Bangai Cardinal holding eggs - anyone have pointers ?

O

oz07

New member
Last night I noticed the male had a mouthfull of eggs and the kids wanted to try and raise some. So, I dug out my old in tank net breeder from my freshwater guppy days and thought I would put the male in there - if I could catch him easily was the deal. Well, I really did'nt think I would but on the very first swipe we had him less tham 3 minutes of effort. Put him in the breeder trap and still has the eggs this morning.

Now, that I'm slightly more educated (after a few quick searches)I realize we have about 3 more weeks of waiting (in all the kids "excitement" I did'nt give that any thought and had never even read anything about rasing the fry). Anyway, should I keep him in the breeder or release him for a couple of weeks and then try the impossible and re-catch him ?

On the good side, having the extra time I will be able to setup a shrimp hatchery to feed I suppose. Anyway, anyone with tips and suggestions please let me know - I'd like to do the best we can for this effort...
 
Talk to cbusreefer on the CORA forum. He has had several broods and has some experience with attempting to raise the fry.

I would like to raise some from eggs, but my pair has not had a clutch yet. I raised some that were a week old that I received from another reefer.

I would leave him in the breeder net. The more he is stressed out, the more likely he is to spit them out early.

You will need enriched Baby brine shrimp as well as cyclopeeze for when they get big enough.

You can probably start feeding them Cyclopeeze at around 4 days.

You can read a lot of useful information here:
Marine Breeders Forum

Good Luck.
 
I have had many broods of these and have actually sold off some I have raised.

All you really need to do is make sure the father holding the babies gets enough food. Otherwise he will eat the babies.

When they come out they will be very small. They will likely be eaten by larger fish if they cannot find a good place to hide.
 
they breed like rabbits!!! once the fry are released from the male's mouth you can feed them 24-48hr enriched naupli. They usually transition over to frozen food of appropriate size after a few weeks. provide the new fry hiding places. adults will canabalize the fry from time to time.
 
If this is the first time holding, don't get too excited. it took my pair 3 or 4 times until he held them until birth. Also, i was only able to catch him once. of the 4 or 5 times he has held, he released live babies twice. The first time, the babies looked immature and died in days, the second time, he released only 6 and 5 lived (will be selling them soon... the 6th died because it got sucked up in a power head.)

after about 20 days or so, i couldn't catch him but i could see eyes poking out of his mouth. I watched the tank 2 hours after lights out every night until i found babies... then i netted and put them into a tank where they have been ever since.

they need to be fed baby brine shrimp for about 4-8 weeks then try to feed them frozen. I had trouble getting mine off live food until someone gave me some good advice.

Once they get old enough to go a day with out food(~6-8wks), starve them for a day, then use a cheese grater and shave some mysis and feed that. They never ate frozen cyclopeeze or frozen BBS but ate the shaved mysis right away and have been eating that ever since. I would only try the starving part if they are reluctant to eat with out being starved.

Also, they will be too weak to avoid any type of power head at first... so you should use an air pump for circulation. And some LR wouldnt hurt keeping the nutrients down.

Once you get them in their own tank, they are pretty easy to take care of, but can get tedious to keep making BBS ever couple days. If you have any questions you can always PM me. I've only raised one brood but i might be able to help out
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15439803#post15439803 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BrunstuckyJoe
If anyone has any tank raised bengais for sale...pm me...Thanks.
Click to expand...


Not to pile on, but me too :D
 
Thanks for all the advice - So far so good he's still holding the eggs and seems fairly relaxed in the breeder net in the display. You can tell he's hungary though at feeding time he wants to go for it but dedicated to his job so far. I really only plan on doing this once . . . for the learning experience but hatching the shrimp is what may be the downfall for us ...
 
Hatching brine shrimp isn't so bad. I'll let you in on my secret for hatching them that I use for my seahorse fry. They take 24-48 hours to hatch and then they're only nutritional for about 12 hours. There is a small amount of nutritional value left up until 24 hours, but then they're basically cotton candy.

So...

I use one of the classic pop bottle methods for the first 24 hours like this:
P6436.jpg


After 24 hours I pour those out into this and start a new batch in the pop bottle:
P6433.jpg


There is a tiny pinhole in the collection cup that allows a small amount of light into the container below. The brine shrimp are attracted to it and swim up into the collection cup. Then all you have to do is lift the cup up, pour out the amount of bbs that you need and replace. As they finish hatching they swim into the cup.

