bangaii help

[tyson]

i have 9 baby bangaiis that are about a month and a half old. recently i transferred them from thier in tank specimen container to a 28g that i hooked onto my main system to keep the water quality constant. when we transferred them into the 28 evryone of them "died" temporarily.
when i say died i mean they became stiff and were unable to swim, they were still breathing but some floated belly up to the surface a few sank to the bottom and layed on the floor and a few were being tossed around by the flow unable to move.
i attributed this to the flow being to much for them to handle(mag 7) so i T'd off my return and added a ball valve to slow it down. what type of flow is appropriate for them?
since the move they have settled in the tank fine, but now when i feed them a few "die" temporarily everytime. why do they do this and is this normal? are they being paralyzed with fear?

 

[tyson]

i copied this post from a thread i started on another forum, and since posting it i have checked on my tank and found 2 of them laying on the bottom of the tank and im pretty sure they are dead (for real this time). one i just cant find

 

[GregDoug]

This has been reported several times, usually the cause is thought to be lack of proper foods (Lipids like HUFA) during the feeding the first couple of months in life. It is usually referred to as a neurological response to stress and some have had success using a small turkey baster and doing a form of fish CPR but I am not sure about how this is done.

 

[tyson]

i havent been feeding anything other than baby brine. i will go purchase some selcon. when i add the selcon, do i just put it in the water with the baby brine?

as far as the turkey baster goes i have been trying to get the lifeless ones "moving" with it but im not sure if im doing exactly what i should be.

 

[GregDoug]

try baby feeder guppies (grab a 100 adults from your LFS, put them in a bucket, then grab the new babies each day and feed). This should help with DHA and EPA

 

[tyson]

i will be trying the feeder guppies, but whatever is happening is happening quickly, and i may not have time. im now down to 4 actively swimming at the moment, im not sure the others will recover this time.

why did they not show any of these behaviors for the first month and a half while they were in the breeding container? this has now happened daily for the last 6 days but not once before that. the tank that i transferred them into is on my main sysytem. 55g sump, 55g display/reef tank and the 28g for the babies. water params are unchanged and everything in my display is fine, so i dont think WQ is an issue.

the nuerological response seems to fit whats happening but, again, why so sudden and why so many of them in 1 day? as of 12:30 am last night they were all swimming and eating normal. 2 of them responded this way when i fed yesterday but an hour later all were fine.

 

[GregDoug]

Its hard to say and hopefully some others will chime in. My guess is that you see it now because of the stress of moving them (even though the water is the same, it was a stressful event) and that their sensitive reaction was just triggered. I think many of us simply do not know for sure... but several have speculated on it being caused by lacking lipids and/or proteins in the right amounts when young.

I would assume that BBS is not the best only food for the past 1.5 months. Unless you increase their value with greenwater, selcon, and similar products, that is likely to be the root of your problem. If you can, try meaty foods like shaved mysis. Some people seem to have luck with cyclopze and other products. Read through the old threads in this catagory and you will eventually decide what might work best for you.

 

[tyson]

i will definately be "upgrading" the food. but i assume that the damage is done so to speak. i hope someone will chime in with some other advice just in case we are missing something. i appreciate all the advice. thanks

 

[gbsteve]

Personally, my babies are off of baby brine after a couple weeks. The key to overall sucess for me is a varied diet. I have never had any babies in about 100 sucessfully raised do what you are describing.

I start with baby brine to trigger their feeding response to live foods, then slowly switch to frozen prawn eggs (if you can find them) or frozen cyclopeeze, then finally to shaved frozen mysis and then to full size mysis. This is what works for me and I have quarter size babies ready for sale in 3-4 months.

 

[papagimp]

Out of multiple spawnings, I have seen that particular behavoir a couple of times now. They quit swiimming and just kinda sink, lifeless. I used a turkey baster and kept the water flowing over them until they would start swimming again. This always took awhile for me and eventually, within a few days at least, they would wind up dead. Never figured out what was causing it.
As for foods, I feed primarily freeze dried cyclopeeze from day one, but occasionally toss in a few feeder guppies. At least when I'm culling the guppy tank anyways. The larger older juvi's seem to enjoy frozen cubed reef plankton as well. My next batch I do plan to try a more varied diet since my survival rates are extremely low at the moment. (still somewhat new to the whole marine breeding thing)

 

[tyson]

i seem to be experiencing what you are talking about papagimp.
last night i added some selcon to the diet, but im afraid it may be to little, to late. i cant get them to eat frozen cyclopeeze or shaved mysis and i wasnt able to get feeder gups.

im down to 5 as of this morning with 1 more beginning to show signs of the same thing. this is my first attempt at this and i thought that after nearly 2 months and no losses i was, out of the woods so to speak. then i go from 9 down to 5 overnight. very dissapointing. based on what you are saying papa gimp i fear that my losses may not stop here and i may lose the entire brood.

is this brood doomed? is there anything else i could be doing?

