International Malaysia-Indonesia-Thailand SIC, Vol 2 (2017), 1-4 Symposium on Innovation and Creativity (imit-sic), Vol 2 (2017) pp 251-255 e-isbn: 978-967-14017-5-0 CONTROLLING AND INFLUENCING THE GROWTH AND BREEDING SUCCESS ON DIFFERENT GENDER OF COMMON CLOWNFISH AND TOMATO CLOWNFISH USING FEED AS KEY FACTOR FROM WITHIN Zulkifli Bin Hamzah 1 1 UiTM Perlis, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia. Email: zulkifli89.zh@gmail.com Abstract: Ornamental fish trade industry keep expanding year after year, and the demand for ornamental fish especially the marine fish from coral reef area is increasing rapidly. The magnificent aura of authentic and exotic marine fish capture the heart of marine hobbyist and breeders around the world. Some prefer cute little fish in their aquarium, while some prefer bigger size fish even though if in the same species. This demand for various size of fish in the aquarium fish trade have sometime become a bit of problem to fish supplier especially if they only have small variation of stock fish size. This study aims to tackle this problem by giving some insight for fellow breeders and keepers about which feed to give to their ornamental fish stock as to maintain and control the fish growth and in the same time keeping the fish healthy without starving them. This study also aims to investigate the effect of each feed affecting the growth of both gender of clownfish. Different feed were given and each feed have different effects either to male or female clownfish. The weight of both clownfish gender were collected and analyzed. The growth rate and breeding success from different feed can later be used as guidelines for fellow breeders and keepers what feed to give to the fish if they wish to control and influence the fish growth. This is essential and important in clownfish culture because clownfish are protandrous hermaphrodites which male will became female at a point in their life. If the keepers and breeders can sustain the growth rate at the minimum or increase the growth and size of the clownfish according to their needs, the ability to possibly influence the growth of their clownfish will become a huge benefit to them and the aquarium fish trade industry. Keywords: Ornamental fish, clownfish, feeding, growth rate, breeding success. INTRODUCTION The demand for clownfish is absolutely increasing worldwide (Lewbart, 1998) as many people are more interested to keep a marine aquarium system with ornamental fish as perfect fish choice (Shuman et al., 2004; Moorhead and Zeng, 2010, 2011). However, not every day these people buy fish to put in their aquarium. Meanwhile, ornamental fish traders and keepers have to captive them every day as fish stock to sell. If the fish were captive for too long, the fish might grew too much and lose the interest of hobbyist that seek for smaller fish. Fish keepers need way to control and maintain the growth rate of clownfish to minimum or increase them to satisfy buyers need. This study intend to solve this problem and in the same time give possible solution for fish keepers. The scope of this study is mostly for aquarium fish and used two species of clownfish to represent the ornamental fish in general. First clownfish that was studied were common clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris. Different feed were given to common clownfish, and their weight were measured each 10 days and their growth rate were calculated. The data were different for both male and female clownfish. Second clownfish that was studied in this 251
experiment were tomato clownfish. Feed that were mixed with different Spirulina concentration were fed to tomato clownfish. Many researcher around the world have been studying the reproduction of fish involved in aquarium trade (Olivotto et al., 2003). In this study, the presence of Spirulina in feed was studied to observe the influence of Spirulina towards clownfish breeding success. Spirulina is considered as a rich source of protein, vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids, fatty acids, and antioxidant pigments, such as carotenoids (Teimori et al., 2013). Some of the clownfish were even able to successfully breed in the middle of the experiment. Result from both experiment showed that the possibility that feed do affects clownfish growth and breeding success from within and without any artificial additive added to the feed. METHODOLOGY Each gender has different appetite towards feed and each feed have different affect towards clownfish growth. The question remains, which feed have big or small effects to the fish. In this study, four type of feed were given to the common clownfish; commercial fish pellet, blended blood cockle flesh (Anadara granosa), blended Indian mackerel flesh (Rastrellinger kanagurta), and blended banana shrimp flesh (Penaeus merguiensis). Each feed were given to five pairs consisted of five males and five females clownfish. All of the clownfish were weighted prior the start of the experiment and every 10 days, the fish were weighted again. The experiment were carried for a total of 30 days. The clownfish weight data were collected from all clownfish pairs and the mean weight were used to calculate the growth rate using the formula as below; Growth rate = (Final weight Initial weight) Day Calculating growth rate of the clownfish is essential because it is the most sound and logic way to determine the fish growth. The clownfish growth will be used as key indicator in which to show later on which feed have most or minimal impact to the clownfish growth. The fish keepers will then use the key indicator from this study as guideline when captivating other ornamental fish. For tomato clownfish, three feed were given; blended blood cockle flesh (Anadara granosa), blended blood cockle flesh with 6% Spirulina added, and blended blood cockle with 12% Spirulina added. Each feed were given to three pairs consisted of three males and females tomato clownfish. Feeding session were done twice a day at 9am and 4pm. Uneaten feed were siphoned after each feeding session to maintain water quality. Water exchange rate at 30-40% every two days using filtered natural seawater. Water qualities parameter were maintained for all the clownfish aquarium tanks and were as follows; ph8-9, temperature 24 C±1 C, dissolved oxygen (DO) at 8ppm±0.1, salinity at 32ppt±1, Ammonia 0-1ppm, and phosphate 0-1ppm. 252
