baby Banggai advice requested

[stfgrl]

Hi! I'm new to breeding fish, although I've successfully raised a couple hundred Aiptasia-eating nudibranchs (all gone now - given away) and have a bunch of cloning E. quadricolors. About six months ago I received a beautiful mated pair of Banggais from Inland Aquatics. Inland is run by Morgan Lidster, and it's a great company to get captive-bred fish from. Well, Gussie just hatched his first brood a few weeks ago, and up until a couple of days ago, all 12 babies were doing fine. However, I'm having trouble getting them to eat frozen foods.

Here's the situation: They're in my 30g +10g sump setup (all water params normal - nitrate ~5ppm; chiller/heater locked in at 79F) with no other livestock other than a 5" sand bad & some live rock. My other system is a 180g +20g sump reef, which is where the parents are. I moved Gussie back to the big tank immediately after he hatched his babies so he wouldn't eat them. The 30g sat for ~6 months without any fish in, so it had a nice population of copepods established before the babies were born.

The problem: The babies have been hunting copepods on the walls, sand, and rocks, and they don't seem the least bit interested in anything else I offer them. I've tried pureed mysis & krill, grated mysis/krill, and Cyclopeez with almost no luck. Needless to say, the 'pod supply in this little tank is getting depleted. I'm going to try sectioning part of it off from the babies so that there's a place for the critters to live without predation, but I don't know that it will be enough. I am starting to read up on how to culture copepods, but these babies eventually must be weaned onto frozen foods - the question is when. Their parents eat mysis, krill, etc. like little pigs. Gussie is already about 2/3 of the way along with his second brood, so I've got more on the way. Any suggestions?

I wasn't able to find the older thread on Banggai breeding, so I apologize if I'm asking for a lot of redundant info. If someone could point me to it, I'd be grateful.

Thanks very much!
Amy

 

[papagimp]

I just got my 2month old and newly released babies to start eating cyclopeeze. Before this they only touched brine shrimp nauplii. I did just move them into a 2.5gallon grow out until they get bigger so not a large pod population in there. It really limiting the food they can find and I think this is why there eating the cyclops now. But i've hear others claim theres will eat cyclops from day one and nothing else. I've never had luck getting them onto frozen foods or mysis or anything else. But these are my first babies and only 2 months old, so we'll see. Best luck to ya!

 

[gbsteve]

I have raised 3 seperate batchs in the following way with a loss of only 2-3 per batch. Batches were 33,30, 38 respectively.

-Newly hatched baby brine for a week.
-Start introducing frozen prawn eggs with the brine week two
-Frozen cyclops introduction (won't touch the freeze dried stuff) week three
-Grate PE mysis with cheese grater, introduce in week four
-Once big enough start feeding non grated mysis

Grow out to size to eat full mysis is about 2 months. Once I get them eating the next thing in line, I let them chow down on that for a few days before mixing any of the previous foods back in. Afrer a few days on the new food, I mix it up to get a varied diet.

 

[papagimp]

Nice Steve, great work. I just got mine eating the freeze dried cyclopeeze at month 2, I don't see how they are big enough to eat a full mysis at that age, mine are barely big enough to eat an adult brine shrimp. May be slow growth though, it was kinda chilly where they were for awhile.

 

[gbsteve]

I raise mine in a 10 gallon tank with live rock and CC with an undergravel filter. The key to fast growth is to keep them fed all the time. With this system and lower flow I can throw in baby brine in the morning and they will last swimming around for 3-4 hours. I feed 3 times a day. Once in the morning before work, once when I get home, and once before I go to bed.

Once they start eating the frozen prawn eggs and cyclops they will double in size in a couple of weeks. Once on to the mysis it is even faster until they reach about dime sized.

 

[papagimp]

That's probably it then, I only feed before work and a few times throughout the afternoon after I get home. I'm sure they have several hours of no food. Maybe a food timer filled with cyclops?

 

[gbsteve]

If you can get them eating freeze dried cyclops it may work. I can't get mine to eat the freeze dried. Only problem is they will float, but if the cards are eating off the surface that may work.

 

[catdoc]

I have 2 (probably stupid) questions: where do you get prawn eggs? I have seen oyster eggs but not prawn, are they interchangeable if I can't get the prawn eggs?

What does the PE stand for in PE mysis?? Is that a brand?

 

[mano]

catdoc - PE = Piscine Energetics...it's the brand.

Sorry can't help with the prawn eggs though.

Christine