The other good thing is the second hatcher separates the eggs from the bbs. It might not be such a big deal for bangaiis (or it might be, I don't know), but for seahorse fry it's a big deal not to get the shells in with them. Keeping the eggs out of the tank also really helps with the cleanliness. I hear you can some how seperate the eggs from the bbs by letting them settle in the pop bottle, but this takes valuable time when they are losing nutrition. The second hatchery make the bbs ready to go the second they hatch.

Why not just start with the second hatcher? There is no airline going into it so I get a way smaller hatch rate out of the bbs eggs than I do with the pop bottle method.

After many, many, many bbs hatchings this is the best method I have found for myself. Hope that helps!
 
I have 2 babies unaccounted for right now, but they are still quite small but eating chopped PE mysis... would be good for a nano tank.
 
I never really feed my babies anything... just let the strong survive. I usually get 4-6 out of each brood to live.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15445804#post15445804 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by uztaryn
I never really feed my babies anything... just let the strong survive. I usually get 4-6 out of each brood to live.
Click to expand...

I don't think mine would make it in a 90g with out help... BTW, how many does your pair produce at a time? I think my pair are on the small size, because i only got 6 last time... 6 total, not 6 survive.... although 5 of the 6 lived. I have seen way bigger adults than mine and I've had mine since Feb 08'... hoping they are still growing.
 
So a few days after I posted that our pair had not had a clutch yet, I noticed the father was not eating.

Upon closer inspection, his Jaw appeared to be enlarged (he is good size to begin with).

I have been paying close attention to him during feeding and despite moving toward the food, he has not consumed anything in at least a week.

I am hoping he holds to term. At this point I am guesstimating he has been holding for around 10 days.

I am gearing up for raising the fry in a separate tank. Although there are tons of little caves in the 75 for them to hide in if I can't catch them all.

<B>Fingers Crossed</B>

Just an FYI to those looking for CBB, the young should be raised for several months before they are large enough. Even after 6 months there body will still be smaller than a nickel (without fins) in most cases.
 
Ken and OZ how are your pairs doing. Is they still holding for you?

I have to say the moon must be right this month. Last week I watched as mine danced much of the afternoon. Jaw expanded and has not ate all week. Did not want to say anything last week. Cause what do I know. I honestly could not believe it.
Now I am just tickled.

Martin wants me to try raising if he holds full term. They are the only fish in my tank. Will I still need to remove the babies because of powerheads and feeding? Will a breeder net be ok or need a seperate tank.
 
Mine is still holding. The breeder net is been working good. The female hangs around and chases away anyone just like they were still paired. I hoping end of this week or first of nest to see swimmers... I have toyed with hatching shrimp but I also found some baby brine in small jar not alive (expensive) that would be easier but it's probable they would'nt eat it anyway.
As far as leaving them in the tank - if they were the only fish I would leave him and see what happens. I have a bunch of others in the tank and I was sure they would not have made it very far.
 
Mine is still holding as well.
I am somewhere between 150 and 20 days.
I have a breeders net, but I am waiting until I am closer to try and catch him.

Even if they are the only fish, I have seen it reported that the father may eat the babies himself.
After not eating for 28 days he is very hungry.
Most people recommend separating him if possible or at a minimum feed him heavily as soon as he releases the babies.

You can also make a fake long spine urchin so they have somewhere to hide where he cannot reach them.

They will have a lot of difficulty swimming against currents so it may be a good idea to turn off your powerheads at first.
Make sure they can't fit through the screens too, some have larger gaps than others.

They are very small when first released.

Good luck, it is exciting. I did not want to say anything until I was sure either.
 
I am suprised that no one has attempted what chiclid breeders have been doing for years by taking the male and stripping the eggs about 3/4 way through gestastion and putting them into some sort of diy egg tumbler, in our former chiclid days we did it numerous times with mouth brooders and the success rate is huge and just like Bangaii the chiclid males will also devoure the young if they can not find sufficient hiding almost immediately...... hmmmmm we may just have to find us a handful of Bangaii from different sources ( to avoid possible inbreeding) and give this a shot, I remember reading many years ago there is not much difference between breeding the Bangaii vs Chiclid mouth brooders
 
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