 

[papagimp]

My first batch contained about 20 individuals, two died the first couple days, the rest made it about 2 months before I noticed massive deaths occuring. I attributed alot of that to stress from relocating them to a somewhat "new" tank. But I wound up loosing all but 1 before it was all over. That one did make it to 6 months old and has since been given to a friend along with a female from a subsequent spawning. You're still new to this, so don't get to upset, this is definatly going to be a learning process, just be sure to read up all you can and take all the precaution you can to ensure a healthy water quality and proper feeding. Speaking of which, how often are you feeding? My first batch was fed brine about 5 times a day and did better longer than my subsequent releases being fed cyclopeeze 3 times a day. Temperature also makes a nice difference I noticed, Since keeping newer spawns at 80 instead of 78, their growth rate has doubled for me (granted the 78 temp also fluctuated very low at night, around 74ish). I had somewhat mixed success using the garlic enticer from seachem (garlic guard i think). Although the babies never really ate the mysis I was soaking in it, or the pellet foods, they would at the very least try everything that had been soaked in garlic. Also might add that my new babies were far to small to eat an adult artemia, so I don't know if a newly released bangaii would even feed on guppy fry yet. The fry may just be too large for them. (when I feed guppy fry to mine, it's to the older juvi's, about 1.5" or so)

 

[tyson]

i really appreciate the advice papagimp, thank you. down to 4 that all seem healthy and normal so im hoping....

in the beginning i wasnt feeding as often, maybe 2-3x a day. i also had to learn about hatching brine at the same time, as i was not prepared for this brood. i now have been feeding them in small amounts at least 5x a day.

my temp has stayed pretty consistent between 78 and 81, obviously the lows coming at night. one night it dropped to about 76, but never lower than that.

so that im better prepared for the next brood i am going to be setting up(as was suggested to me) a tank of black mollies that will slowly be acclimated to saltwater.

this is definately a learning experiencel, but the parents are very young still (this was their 1st brood) so im hoping to have the chance to try again very soon. once these babies are gone(hopefully given to friends and not dead!) i will be moving the parents from the reef into this tank so they can breed in peace. any suggestions on what to put in this tank(rockwork, companions,sand or BB etc.) would be much appreciated.

 

[papagimp]

I would recmmmend at least a 29g tank. Mine bred in a 20g but I hear more often than not that they tend to abort their clutches in too small of a tank. for whatever reason. I also have really enjoyed the addition of a Diadema Setsum to my bangaii's tank. (long spined black urchin). I'd recommend the sandbed, not bare bottom. More for pod population than anything. The newly released babies are avid hunters from day one and will definatly eat on pods as they find em. And last, bangaii's tend to come from an area more along the lines of a seagrass beds than actually up on a reef proper. At least according to some sources I've read. So a recreation of that type of envirmoent may prove beneficial. Why the black molleys? if it's for live foods, I'd recommend sticking with the guppies, they stay smaller and easier to fit in a bangaii's mouth than a larger molley fry. Just my personal thoughts. Guppies can live for several hours after being just dumped into a saltwater tank, some may even acclimate themselves just fine and start to breed in saltwater. FYI.

 

[RonD]

My experience is similar to others and I have seen this behavior as well in regards to them going lifeless. My adults do it as well sometimes when all else fails and the realize there is no escape from the evil net. As for feeding, Baby live brine shrimp for the first few weeks and start adding frozen cyclopeeze. At about a month old I release them from a 2.5 gallon tank I have clamped to the inside edge of the grow out tank (135 gal) so the water is the exact same in and out. I have a few small holes drilled in the 2.5 gallon tank for a minor amount of circulation along with a air stone running as well.. very slowly though. I release them when I know they are big enough not to be poached by the adults at night. I still add live brine shrimp to the grow out tank for a week or so and then its frozen foods like the adults.

Stress is the killer .. and the less you can subject them to the better. Currently running about 20 adults and 70 baby's

 

[FMarini]

tyson-
i got your PM, if you have a chance to do a search you'll find that your experiencing what is called sudden fright syndrome (SFS) in the banggers, its very common in fry which are fed a diet w/o sufficent HUFAs.Its a short circuiting of their neuroonal development.
the use of selcon enriched or phytoplankton enriched brine nauplii will fix this. Did you have a chance to read my online articles on breeding these fish, its well described in the reefs.org article.
You can try to raise guppies or mollie as food for the adults, just make sure the fish are feed a diet of marine based foods, else they won't have sufficent marine HUFAs either. Animals are unable to synthesize HUFAs and must get it from their diets.
frank

 

[papagimp]

Yup, right on the nose. Infact, I think I read that info on your article, lol. I don't think I mentioned this before, but all foods I feed are soaked in Tetraselmis (phytoplankton) sometimes nannochloris or nannochloropsis, but I've since stopped culturing those two strains.

RonD, I like the 2.5 idea, I use a 2.5 for my grow out, but if it were attached to the main tank as yours, they may prove more useful...

 

[Liquidfins]

Try to make a stew of foods ie mix up a couple different frozen foods and give them the stew everyday.

 

[tyson]

thanks again for all the advice. unfortunately i should have seeked out this advice alot earlier. since my last post i had 4 surviving. i fed the tank about 15 minutes ago and i think i lost 1 more. down to 3 and 1 doesnt seem to be eating anything.

if there is anything i can do to undo the damage please let me know. since i began posting they have been fed baby brine enriched with selcon, as well as trying to introduce cyclopeeze(they dont seem to be taking to that though).

fmarini- thanks alot for responding and i will be searching for these articles so i can avoid mistakes earlier on the next brood.
i received much advice and read a few articles that all led me in the direction of baby brine. i believed that because the sac was still attached the bangaiis would be receiving all the proper nutrition. i guess i was way off and im now paying the price for my lack of knowledge on HUFA's. hopefully the other 3 will take to the new diet and pull through. again if there is anything else i can do to undo the damage done please let me know.

 

[RonD]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9825465#post9825465 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by papagimp


RonD, I like the 2.5 idea, I use a 2.5 for my grow out, but if it were attached to the main tank as yours, they may prove more useful...

this is a picture of mine. works well. I am thinking of putting very low flow power head outside the 2.5 and running a hose into it... just to have a little more fresh water flowing thru. I have two small holes drilled in the bottom of the tank to let the water out but small enough keep the babys in.