The Lightning Project

The ongoing saga of the PNG Lightning Maroon Clownfish breeding project.

Browsing Posts tagged artificial incubation

So I discovered a trick last night – if I run my finger over a clownfish nest, the fish inside the eggs will wiggle if alive. So despite having had no appreciable hatch all day, I pulled the tile, sanitized it again with H2O2, and threw it back in the larval tank.  I DID get […]

Lots going on in the basement. Spawn #33 is almost all through meta at this point, so this afternoon I turned on the system water.  It’s sad that I’ve never used my larviculture system as it was meant to be used by design, but hey, finally, I’m doing it right.  The system water is dripping […]

As of 11 AM, it’s a small hatch on Spawn #34.  I added a little RotiGreen Omega to help keep the fish off the walls, and will check a bit later to see if the hatch has improved during the day.

Spawn #33 – Starting midday on 6/9, the first larvae started showing signs of metamorphosis and settlement; white spots on the heads of the Lightnings are among the first signs; most are through meta today. Spawn #34 – Tonight is the scheduled hatch night; I used the 4 ml H2O2 / 0.5 gallon broodstock water […]

It is now a fact – big Lightning Maroon Clownfish hatches are happening in the morning. I went to bed sometime after 4:30 AM on June 1st, and a few hours later, around 8:30, the kids woke me up. So, I went down to look at the BRT – just a handful of larvae.  I […]

It’s the night of 5/31 going into 6/1/2014, and right before 2:00 AM (6/1) I pulled the tile for the sanitizing H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) dip. While going through the 15 minute treatment at 4 ML per 0.5 gallons of broodstock water, I wiped out the BRT which was used for Spawn #32 and refilled it […]

Based on my calculations, 5/20 is the night we’re due to first have hatches. Having moved all the fry from Spawn #30 into a BRT “on the system”, I wiped down and drained their BRT, and refilled it with water from the Lightning Maroon’s broodstock aquarium. The tile with eggs (huge nest, 4″ X 2″) […]

In short, Spawn #29 was not pulled on Monday, the 14th, as I had initially suspected.  Looking at it, I opted to wait until Tuedsay, the 15th, to pull it, 7th day post spawn.  I used well-aged new saltwater which was 1.026; same as the broodstock water.  Water temp may have been a couple degrees […]

Talking with Mike on Friday, as best as we can figure out Spawn #25 was put down Saturday, February 22nd. This fits the timeline…come Friday night (Feb 28th) we’d be at 6 days post spawn, which is the earliest eggs hatch. I opted to wait until the 7th night, which was last night (Saturday, March […]

I left for Reef Currents this past weekend in Houston, hosted by MARSH, and well, it was the typical dice roll of being a speaker…some things will be fine, and some things just won’t work out.  BTW, it was a great event – thanks for having me guys! Spawn #24 never really hatched.  Despite being […]