Bangai -- What's the Spawning Details

o2manyfish

o2manyfish
Hey Guys,

I have had 6 Bangai in my tank for about 16 months. They went in as small adults. There is no pairing up. Sometimes they are in a group sometimes they are all in their own area.

About 6 months ago I noticed a male holding eggs. In a 400g tank with 100+ fish there was nothing to do but watch.

Now I have seen as many as 3 holding eggs at the same time over the past few months.

Tonight while feeding I noticed a pair together. The larger of the two fish is coming up from behind and under the smaller and shivering??? Don't know how else to describe it.

I watched from a few feet away for awhile, and then they got spooked so I jumped over to the webcam to follow them.

The male is definitely yawning frequently.

I a wondering what the mechanics are of their breeding. The female seems to be shaking under the male... How do we go from female quivering to male with eggs in his mouth?

I am watching closely but haven't seen anything come out of either fish. And the male seems to be swimming forward as he yawns not going behind to pick anything up.

Thanks for helping me learn the naughty life of my fish.

Dave B
 
Well, I make my post here asking what's supposed to happen and I go back to the tank and voila.....


Bangai_1.jpg



Bangai_2.jpg



Bangai_3.jpg



While watching (and taking pics) the male keeps spitting the egg ball out. When he does the female seems to dart at it as if she is trying to eat it.

Is she attacking the eggs, or is she trying to add more eggs to the clump.

At one point the male was being skirted on two sides by two other Bangai.


So now that he has the eggs, I am still curious as to what transpired while I was away from the tank.

Dave B
 
Thats pretty cool, its hard to keep more then two of these guys alive at the same time once they make it to adult hood, but being that they are housed in a 400g aquarium I think its vary possible and easy in your situation.

I would be interested to know how many females you have. I believe in the wild its not uncommon for the cardinals to mate with more then one male, and that's what it seems like they are doing in this case.

Anyway back to your question. The female is going to be the aggressor and will normally come up behind the male from one side, then fall back and and approach the male from the other side. They will continue this courtship for a few days. When the female start to shake in front of the male she will drop the eggs vary soon. The female will drop the eggs in one large clump and the male will quickly do his dead over the eggs and the scoop them up in his mouth. That whole process normally happens vary fast and for that reason I have personally never witnessed it.

Once the male starts holding he will normally hang out away from everything in the back of the tank and will normally be protected by the female. The male depending on the temperature will hold anywhere from 20-30 days and will not eat in that time period.

Once the babies are spit out of the males mouth they are nearly perfect clones of mom and dad minus the white spots. From day one they are large enough to eat baby brine shrimp. The baby brine shrimp should be enriched with HUFAs if the brine shrimp are more then a 8-12 hours old.

The babies consume a lot fat in their first few weeks and if they consume all of their fat their central nervous system will start to shut down, causing the sudden fright syndrome. The SFS was seen and documented by many fish lovers for years before they learned that their fish were lacking the proper fat reserves to sustain life.

It was called SFS because most people would actually witness their cardinals die over anything that would cause their hart rates to go up even a little bit. For instance simply turning on the lights or walking past the tank would cause their hart rates to go up. With the increased hart rate their bodies would require more fat to consume and once the fat was consumed the central nervous system would shut down causing the baby fish to fall to the bottom of the tank in a seizure like fashion.

Anyway I think I covered more about this fish then you wanted but I have enjoyed them for a wile now and I have been able to bring quite a few of their babies to market size.

In your case I think it would be hard to raise them but if you were interested in trying I'm sure you could find a lot of info here.
 
Jay,

Thanks for the details of the dance. I'm not sure what the ratio of males to females is. But I have seen 3 males holding eggs at one time. But usually when they are holding they are solitary. They find an acro to cling to. They move around from coral to coral.

I have over 120 acro pieces in the tank, so there is lots of coral and spaces for them to find shelter. However, with over 100 fish in the tank, it's also a very active community.

Here is a recent pic of the tank.

Macro_31.jpg


As you can see it's a busy place, so getting a fish out, let alone one hiding in the corals to protect and egg sack is an impossible task.

While I would love to raise a few of my own, it's not going to happen any time soon.

But thanks again for letting me know what to watch for next time. If I had turned on the camera, instead of looking for insight I might have caught the act.

Thank you,

Dave B
 
Beautiful tank. Its looks like everyone is happy and healthy. You never know you may find a survivor or two in your sump. There have been plenty of people that have seen them Alive and thriving off of pods and stuff like that.

Do you have any other fish breeding in there?
 
I have lots of pairs...

