Bangaii baby photos

["Umm fish?"]

I purchased an older pair of Bangaiis (>2 years) three months or so ago. They had to go into a 100 gal. watering trough because I'm still working on getting some tanks set up. In the tank, I have a large PVC larvae collector, idle at the moment, to try to catch some B&W Occelaris larvae. Anyway, it makes a good place for the Bangaii larvae to hide. The current shoots around the PVC, so I also assume that it makes a good place for hunting.

The tank is pretty algae covered. It's run for ~1 year without much in the way of filtration other than algae harvest in order to maximize small animal life (I've caught worm larvae and tons of other small animals in the water).

On to the photos!

The pink stuff is cyclopeeze defrosting for the juveniles:

More cyclopeeze in the top-right corner:

 

[FB]

Nice pics

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks! Here are some more for you, as the others were just kind of quick snaps.

I'm up to five babies:

And a crop:

Another group photo:

And my favorite. In the original, you can see the crinkly brain, but it might be too small in the web version.

 

[Lifes A Beach]

Nice job!!! How old are the babies in your photos?

--Barbara
:fish1:

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks! They are all in a trough so all I get are the top-down views and the adults hang out under a filter, so I hardly ever see them. I had a feeling the male was carrying but I wasn't sure, nor did I know how far along he was. But, given that I didn't see any yesterday and that the number has slowly grown throughout the day (we're up to 6!!!), my assumption is that he just released them today.

The clownfish were psyched. I assume they got all of the extras.

The babies seem to be striking at non-living foods really well so far. I've tried Otohime B1, Cyclopeeze, and Rod's Food. (Heck, I'd even strike at Rod's Food. )

 

[Fragman2]

Have you had any luck getting brand new Bengai babies to go for Cyclopseese?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Of course, I can't say for sure but I believe so. This is my first experience with live baby Bangaiis (I tried to artificially incubate one batch of eggs, but that was a fizzle). They are certainly eating _something,_ as you can see by their full bellies. I saw them strike at something after I added Cyclops to the tank. But, there's also a lot of natural live plankton in that tank. That tank has been running for greater than a year with no planktivores for the first nine months and only an "algae filter" for nutrient export for most of that time.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Eleven this morning!!

 

["Umm fish?"]

The big winner as far as eliciting feeding excitement seems to be a combination of Rod's Food plus extra DT's oyster eggs. I've witnessed even the fish in the PVC pipe (not much current) feed on these foods. In fact, I've seen them take both a reddish particle (Rod's) and a white particle (DT's). It's really obvious that this is non-live food when it's inside the PVC, because it just hangs there in the water column with very slow, even impulsion from the eddy that took the food inside the mouth. I tried to get photos of them feeding. This is about as close as I got:

I've only seen 8-9 of them this afternoon.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Okay, evening news. The count is back up to 11 or 12. And I finally got a feeding photo! The frozen chunk you see is "Sally's Frozen Brine Shrimp."

First, the whole photo:

A crop:

An enlargement:

 

[Fragman2]

If you can lay your hands on some Nutramar Prawn Roe from your LFS give it a try. My baby Bengais went for this frozen food more than any thing else except for live baby brine shrimp. The eggs are about the size of brine shrimp cysts. In fact all of my picky small food eaters ove this stuff including baby Percs and My African Blue striped pipe fish.

Great Pics!

 

["Umm fish?"]

Cool, thanks! I've heard good things, but I haven't seen them around town yet. I'll keep an eye out.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Morning head count: 17! I think the male was releasing as I walked into the door of my office.

KathyL, who breeds some awfully nice looking clowns, asked me to show pictures of the larvae snagger, so here they are in all their algae covered goodness. Please note that I didn't use the snagger to catch these guys; they all wandered in on their own.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Update. Mid-day headcount: 17 one time, 18 another.

Six seem to have taken up semi-permanent residency smack dab in the middle of the tank, amongst the aiptasia and some evil protopalythoa. Two have claimed the water above the eggcrate that I'm using to grow lots of algae--it's right under a metal halide light.

The amazing thing is that they seem to already be forming dominance heirarchies. I watched one chase another right out of the PVC.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Sorry, I can't help myself. Cute fish photos of the day:

 

[christian2008]

really cool pics keep up the good work congrats on the breeding

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks, Christian!

First head count of day three: 18.

 

["Umm fish?"]

I was trying something a little different with the flash today and it didn't give me enough lighting so I'll try to take some more later. I'm a little worried the fish will go blind from all the flash, though.

So, the photos are a little more "artsy" from being pushed so much from underexposure.

Title: "Dang, just missed!" That's a frozen Cyclops copepod.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, I can no longer get a head count as they have now decided to forsake the protection of the PVC and have spread throughout the tank. Three or so have taken up the center bottom of the tank, amongst the corals and aiptasia. A bunch of them have taken up widely-spaced positions in the inch or so of water above the eggcrate algae filter. And five or six hooligans at any one time surf the current around the tank and maraud their way across the areas protected by the ones on the algae filter, eating what they can before they are swept off again by the current. Crazy. None of them seem to have any fear of the clownfish or adult cardinalfish, though they tend not to stay in those fishes' territories. And none of them seem to have any problems dealing with a tank with powerheads. Really cool behavior.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Still hard to count, but I think we're down to about 12. I assume that mama and papa are turning the five marauders into new eggs....

New photos: