum temperature to 78. We’ll see if that makes a difference next spawn.