57 Banggai Babies!

[The Cardinal]

Hi

I have been breeding the Banggai Cardinal (Pterapogon kauderrni) for five months now and have had three batches so far. The first two batches consisted of 35 and 37 babies which I thought was quite alot.

Three days ago it was time again and I was really surprised when the male spat out 40, 50 and finally 57 babies! Is this normal? I canÃ"šÃ‚´t understand how they all fit in his mouth .

A great fish that is in need of our breeding efforts.

Take care!

/Peter

 

[FuEl]

Maybe as they brood more eggs overtime their mouth "pouch" slowly increases in size?

 

[The Cardinal]

He had had a longer than usual break before this batch as well so this might have been a factor. A real marvel to see the male release the small miniatures in my artificial reef environment.

 

[Nagel]

Thats a record batch in my book! Most avg 25-35..

 

[MorandiWine]

WOW!!

that is alot of fry for one fish. The lagest I have had was 42.

Congrats,

tyler

 

[David M]

Yea I think that may be a record :eek1: I think my pair averaged around 35 at their peak. Do they seem as large and fully developed as the ones from the smaller broods? That is really incredible.

 

[Chizad]

How often do these fish breed? i would love to start breeding them.

 

[MorandiWine]

My pairs tend to breed every three to four weeks and the male holds the eggs for 22-24 days.

 

[The Cardinal]

Thanks guys.

Wow I knew 57 was a lot but I never thought it was close to a record !

The parents are tankraised and are about 2 years old (I bought the pair about half a year ago and was lucky to get a male and a female).

David: yes they are all healthy and were caught in my main tank. I saw the female eat one of them and I accidentally managed to kill one during capture so chances are that a few more were eaten.

The rest are doing well and seem to be as developed as the other two batches, although it will be interesting to compare survival rates.

Chizad: The first two batches came about 4 weeks apart. This batch came with a break of almost 3 months.

 

[shoddyk]

I am thinking about getting a few Bangaii's and would like to try and breed them. Do I just buy 2 of them or should I buy more to see which ones will pair up togather.

 

[spk]

Ok Mr Mussle,

What are you feeding them on. Not the babies, the parents. Althoug that being said I am also interested in what you are feeding the babies.

Any chance of some pictures.

Thanks

Steve

 

[shoddyk]

How many should I buy?

 

[David M]

shoddyk - It really depends on what is available to you. If you can only get small w/c fish I'd say get a group of 5-7 and let nature take it's course. If you can get mature fish buy the largest one you can find and assume it's male. Let it acclimate to it's new tank and then pick out another (smaller) fish that "looks" female You should know in about 30 seconds if you have a pair or not Just be ready to remove the new fish and try again (with another fish of course) if you have to. It's possible you could find mature captive bred fish of known sex too if there are any breeders in your area.

My point is that noone can really answer your question because we don't know what your options are

 

[spk]

Peter et al,

Ok, I too have been havins some success with the Bangai, however I am very curious, you all have numbers that are almost 3-5 times mine.
What do you do to get them so numerous? Is it a feeding regime, are the parents just huge?

Thanks

Steve

 

[skip0211]

Peter,

I've had 2 broods so far and have another one due tonight ... What have been your survival rates? The first time I watched the female eat all but 3 little ones before I could catch the 3 of them in my 265 gallon mixed reef. 2 lived and are 3 months old. The next time I caught the male at 2am and had a batch of 19. Only four hav survived although I did have some ph problems brought on by a bad probe.

 

[jhallewell]

I do believe you tell sexes the same way as mandarins. The larger/longer dorsal fin is the male and shorter dorsal fin is the female.

 

[npaden]

57 is a lot. I had 1 batch that was pretty close to that. Most of my batches ran around 30 or so. I can't remember who the guy is that did all the university studies on raising them, but I know they had some really big batches.


This was my largest batch.

I can't remember how many there were, I know more than 50. They are pretty hard to count as there are fins and eyeballs everywhere, even some fins hanging down at the top of the pic.

I always liked this pic as it really gives a good perspective on the size of the babies when they are first released.

 

[Brock Fluharty]

What do you feed the babies?

 

[Nagel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6812376#post6812376 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Brock Fluharty
What do you feed the babies?

They can eat baby brine shrimp from the beginning much easier then keeping rotifers going!

 

[firewire]

hi guys im new i would love to learn how to start breeding cardinals