The Picasso Clownfish Breeding Project

And so it begins. Actually, it began about five years ago.

I was living in Bloomington, Indiana at the time. Nano-reefs were the new frontier in reef keeping and every discussion board was filled with hobbyists discussing cubes cracking or pods overheating. I had gone with the 12 Gallon Nanocube myself and after a few months of cycling I took at trip out to Inland Aquatics to do some stocking. I set out that morning to buy some soft corals but I ended up with a new appreciation for the art of clownfish breeding. I went home with a pair of "Onyx" Percs for $499.

A few years later, I found myself stocking a new reef system and had fallen in love with the unique quality of the "Picasso" Percula. There was a huge waiting list at my LFS to obtain one. After a 6 month wait, my LFS called to tell me they had some ORA Grade A Picasso Percs in stock. The selection was terrible.

That had settled it for me. I was tired of waiting and sick of the ridiculous prices for mediocre specimens. I've had over twenty years of experience in this hobby. How hard can breeding Picasso Clownfish be?

The Design Concept

I'm going to fast forward a bit. I've moved back to Delaware now. I've read Joyce Wilkerson's book cover to cover. I've also followed other people's logs as they try to adventure into aquaculturing marine fish. Here's my design concept for the Brood Stock Tank with an attached Grow-Out Tank.



So what I've done here is piggyback a 20 Gallon Tank onto a 40 Gallon Breeder Tank and 22 Gallon Sump/Refugium. Water begins in the Sump/Refugium where it is pumped at 300 gph into the 40 Gallon Breeder. As the water level rises, water is transported through a 1" Gravity Siphon into the 20 Gallon Tank. As the water fills the 20 Gallon tank, it dumps into an overflow box which funnels it back down through a wet/dry filter into the Sump/Refugium.

DIY Components

Stands - So what fun would this be if I didn't make some DIY mistakes along the way? The first disaster was trying to save money on the stands. I'm too embarrassed to post a pic of the PVC/Wood hybrid looking stands I made for under $20. They were level, I'll give them that. But there was no way they'd support the weight over time. I replaced them with some steel stands I got at the Home Depot for $50 that can support 1,000 lbs per shelf.

Wet/Dry - I drilled a couple holes in a 4 inch PVC pipe and filled it with bioballs. BAM! Wet/Dry Filter.

22 Gallon Sump - This baby was a real steal at the Home Depot. I had to research plastics a bit but most food-safe plastics are safe. I drilled a hole for the Wet/Dry PVC pipe and a window for a coralife power compact light fixture. There's 1 inch of live argonite sand in there along with about 25 lbs of live rock.

Tank Cycling/Initial Setup

40 Gallon Breeder Tank, 20 Gallon Grow-Out Tank, 22 Gallon Sump/Refugium.


40 Gallon Breeder with an Amphiprion ocellaris lending a hand with the cycling process.


She is a bit camera shy. And she is anxious to get back to her 90 Gallon once her job is done!


First Brown Diatom Algae growth on the Clay Flower Pot.


Lighting for 22 Gallon Sump/Refugium.


Live Rock and Live Sand Refugium.

I love the sump, great idea and economical. I don't want to say what I paid for mine, if I only knew then..............

Originally Posted by tcwayne

I love the sump, great idea and economical. I don't want to say what I paid for mine, if I only knew then..............

Man I agree, cool idea for the sump, I know what I paid for mine.

Nice looking setup. How long has it been running?

09.09.09. DIY Stands assembled and Tanks put into position for leveling.
09.12.09 Tap water added for leak testing.
09.13.09 Tanks drained after discovering PVC shelving had "settled" almost 1/4" overnight and Breeder Tank appeared to be leaning diagonally forward. Broke down entire setup.
09.14.09 Consulted with my dad who was a mechanical engineer about the stands. Opted to scrap the DIY stands and purchased Home Depot steel stands rated for 1,000 lbs per shelf. Re-assembled. Filled with tap water.
09.15.09 Leak test passed. Added hardware and began circulating the water. Discovered design flaw with the DIY Gravity Siphon. I thought a 3/4" tube would easily transfer 300 gph. It didn't. The Gravity Siphon wasn't working fast enough. Went to Home Depot and upgraded to 1" tubing. That did the trick. Added Salt to the system.
09.16.09 Added Live Sand to the Sump.
09.25.09 Added Live Rock to the Sump.
09.27.09 Discovered a leak in the overflow box where it connects to the flex tubing. Fixed it.
09.28.09 Discovered another leak in the overflow box where it connects to the flex tubing. Fixed it.
09.30.09 Discovered yet another leak in the overflow box where it connnects to the flex tubing. Added enough Silicon to reinforce the Hoover Dam.
10.05.09 Added 5 year old Amphiprion ocellaris to assist with cycling.
10.08.09 Discovered first Brown Diatom Algae growth. Also noticed dozens of Copepods and Amphipods throughout the entire system. They had to have started in the Sump and expanded through a 325 GPH pump and the 1" Gravity Siphon!