Pellet TYPE OF FEED Bloodco ckle Fish Shrimp SIC, Vol 2 (2017), 1-4 FINDINGS GROWTH RATE FOR COMMON CLOWNFISH 0.02 0.044 0.036 0.024 0.042 0.01 0.038 0.034 0.039 0.044 0.04 0.01 0.04 0.028 0.004 0.024 0.038 0.056 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 GROWTH RATE VALUE Growth rate per 10 days 10th day Growth rate per 10 days 20th day Growth rate per 10 days 30th day Figure 1. Growth rate for Common Clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris. From the growth rate data collected shown in the bar graph above, males clownfish showed highest growth rate if were fed with commercial pellet at 0.09±0.01, and lowest growth rate if fed with blended fish flesh at 0.073±0.01. However, the females clownfish showed different effects, highest growth rate when were fed with blended bloodcockle flesh at 0.102±0.01, and lowest growth if fed with commercial pellet at 0.046±0.01. If the fish keepers want to increase the growth rate of males clownfish, they can feed the fish with commercial pellet or blended shrimp flesh, and if they want to minimize the growth rate, they can feed the fish with blended fish flesh or blended blood cockle flesh. As for the females clownfish, keepers can feed them with blended blood cockle and shrimp flesh if they want to increase the fish growth or simply fed with blended fish flesh or commercial pellet if the want to minimize the fish growth. Keepers and fish trader can alternate the feed according to their needs and objective to fulfill customers demands. Table 1. Tomato clownfish breeding success observation Feed Result Blended blood cockle without Spirulina No egg spawning occurs Blended blood cockle + 6% Spirulina A pair spawn eggs on day 14 th of experiment Blended blood cockle + 12% Spirulina A pair spawn eggs on day 12 th of experiment From the overall observation during the experimental period, only pairs that ate blood cockle feed mixed with Spirulina have successfully breed. Thus cement the effects of Spirulina on influencing tomato clownfish breeding success. First pair that breed were fed with blended blood cockle mixed with 12% Spirulina at day 12 th of experiment, and later on followed by pair that ate blood cockle with 6% Spirulina on day 14 th of experiment. The pairs that ate blood cockle without the addition of Spirulina did not breed at all during the observation period. It can be concluded that Spirulina plays an important role in increasing the breeding success probability because the result shows that only tomato clownfish that ate feed mixed with Spirulina did 253
succesfully breed as fast as in one month feeding regime, however, this may aroused another question, what is the concentration of Spirulina need to be added into the feed for the fish to breed? Thats why in this experiment, two Spirulina concentration were chose to be investigate. From this result, fish breeders and traders who wish want the clownfish to breed as fast as possible can opted to add 12% of Spirulina into their feed, however, this will increase their feeding cost, and those who have a smaller budget can opted to add 6% of Spirulina into their feed but at the same time might delay the egg spawning day. CONCLUSIONS Growth rate of common clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris can be control whether to increase or to minimize the clownfish growth by feeding them with the feed according to the result stated earlier. Each feed has different affects according to gender of said clownfish. For male clownfish, fish traders and keepers can fed them with commercial pellet and shrimp flesh if they want to maximize the fish growth, and in contrary can fed them with fish and blood cockle flesh if they want to minimize the fish growth. As for female clownfish, fed the clownfish with shrimp and blood cockle flesh for higher growth rate, and fed them with commercial pellet and fish flesh if want their growth to be slower. This result might be differ from many more ornamental fish out there, however fellows aquarist and fish trader might be able to able to grasp the idea that different feed have different effects to the ornamental fish growth generally and can use the findings from this study to help them alternating the feed to give to their fish in captivity. Problems that fish keepers might face in the future is the fish acceptability towards the feed given to them. If the fish shows low tolerance and cannot accept the feed, I recommend fellow aquarist consider to change to other feeds for the fish. Do not let the fish starve or stress just to test different feed to them. Fish welfare has to be put in high priority when captivating ornamental fish. In the tomato clownfish Amphiprion frenatus experiment, only pairs fed with feed that were mixed with Spirulina were able to breed successfully. This might proves the Spirulina might have huge influence in increasing the spawning probability for ornamental fish. Only the Spirulina concentration that affects the faster spawning factor. First pair that spawned eggs on 12 th of experiment ate blended blood cockle mixed with 12% Spirulina, and later followed by pair that ate blood cockle mixed 6% Spirulina on the 14 th day. This might conclude that to induce and increasing spawning success for ornamental fish, fish breeders need to add Spirulina in their fish feeding diet. Breeders that want faster result can add more Spirulina, while breeders that want to control their budget can opted to include lower Spirulina concentration into their fish feed. If the fish fed with feed mixed with Spirulina did not able to breed, consider checking the condition and environment of the aquarium tank. During this study, the tanks were conditioned for a breeding to occur as close as possible. The water qualities are important factor which affects the breeding success greatly. The water qualities during the experiment period were as follows; ph8-9, temperature 24 C, dissolved oxygen (DO) at 8ppm, salinity at 32ppt, Ammonia 0-1ppm, and phosphate 0-1ppm. Water exchange were done once every two days at 30-40% water exchange rate with filtered natural seawater as water source. The aquarium tanks were also need to be covered with black plastic bag, and a spawning substance also need to be add into the aquarium. Fellow breeders can use a PVC pipe with 12cm diameter, or a small flower pot as eggs spawn site. The aquarium tanks for the clownfish pairs to breed also must be put in calm and low-noise area, because stress can affects the clownfish in their spawning mood. Hopefully the findings from this experiment will be able to help and useful as guidance for fellow fish breeders and aquarist in many years to come. 254
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