my pairs never breed well!!! please help!

[superfish]

i currently have 6 pairs. 5 of them are "breeding" pairs( spawn at lease once)
but only a percula pair and a GSM spawn well. the percula pair lay around 400~500 eggs every 12 days and hatch around 300 and i can come up with around 150~200 survivors every batch. which is good.

other than that, my other pairs are never doing well.
first my ocellaris X snowflake pair, they lay around 300~400 eggs.(usually include several white color eggs), but from day2 the eggs are becoming less. on hatching day i usually have only 50~100 eggs left. i usually got only around 20~50 survivors every batch.
my other onyx pair has same problem. only got 20~50 eggs on the hatching day every time. both pairs has been in the tanks for 7 month. at first i thought new mated pairs may have this problem and the quality of eggs will be better. but they have breed 5 month with abour 8 or 9 batches but not getting better.
im not sure if it is because of the food or other things.??? here is all the info, please let me know if there is anything i did wrong.
total around 100 gal water. 8 of the 10gal tanks with a 75gal sump( around 40 gal water) 2 mag 7 pumps make sure water can be cycled at least 10 times/hour
temperature: 81.0~81.8
salinity： 1.025~1.026
food: new life spectrum (ONLY FOOD for now)
water change: i do around 5 gal = 5 % daily i know it might be too much but i need aound 5 gal of main tank water to do water change for the babies.

im thinking the problem might be because of the food. but i have heard that NLS is a very good feed. and all my pairs are eatting the same thing. but why those pairs are doing ok?

please give me some suggestions!!!
thanks!

[superfish]

oh, forgot to say the water condition is "OK" NH3 NO2 always 0 and NO3 usually around 5~10

[ichthyogeek]

It might be a nutrition issue. Are you only feeding NLS? Try adding in mysis shrimp, squid, shrimp, and other fresh seafood to the diet. From what I understand, you're having an issue with the fry surviving. For the water changes, do you mean that you change 5 gallons daily for each pair? Or is this for the brood growout tank?

[superfish]

It might be a nutrition issue. Are you only feeding NLS? Try adding in mysis shrimp, squid, shrimp, and other fresh seafood to the diet. From what I understand, you're having an issue with the fry surviving. For the water changes, do you mean that you change 5 gallons daily for each pair? Or is this for the brood growout tank?

First, thanks for the reply.
Yes I only feed them NLS right now, and I'm feeding them 3 times daily. I tried to feed two times with NLS and one time mix sea food before but I think some pairs really like the sea food and just refuse to eat pellets. That's why I stopped feeding frozen. Any suggestion on that?
I don't really have an issue with fry surviving. When they hatch I could get pretty good survive rate. The problem I have is the eggs are not lasting long. They can lay as many as 400 eggs but they just disappear before hatching.
About water change. All my pairs are in the brood stock system. Which is 100 gal. I use 5 gal of the water from this 100 gal system to do water change for the lava tanks. Then add 5 gal fresh mixed water back to the 100 gal broodstock system. Is 5gal daily too much?

[ichthyogeek]

I should probably say at this point that I get most of my information out of what I read, rather than what I've done...sorry!
1) Try feeding the NLS during the first two feedings, and the seafood at the last feeding. Usually fish are hungrier (and therefore more willing to eat) in the morning. Of course, if you are okay with feeding seafood 3x a day, then do it.
2) Are the eggs just in an aquarium with the adult clown pairs? Or are these like miniature display tanks that might have predatory organisms? If the former, then I think that the clown pairs are eating the eggs. If the latter, it may be another organism, like a hermit crab. Fish are instinctively smart: they'll get rid of any eggs that have fungus or are infertile very soon after spawning. I honestly think that the eggs are "disappearing" into the digestive tracts of the clowns. Wittenrich's book says to pull the eggs the day before the eggs usually start disappearing, if it's always occuring.
3) Check the water quality, if it's good, then you're fine. If not, then maybe do more water changes. For the larva tanks, are you dripping the water into the tanks slowly? I honestly thought you meant that the fry were dying in the growout tanks, and concluded that you were doing sudden water changes, taking water out and automatically replacing it with new water in less than an hour, rather than letting water slowly drip in and slowly change the water quality.

[JulioC]

Patience my friend!

I started with a pair of WSM wich used to lay small nests, eating most of then the first days. Now they lay HUGE nests. The same with other pair of clowns. I only feed NLS pellets because they refuse to eat them if I feed frozen or flakes...

Try to feed 5 times per day small amounts instead of 3 times.

[superfish]

yea, i think the only problem i could think of is the food.
since my water condition is good enough.
i just ordered two packs of the rods food breeder blend. hope it will work.
thanks!

I should probably say at this point that I get most of my information out of what I read, rather than what I've done...sorry!
1) Try feeding the NLS during the first two feedings, and the seafood at the last feeding. Usually fish are hungrier (and therefore more willing to eat) in the morning. Of course, if you are okay with feeding seafood 3x a day, then do it.
2) Are the eggs just in an aquarium with the adult clown pairs? Or are these like miniature display tanks that might have predatory organisms? If the former, then I think that the clown pairs are eating the eggs. If the latter, it may be another organism, like a hermit crab. Fish are instinctively smart: they'll get rid of any eggs that have fungus or are infertile very soon after spawning. I honestly think that the eggs are "disappearing" into the digestive tracts of the clowns. Wittenrich's book says to pull the eggs the day before the eggs usually start disappearing, if it's always occuring.
3) Check the water quality, if it's good, then you're fine. If not, then maybe do more water changes. For the larva tanks, are you dripping the water into the tanks slowly? I honestly thought you meant that the fry were dying in the growout tanks, and concluded that you were doing sudden water changes, taking water out and automatically replacing it with new water in less than an hour, rather than letting water slowly drip in and slowly change the water quality.

[superfish]

yea, i had the same problem, they refuse to eat pellets if they know there is better taste food coming.
its been another two nests since i started using selcon to enrich the pellets, but still didnt seen much difference.

Patience my friend!

I started with a pair of WSM wich used to lay small nests, eating most of then the first days. Now they lay HUGE nests. The same with other pair of clowns. I only feed NLS pellets because they refuse to eat them if I feed frozen or flakes...

Try to feed 5 times per day small amounts instead of 3 times.

[Jake Levi]

One thing you haven't discussed is seasonability, if they were breeding through the summer and fall and slack off they could be just needing an off-season rest. How are they doing now? What are your hrs of light? If you still want spawning increase the light duration from 12 to 15 hrs per day, and as suggested feed up to five times a day. Some harpac. copepods to hunt for around the bottom could stimulate them. Give us an update on how your pairs are doing now.

[superfish]

One thing you haven't discussed is seasonability, if they were breeding through the summer and fall and slack off they could be just needing an off-season rest. How are they doing now? What are your hrs of light? If you still want spawning increase the light duration from 12 to 15 hrs per day, and as suggested feed up to five times a day. Some harpac. copepods to hunt for around the bottom could stimulate them. Give us an update on how your pairs are doing now.

i know its old post. but with more than one year test and experiment, i think there are something i would like to share.
there are too much factors i can talk about, i think i can write a book about this..lol
i will try to open a new thread later~~~