Maroons laid eggs, now what?
 

MY gold banded maroon clown fish laid eggs in the last couple days. If I decided to try and raise the young whats the best path to success?
I know the babies would need rotifers, ect. Where would I get that type of food locally?

Does anyone have some info or some links with some good info? I've been on MOFIB, but would like someone local with knowledge of local resources to do this successfully.

Hey kelly.
Talk to Timbits. He raises baby black ice clowns and has been quite successfull doing it.

BREAK OUT THE CRACKERS

Unless you have several tanks available and lots of time, you will likely just feed your tank.

Most folks that raise them successfully will have separate grow out tanks & a good supply of phytoplankton to grow rotifers to feed the larvae for the first week or so. After that you'll need live brine shrimp to feed them after the metamorphosis stage. Need to have that stuff on the go well ahead of time. My maroons have been spawning for years now, food for the other critters when they hatch. Some day I may give raising them a go too, but don't have the phyto cultures & rotifers going to do so. It's fairly work intensive.

Better to wait for a while after the first spawn anyway. Give your maroons a bit more time to perfect their routine. Once they start spawning they'll likely continue with a break of only a few days between hatching & the next spawn.

Hmm, not quite the help I was looking for, but thanks :wink:

Yeah, this is what I was thinking too. Family was hoping we would have a tank full of Nemo's soon. I really don't need the extra work, so I'll let nature take its course.

Joyce D. Wilkerson's book Clownfishes, although a somewhat dated publication these days, is nevertheless a great resource if you're planning to raise the fry. You can probably find a copy at a library in the big city, 'cause the book seems a bit pricey on the online sites that have it available. Good info not only on raising fry, but general care & species, anemones etc. She's been a pioneer with regard to successfully breeding the critters.

While Gold striped Maroons are the most beautiful clowns IMO, they are also the real A-holes of the clownfish family. Even if you could raise the young, they start beating up on each other at a fairly young age (so you'd want to separate them) and that aggression towards other clowns stays for their entire lifetimes usually. I saw this at J&L with a tank full of ORA maroons. Lots of tattered fins.

And yeah, almost impossible to raise any clownfish from eggs inside a community reef tank.

Congrats on the new eggs! :biggrin:
Monocus usually has Rotifers and phytoplankton available. I got mine from him before. He's in burnaby.

As mike said, that is the best book in the world. That's how I learned. And I borrowed from the library too!

And as Anthony said, yes they are super aggressive even when they are little. I used to raise maroons but stopped because they just kept killing each other even as early as 2-3 weeks old. Beautiful fish though.

fry
 

i also have baby brine shrimp that are smaller than normal hatches for feeding the fry