(2) Golden Angels
(2) Springeri
(4) Frimandi
(2) Multibar Angel
(3) Bellus Angel
(2) Starki Damsels
(2) Blue Damsels
(2) Dragon Faced Pipes
(5) Percs
(2) Blue Tangs
(2) Chevron Tangs
(9) Yellow Tangs


I have seen the blue damsels spawning. And a couple of weeks ago in the late evening I saw a pair of the Bellus angels spawning.

My lights don't shut off till 1:30am - So I am not sure what happens as lights go out or after lights out.

I have a pair of black percs and 3 regular percs. I see them doing the dance and cleaning rocks but never seen eggs. And the 5 percs takes turns pairing up with each other.

Dave B
 
As far as the male spitting the eggs and then taking them back in. I really don't have an answer for this. My males are all bigger then my females and I believe you said your males are smaller.

In a perfect world your males would be a little larger so that they could hold all of the eggs that the females produce. So the male may not be able to physically hold all the eggs.
 
Gosh, your tank is fantastic! Jaypilot is a friend; we are the resident Houston Banggai breeders (for fun).

Unfortunately, I've never happened to see the Banggais at the time of egg transfer either. I see the female shaking, shivering and generally acting like a hoochie, then I'll go adjust my skimmer or something and come back to see the male with eggs in his mouth. If you google around a bit, you should be able to find a video someone shot which may actually have the egg transfer on film. I've seen the video and it's pretty cool
 
My male Banggai is holding for 3 weeks now. How do I know when is the right time to try to catch him?

Its hard to say. If its your first time you may miss the chance to pull him because he could spit at any time. The male will hold from 20-30 days mostly depending on your temp and the male him self. Normally the male will hold for the same length of time each time he is holding eggs, assuming he is well fed.

I have personally taken the male out at 21 days twice now and both times the male spit the babies in the net still with the yolk sack attached and unfortunately unable to swim. In both situations I have been successful raising those babies in a tumbler, in the same way you would tumble cichlid eggs. I tumbled them until they were all free swimming, which was around the 25th days.

Hope this help.
 
rlpardue, I have had the same thing happen. I was eating dinner one night and I was watching the female "act like a hoochie" and I told my wife that the male will be holding eggs by the end of the night. I watched them through out the whole dinner, and then I went to put my plate in the sink and came back (not even 15 seconds) and the male was holding the eggs. LOL one of these days I will catch them in the act.

By the way my male is holding again and I should have about another 30-40 on or around the 18th.
 
I took your advise and managed to catch him. He didn't spit the babies out, so he's in a 2 gallons container hanging in the tank.

I put a lot of caulerpa and a fake urchin in there and also a tiny filter filled with siporax. I plan on changing over 50% of the water daily.

How long after he spits the babies will he begin to eat them?
 
Good deal. I wouldn't let him sit in there for more then a day. The sooner you get him out the better. I would also try to use a fish breeding box next time so that you do not have to do the water changes. Also once he does spit the babies start to feed him pretty heavy because he hasn't eaten in a long time and the female will try to mate with him again soon.
 
The couple is very young, I was surprised that they mated so soon.

Since he mated that I started using foods that the female doesn't enjoy very much. I have been trying to avoid that she mates again soon and also trying to persuade her to eat other stuff.

But the breeding box wouldn't let the naupli get out?

Here he is with the babies peeking out:



I think he has a small amount of fry. How will I know that he has finished spitting them?

 
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Cool, congrats. They look like they are really close. They father does look young so I wouldn't expect too many babies, maybe around 10 but you will see that number increase as they get older.

I do the same thing. Wile the male is holding I feed pretty much everything else in the tank NLS pellets. The female doesn't eat it so I make sure I feed her every 2 or 3 days. By doing that it delays her from trying to mate with the right after he spits the babies. Before I started doing this my male was holding less then a week later and I was getting worried about him. LOL now that I pretty much starve the female until after he spits she gives him about a 2-3 week break.
 
Huh, Jay that is pretty clever - feeding pellets so the female goes hungry while the male is holding. Nice job working around the ole starving-male problem.

Ardeus, you will know when the male is no longer holding any fry at all once he starts eating.
 
Ya I don't totally starve her. She gets fed every few days but not enough for breeding. On top of that she is in my display tank so I'm sure there are other things in the tank that she could eat.

It has been working out great for me though because I don't have to remove the male from the female, he can be placed right back in the display tank so there is less stress on all involved. The female may not agree but once the male spits the babies I fatten them both up together.
 
I am using those dish hatcheries for bbs and I was wondering if is there any problem in using Zoe and Zoecon directly in the dishes everytime I set them up.
 
I have used zoecon in my BBS bit I have never used the dish hatcheries so I really don't know how they work. The BBS will not take anything in during their first few hours so I don't does anything until they are about 12-24 hours old
 
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