whats a good fish/coral for a beginner to breeder?

[saltwater4life]

Alright i've had my 20g reef going for a little bit but i was at my LFS and seen this dude bring in like 20 baby clowns and he was selling them to the store so i thought about it and thought i could do this so i was woundering what would be a easy fish or even invert to try and breed in a 10g.
:arrow: Thank you,
Nick

Edit i was woundering if i could frag corals in my reef tank or not and if so what would be a good coral to try and frag?

Thanks again!

 

[vaporize]

Corals will be your best bet and provide the better economical return. Something nice and high demanded such as Xenia or colorful zoo will be the best beginner propagation candidates.

Clownfish breeding require substantial investments and knowledge. It can be done for fun, rewarding but will require a larger setup and growout time.

good luck and have fun

 

[SnowManSnow]

if youre set on fish lots of ppl have luck with cardinal fishes

i think your biggest investment wiht growing out anything in this hobby is time.

b

 

[saltwater4life]

ok i think i'll frag some corals. i fraged my green star polyp if that counts and thinking of getting zoo's and Xenias down the road so maybe a zoo or something cool thank you for the help and yea i heard cardinals are good for starters and gobys i think it was thx

 

[vaporize]

For fish breeding, cardinal is a good candidate to begin with as they only need to be fed baby brime shrimp (BBS).

For clownfish, you need rotifiers (which require phytoplankton).

For gobies, you also need rotifiers as their fries are much smaller than clown fries.

Some seahorses such as H.kuda only need BBS as fry food are good candidates.

 

[saltwater4life]

hmm ok is the phytoplankton hard to give and the set I'm wondering about the set up do i need like 5 tanks or can i go with a breeding tank and a fry tank or will the fry get eaten by the bigger fry? thx
BTW anyone got pictures of there breeding set up and equipment i'm trying to find some pictures so anything would help me

Thank you!

 

[vaporize]

phytoplanktons are not hard to get as long as you have cash or people with a culture. The trouble is in the culturing and avoid the culture crashing.

If you are set your mind in clownfish breeding, then pickup a copy of Joyce Wilkerson's book "clownfish", it will basically guide you through the basics.

 

[saltwater4life]

hmm well thats good to know and i'm trying to get a pair of ether cardinals or if not maybe a type of clown from NYAquatic.com but thx for the info about breeding hopefuly i can get a mated pair one of these days :p thx
also anyone got pictures come on...

 

[papagimp]

Definatly on the Cardinals, moreso, get a Bangaii Cardinal, they completly skip the larval stage and the male will release free swimming fry who start hunting for pods almost instantly, and can be fed on bbs. Very super easy to breed.

 

[saltwater4life]

Alright I'm ether going with clowns or cardinals now if i go with cardinals i have a few questions.
Can you sex them?
Do you let the male hold them or try to get him to release the eggs and place in a tumbler?
Can the mating pair be placed in a 10,15g?
Can the rearing tanks be 10g with heater and water change weekly?
ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD KNOW PLEASE TELL ME
Thank You Very Much!
Nick

 

[papagimp]

You probably can't sex them. Best way would be to get a group of young juvi's. Bangaii's have almost a 1m:1f ratio so odds are a small group of 4-6 will give you a compatible pair. Second, I let the male hold his clutch, yourun the risk of the babies becoming fish food, this can be alleviated by placing a black spiney urchin in the tank with em. Gives the babies a place to hide in saftey. I'd go with a 15g minimum for holding the breeding pair and a 10g should do fine for raising the babies.

furthermore, consider the differences in raising the babies. IF you get clowns, you're talking about raising rotifers and trying to raise larval fish. With bangaii's you don't have to worry bout that. brine shrimp hatching at the most (far easier than raising rotifers in my opinion) The babies are released free swimming and hunting their own food almost instantly. (granted you have to have food for them to hunt, I just got my 2 month old babies, and the subsequent batch eating on freeze dried cylopeeze, and plan to have all the new babies start on this from the getgo)

Bangaii's would be a much easier "first" fish to breed. I plan on trying clowns if/when I determine myself to be successful with rearing the bangaii's.

 

[papagimp]

oh, read this article on breeding bangaii's. I based most my practices from what I've found and read here:

http://www.raingarden.us/banggaimanual.pdf

 

[papagimp]

BTW anyone got pictures of there breeding set up and equipment i'm trying to find some pictures so anything would help me

Thank you!

check under the breeding folder, I've got a few pics that may or may not help ya out.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showgall ... 00&thumb=1

Also, there are a few pics of my phtyoplankton culturing station here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/papagimp/

 

[saltwater4life]

nice your stuff looks nice you have a few topics on breeding them on RC dont you?
OK here is my list i want people to tell me if it sounds good or not

10 or 15g pair tank

some LR,fine sand, 2 bangaii heater filter PH and a sea urchin (should i feed them bbs to get them ready to breed)

2.5g grow out tank, some LR little sand heater a bubble maker

10g grow out tank, some LR sand bubble maker filter heater

anything else i should get? small cleaner crews?

 

[papagimp]

I have a few blue legged hermit i just put in the 20g breeding tank, not sure if it was a wise move or not yet. but i wanted something in there to take care of some of the overfeeding I'm prone too.

I think a 2.5 may be small, I'm actually going to turn my 2.5 into a normal nano and start using something larger for the baby grow out. Possibly a 20Tall bare bottomed. And then a 55g holding tank for the larger juvi's.

BBS shouldn't be used to ge them ready for breeding. At least it's not neccessary. I fatten mine up on Frozen Mysis, and cyclopeeze. I'm going to try the Frozen Krill and see if they like that, and i just swiched pellets to the Therma A by New Life spectrum. Anyways, I fed no live food and they still breed like bunnies.

fwiw, I've had very small batches of babies, (12 the first, 4 the second, and he just aborted the 3rd clutch of eggs) but I did get an message a few days ago from somebody who has gotten roughly 30 out of each of his releases. i know the babies are small, but imagine 30 in a 2.5 and you wouldn't have room for many more.

 

[papagimp]

oh, one more thing. If you read through that bangaii breeding manual I posted up, they say the bangaii's tend to congregate around the sand flats and sea grass beds. It may be better to mimic this. I only have two chunks of artificial rock in my bangaii's 20g. I'm going to try and "plant" the tank almost as I would for a seahorse tank. See how that goes.

 

[saltwater4life]

ok well i guess i'll see what i can find i think i have a 5g is it ok to divide some of the babies up or should i keep them together?

So i shouldn't use sand?

Thanks
Nick

Sorry I'm tired

 

[papagimp]

it's all preferences, I have sand in mine, and a urchin now. I have two batches of babies together right now, but if they get much bigger they'll be able to eat any new young I put in there. It's just going to depend upon their size and all. I'm playing it by ear at the moment.

 

[Guzman]

just curious but how did you frag a green star polyp? I have one so thats why i am wondering.

I simply laid mine on another rock for about a month and when i lifted it off, some more little polyps grew on that rock.

just wondering what you may have done