Well, somewhat. The head area and a line (like this "/") down past the belly look yellow/orange to me. The back end is still dark and greyish.

New movie for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U4bvM0cwC0

Here's a crop of the baby clown jumping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshBPnE8O6w

--Andy

Day 14! Two full weeks.

Fish seemed to really put on some growth last night. They were hitting the copepods really hard before lights out. Maybe that was the reason. They seemed psyched to again have some BBS this morning, though.

First photo, note the copepod naup in the top, right corner.



Second photo, several copepods and one BBS:



And a zoom on that shot. Is this guy bucking the trend and actually starting to develop some head stripes?!?

--Andy

Day 15:

One dead body today, the first since about day 4.

--Andy

Day 16:

Some of the kids have started orienting themselves towards the walls of the tubs and have started defending little territories in the algae or whatever that's starting growing there. Oddly to me, none are claiming any of the bottom of the tank. It's all along the wall near the surface. Meta!

I need to get rid of a whole bunch of oversized brine shrimp....

--Andy

Day 17.
Another loss this morning, putting the total since ~ day 4 to two.



This is one of the fish that's staked out a territory along the tank wall:

--Andy

Day 18.

Many more site-attached juveniles today. The ranks of larvae in the water column are still pretty large, but noticeably thinner.

Larva:




Juveniles:




"Don't take my picture"

--Andy

Day 19. Meta fatalities still holding at 2.

It looks to me like more than half have made the jump past meta now. The juveniles spend a lot of time bickering along the sides until food hits the water, then most join the frenzy in the current a short distance from the tub walls. The ones that have a really good position on the walls stay and defend it. Since they have no stripes, I'm basing most of my larva/juvenile determination on behavior and on the shape of the fish's mouth. If you look, the larvae have wide mouths with bulbous semi-transparent lips. The juveniles seem to lose that in favor of a more streamlined shape. It really evident on the photos from a couple of days ago.

Larva:



Juvenile:

--Andy

Day 20.

I really try to take photos at the same time every day (before the lunch feeding), but I had to make an exception today:



First head stripe that I've seen and there are a least a couple of others running around. The number of larvae left has dwindled down to 20 or so IME and the rest are fighting amongst themselves over territory (or some other damsel thing). Looks like I need to really get going on the astaxanthin. 

--Andy

So, once you see one head stripe...

--Andy

Day 21.

I finally went all out and got a cheapo stick-on-the-side thermometer for the tub. Looks like I'm running at about 78F. Very few larvae left in the WC this morning, 7-10. Still holding at 2 deaths since day 4.

--Andy

Great pics Andy!

What kind of camera are you using? The detail on those guys is outstanding.

Thanks. 

It's an old Canon 20D (I think they are < $150 now) with the Canon 100mm macro (recently saw one for $130 used now that the 100mm with Image Stabilization is out) and an add-on flash (the one I have is about $500 used, but any flash is an upgrade over the one on the camera, and you can make a bracket to move the flash out toward the end of the lens for about $20). 

The truth is that you don't need a powerful flash at all for macro work. Your subject is so close to the end of the lens that even the weakest flash is totally adequate. The only thing you have to worry about is getting the flash mounted somewhere so that the lens itself doesn't cast a shadow on your subject (since it's so close).

Sorry I don't know why I wander away on tangents sometimes.

--Andy

Day 22. Still hanging in there, despite me completely spacing out their 4:00 p.m. feeding yesterday.

--Andy

Day 23. I've upped the temp a tad. The fish are really not very nice to each other.

"The Standoff"


"The Result"

--Andy

Looking better every day!

Save a Reef... Frag Your Own! Save a Fish... Breed Your Own! www.fishtalpropagations.com

Looking more and more like clowns.  I have a question for anyone who knows, is it normal or expected behavior for them to be territorial at such a young age or are they just playing?  I know in the wild they would be competing for food to survive but in a controlled environment there should be plenty of food so I would assume the territorial issues would not manifest until older.

(Andy, feel free to more my reply to another thread if you like.)

I can offer what I've experienced and heard... 

I don't see any major aggression in the juveniles at I've raised around the 3 week point that Andy is at. I do see some aggression in my Picasso offspring, most notably, the Platinums. The Plat's tend to be the "ring-leaders", but not to the point of killing off others.

I can say that when I talked to Kevin Kohen at MMC he said that the McCulloch offspring were very nasty from a very young age.

Save a Reef... Frag Your Own! Save a Fish... Breed Your Own! www.fishtalpropagations.com

I'm seeing frayed fins on a good number of fish. They are starting to spread out down into the tub during the day, so maybe that will help.

I did lose another one tonight, though I have no idea what caused that. I think I'm going to try connecting them to the sump tomorrow. They are hitting the powdered food more than the BBS these days, but the water gets pretty gross.

--Andy

Day 24. One fatality last night = 3 since day 4.

Moving along. It looks like they've almost grown into their bellies. Down to one BBS feeding per day now because most seem to hit the powder food with more enthusiasm. I'm thinking about putting them in-line with the sump and filter for a while today.

Still evil. I saw two strike my siphon tube this morning.

--Andy

I'm assuming that these guys are still in the BRT... what, if any, filtration do you have running at this point?

Save a Reef... Frag Your Own! Save a Fish... Breed Your Own! www.fishtalpropagations.com