Thanks for the kind words everyone
As for the write up on the Clownfish breeding in particular, here goes:
1) Get a pair of Clownfish, here I was lucky enough to purchase a mated pair so that issue was sorted out fairly quickly.
2) I found that the Clownfish would lay eggs nearby a flat rock wherever the torch coral that they were hosting in was. So this meant finding a nice flat piece of live rock to put the torch coral on and for another reason that I will mention later.
3) The next thing to do was just bide my time and wait for the Clownfish to lay their eggs for the first time, this happened roughly a month after getting them.
4) Once the Clowns were readily laying eggs I began to document how many days until hatch and how many more days until laying again. I always read about Clowns doing this like clockwork but couldnt believe how truly efficient they really are. This pair will lay eggs followed by 10 days until hatch and another 6 days until the next clutch is layed. No deviations from this time frame whatsoever.
5) Once I was comfortable with their schedule I then got my hands on some phytoplankton and zooplankton. Growing and maintaining these batches is fairly straightforward and the instructions can be found with a simple Google Search.
6) Once I got suitable amounts of Phyto and Zooplankton going I decided it was now time to give my first try at raising a clutch. What I didnt know about at this time was that there were two methods of hatching the clowns. The first is to simply wait a couple of hours after lights out with all pumps off and then siphon the fry out and the second is to place a piece of tile where the clowns normally lay their eggs and then remove the piece of tile on the night of the hatch. I attempted the first method and failed dismally because the siphoning proved too stressful and my Banggai's are incredible hunters at night.
7) After this setback I did some research and came upon the tile or slate method and thought I would give it a go. This is where the other reason for a flat piece of live rock comes in. The female clown does not like change in her territory so any odd object will be thrown right off unless on a solid base, but putting a flat tile on a flat live rock means that she couldn't get underneath it and had to accept it, which she normally does a couple hours later.
8) Now I just had to wait for the next clutch of eggs to be laid which was done on the piece of tile and I just had to wait another 10 days until hatch night.
9) On hatch night I would wait for literally one minute before lights out and put a bucket into the water and transfer the piece of tile into the bucket without the eggs getting any exposure to air.
10) I then take the bucket and place an air line inside along with a small heater. Bubbles are then blown onto the eggs to keep bacteria off and help with the fry hatching. This is very tricky to do as the speed of the bubbles needs to be just right, not too strong and not too soft. I then put a cover over the top of the bucket to keep any light out until the next morning.
11) Everything going well you should wake up to a bucket teeming with tiny clowns. Now I transfer the clowns into a small one foot tank with a heater and airline and nothing else. The sides of the tank are completely blacked out and a small fluorescent light placed on top that i keep on 24/7 for 7 days.
12) Now is time to get the fry eating which means putting in some zooplankton along with some phytoplankton. The clowns only eat the zooplankton but the phytoplankton is the main source of nutrition which the zooplankton do eat. I ensure that the tank is always full of zooplankton so that the clowns can always be eating.
13) After 7 days of eating zooplankton I start to introduce baby brine shrimp. What is important here is to not go cold turkey on the zooplankton but rather slowly phase them out over a period of 7 days.
14) After 7 days the clowns are now completely on baby brine shrimp and significantly larger. I now move all of the fry along with the baby brine shrimp into a two foot tank with a heater and corner sponge air filter. This tank has three sides blacked out and the front pane left open. It also has a 20 watt LED floodlight that i keep on a 12 hour day/night cycle.
15) Now everything gets really simple as over another 7 days I begin to phase in crushed flake food that the clowns slowly start to take a liking to.
16) At 21 days everything is smooth sailing and the clowns are happily eating crushed food. Now its time to just sit back and watch them grow.
Just some other important tips that I want to share to hopefully make this process easier for other prospective breeders:
1) Timing and method of taking the tile with eggs on is crucial. The male clown looks after the eggs far better than I can so that is why I take the tile out at the last minute.
2) Have two identical tiles that you can continually swap on each hatching night so that the parents dont get upset at a different looking territory the next morning.
3) Getting the rate of bubbles over the eggs after the transfer is extremely tricky. Too slow and the eggs can be overrun by white bacteria in matter of 15 minutes, too fast and the eggs may detach from the tile or the clowns may hatch and then be beaten around by the excessive water movement.
4) Dont worry about the looks of the grow out tank, the more algae the better the way i see it and the baby clowns love wriggling on the soft hair algae on the tank. Another cool thing to do is put some chaeto or caulerpa in the tank to act as a means of cleaning the water a little bit.
So thats how i managed to do it and as with anything there are other ways but this is the way that worked for me. Once you've got your own method down pact though, it really is one of the most rewarding things you can do.