Looks like a great set up Jason...will be curious to see how it all works out for you...
I too read her book cover to cover (several times) along with a couple months of other fun research reading and I will tell you this: ONLY use it as a guide and starting point. You'll learn on your own what really works!

I'm planning on posting our experience with raising clowns very soon - hopefully this weekend. I'll keep 'ya in the loop!

09.30.09 Discovered yet another leak in the overflow box where it connnects to the flex tubing. Added enough Silicon to reinforce the Hoover Dam.


That's funny

The Search For Broodstock

For close to a year now I've been searching for some nice Picasso Percs. When I decided a few months ago that they were going to be for Broodstock, it made the search much more complicated.

Picassos do occur naturally. But since I'm not ORA or Bill Addison, I think the odds of me landing some prized specimens from the Solomon Islands are slim to none. (If anyone does have access to an industry insider, please let me know!) That leaves me with tank-raised fish.

Ideally, I'd like to know what generation they are, what their parents looked like and where they originated from. Again, I doubt that will happen. I hesitate to even mention this but the internet is flooded with rumors of the popular fish farms sterilizing their fish though they deny it.

I've been in touch with a LFS in New Jersey called Ocean Gallery Aquatics. I asked them to contact me if they had any Picassos in stock. I decided to check in with them today and see if they had anything since I haven't heard from them in awhile. Here's the response I got:

"Oh man…total communication breakdown. I had the ones that ORA had on display at MACNA. They were real beauties. I shipped them to Hong Kong today. In the future, I’ll send pics to you when I get them in."

Whoops.

Looks good Jason but may I ask why you chose a wet dry over live rock?

Originally Posted by skinz78

Looks good Jason but may I ask why you chose a wet dry over live rock?

Sure can. (But I actually do have about 25 lbs of live rock in the sump just for the record!)

I think what you're asking is why I went with a wet/dry filter at all given how much bad press they've gotten over the past few years. And the reason is simple: a potentially huge bioload.

This isn't a reef system I'm building. It's a breeding tank and grow-out tank for as many as 200-300 juvenile clownfish. There is simply no way that live rock and protein skimming could keep up with that.

The reason people are terrified of having bioballs even in the same room as their reef tank is that they do a great job of biological filtration but gradually cause the nutrient levels to rise in a reef tank. That's great for macro algae systems but pretty weaksauce for corals that thrive in nutrient-void water.

I'm stacking filtration in anticipation of the bioload. Both tanks are bare-bottomed so that I can easily siphon out debris. I'm also running a biowheel filter on each tank for carbon and mechanical filtration in additon to the wet/dry and live sand/live rock sump.

Anyone think I'm crazy or wrong about this? Please let me know!

I hesitate to even mention this but the internet is flooded with rumors of the popular fish farms sterilizing their fish though they deny it.

People say this a lot but its not the case. First, how would you sterilize a fish? What happens with these type of designer fish is they keep inbreeding the ones with the best markings and over time they become infertile. This can be a problem with any selective breeding project. You want to keep the gene pool tight so you get the traits you want but not so tight that you start getting funky mutations.

I've been in touch with a LFS in New Jersey called Ocean Gallery Aquatics. I asked them to contact me if they had any Picasos in sttock. I decided to check in with them today and see if they had anything since I haven't heard from them in awhile. Here's the response I got:

"Oh man…total communication breakdown. I had the ones that ORA had on display at MACNA. They were real beauties. I shipped them to Hong Kongtodaay. In the future, I’ll send pics to you when I get them in."

Whoops.

The Frazer Zoo had a few just a few weeks ago. And there is a hobbyist in Jersey that breeds them.

Originally Posted by Reef Clowns Aquaculture

Sure can. (But I actually do have about 25 lbs of live rock in the sump just for the record!)

I think what you're asking is why I went with a wet/dry filter at all given how much bad press they've gotten over the past few years. And the reason is simple: a potentially huge bioload.

This isn't a reef system I'm building. It's a breeding tank and grow-out tank for as many as 200-300 juvenile clownh. Thereere is simply no way that live rock and protein skimming could keep up with that.

