I have been running a breeding setup for about about a year now. This started off as a partitioned 7 foot long tank and is now 8 x 55L tanks (15US Gal) with the 7 foot tank as a common
sump.
So far the breeding of fish has been non existent. I also have Peppermint shrimp, Redline Cleaner shrimp and Blood shrimp this has been more fruitful so far.
I have 8 pairs of clowns of various species a pair of orchid dottie backs.
For the last few months I have had very regular spawning s in my reef tank and eggs from my Blue Tang pair and from a Blue Green Chromis pair.
I have not collected either of these as I wanted to try with clowns and the Tang's and Chromis are not exactly starter breeding species.
My clowns however have been fairly unhelpful in the process so far and have not laid eggs, or in the case of my reef tank have, but have then eaten them within 24 hours or so.
In the last week, I now have eggs from the two separate pairs, both Ocellaris Clownfish and Cinnamon Clowns. I also had about 12-15 eggs from the Orchid Dottie Backs but these have disappeared.
The clown eggs are 4 and 5 days old and seem to be doing well.
The Ocellaris eggs have changed from bright orange balls to darker coloured oval shaped balls, with what appears to be eyes forming the end not attached to the glass.
the Tomato clowns are a day or so behind in development.
I am probably going to let both of these clutches of eggs go as I am going to be away for a few days when they hatch. If not I will test out the collection process with some lavae snaggers.
I have an
Algae Cupboard that I have built using 2L soda bottles for breeding Rotifers and Brine Shrimp. I have a selection of Reeds
algae products to grow these with. So Im going to start getting these both up to speed, so that I can look to rear the larvae on the next batch.
At this stage, I don't have a separate system for growing the lavae, I'm looking to use black round tubs that I have purchased for the task. These will be plumbed to a seperate system just for Larvae.
Lighting will be provided by LED
lighting with a dimmer control. I will control this from my aquarium controller that manages both my reef and my breeding setup.
Once I have some news on how I'm going Ill share some more.
At this stage, I'm at least starting to have some results with the fish which is great.
edit: it's Cinnamon Clownfish that have laid not Tomato clowns.