The reason people are terrified of having bioballs n in thethe same room as their reef tank is that they do a great job of biological filtration but gradually cause the nutrient levels to rise in a reef tank. That's great for macro algae systems but pretty weaksaucer corals ls that thrive in nutrient-void water.

I'm stacking filtration in anticipation of the bioload. Botanks ar are bare-bottomed so that I can easily siphon out debris. I'm also running a biowheel filton each ch tank for carbon and mechanical filtration in additon to thet/dry ry and live sand/live rock sump.

Anyone think I'm crazy or wrong about this? Please let me know!

Let me point out a few potential problems.

You really dont want all those tanks connected for a larval rearing system. When the eggs first hatch the fry are about the size of fleas. You want to place them in something like a 10g tank with only 2 or 3 gallons of water in it. You do this because you will need to get the rotifer density to about 10 to 15 rotifers per millileter. Getting rotifers 10 to 15 per ml in 3g of water is pretty easy. Getting it to that in 60g is going to take a whole lot of rotifers.

Also with a connected system like that your fry are going to spread throughout the whole system. They are going to get stuck in the liverock, bioballs, biowheel, everywhere. A system like that will be fine for after they are a month or two old but really you dont need it. We raise ours in the same tank from fry to out the door. We rely on small daily water changes and cleanings to keep the water clean. The only biological filtration we use is sponge filters and they are added at about 3 to 4 weeks.

Oh, I had no intention of raising the fry in this system! I'm well aware that I'll need a Larval Tank for that purpose. I'm still shopping for a 5-10 Gallon round bowl of sorts that does not have any edges to maximize water movement and does not have any corners that the fry can swim into. Haven't found the perfect fit just yet but I've got plenty of time to shop around.

The 20 Gallon Grow-Out Tank was going to be for when the offspring were at least 6-8 weeks old and have begun polluting the Larval Tank so badly that daily water changes no longer suffice. I'm not exactly sure how big the Juvenile fish will be at that point but I can always cover up the HOT filter's slits with a sponge if I need to. Same with the overflow box.

It's actually pretty easy for a big corporate fish farm to sterilize fish before going to market. I think it's common practice with aquaculture farms that produce fish for consumption. They can do it chemically with hormones or through radiation. A big internet buzz started when someone claims they went to pick up some Snowflake Clowns at ORA and were told specifically that the pair had not been sterilized.

From Babies to Broodstock

I'd like to introduce everyone to the "Picasso 6"!


They are 4-6 month old offspring of an ORA Snowcasso (exceptional grade Picasso) and a WC Solomon Islands True Perc. I apologize for the poor image quality. They are still-frames from an online video but you can get the general idea. I'll have new pics up in about a week.

I wasn't expecting to get six initially but the prices were very reasonable and I figured the more pairs the better. So I've got a question for everyone...

To facilitate breeding pairs as quickly as possible, what do you think the allocation of fish should be?

A. 6 clowns in 1 tank
B. 3 clowns in 2 tanks
C. 2 clowns in 3 tanks

According to Joyce's book, two clowns per tank is the fastest way to go about doing this. The fish spend less time and energy fighting over territory and you don't waste a single fish on being non-reproductive.

But I like the idea of letting the fish pick their own partners. If I started with all six in one tank (or even just three in two tanks) I'm giving them a chance to do just that. Thoughts?

I'd say either 2 in 3 tanks or 3 in 2 tanks...

2 to a tank: we bought our saddlebacks together (2) but they weren't mated at the time...then we added them to the 75g with a carpet anemone and 6 chromis (that was our clam display tank)...within 4 months they were mated and a few months later laying eggs regularly.

3 to a tank: we have 3 ocellaris clowns in our 180g. They all stuck together for the first year - no pairs. All 3 hosted with a couple of different corals over the year (killing them) and then finally took to the LTA that we had in the tank from the start...Still no pairs...a year later the LTA got sucked one too many times in the pump and was done so the 3 moved to the toadstool as a host..A few months later it was obvious that 2 of them mated...they've been laying eggs as a pair now for a little more than a year now.

So both methods worked but from our experience it seems as though 2 to a tank worked faster...or it could've been the species and the fact that they hosted with their natural host.

I wrote a "clownfish spawning" thread that you may be interested in: Clownfish Spawning

Keep us posted for sure! BTW: LOVE the fish!

Thanks for the feedback, I think you've really helped me make up my mind.

I'm going to split the fish into three pairs when I receive them. Two will go in this 40/20 gallon setup, the third will go in my 24 gallon reef.

Good idea!