bangaii male holding full term

M

metalManiac

New member
Hi, i was just wondering what peoples ratios of males holding to full term compared to males releasing prematurely are? (so i can get an idea of the 'norm')

My bangaiis have just started breeding and it seems that the male holds for 1 week or so and then releases the eggs, he simply does not hold full term. This has happened 3 times already.

Both fish are feed heavily once a day with mysis and enriched brine as well as some marine green now and then. The femle often takes pellets but pellets are feed sparingly. Unfortunatley i do not have acces to live feed (as suggested by some articles). What else can i do to maximise the chances of the male holding to full term?

thanks
 
do you know he is releasing them? or is he eating them? This is a problem that apparently is quite common. I have the same problem too. I have deducted 3 options; artificial incubation- (just do a search you'll get some info) appears to be a pain though; keep waiting and hope he cathes on; or try another pair
 
im not sure if he is eating them or not, i just notice that beyond day 6 or so he stops becoming shy, comes out and starts to feed again like he has never held eggs at all.

i have increased the feeding regime so hopefully he holds on. will keep this area updated. ;)
 
ok, they have "done the deed" today and the male is holding on to a clutch. I actually saw the eggs hanging off the female, i stuck around to see the male 'grasp' them but avast, he did it while nature called on me! :(

I have tried fattening the male since the last post(i fed until they simply cannot eat any more), still once a day. Will keep this updated if he holds past a week.
 
hmm, a check in the tank this morning has revealed that the male is no longer holiding the eggs....

so very frustrating.....

:(
 
Increase feeding to 2 times per day minimum with one time being to saturation. Start now as he needs to feel like he has enough reserve built up to last a month. They will also eat eggs that were not fertilized correctly. They may have trouble if your tank has very high flow.
 
yes, the flow in my tank is quite high, but there are ead spots at the back of the takn (typically where the bangaiis hang around. Ill start feeding more i guess.

will keep the post updated.
 
:dance: they have been at it again, i just came home from work and the males mouth is puffed up, females abdomen has shrunk.

One think i have noticed is that the male is very very shy, even when he is not incubating the eggs. Most of the time the female comes out and feeds but the male tends to stay at the back of the tank, only coming forward to eat a fraction of the females morsel then returning to the back.

They are in a tank with a pair of BW clowns and a yellow tang (who is a pig/ gets in the way), as well as a midas blenny, but the male has been like that before.

(just stating as sometimes , even though im feeding the tank twice a day, effectively the male is not being fed 2 times).


Will keep you guys updated if he holds past 5-6 days this time.
 
My bangaii's had babies a few weeks ago. There were a total of 20+ babies swimming around on the first day. I just kept the babies in the main tank and their numbers decreased daily. I have 3 out of the 20+ that are going to make it. They hang out in my sebae anemone with my gold-banded maroon clown and sometimes venture into my long spine urchin (just like their parents).

As far as the feedings go, I feed the tank good old fashion omega one marine flakes in the morning, and then a block of marine cuisine around 3:30pm. The bangaii's really like the marine cuisine and since it breaks up into tiny pieces, the babies really like it. They are around 2 1/2 weeks old now and have started eating flakes as well. I hear that they like cyclopeeze too.

I hope that helps a little bit.
 
ShilohPSU : do you have a lot of other fish in the tank? How do you pair up the Bangaii's? I have a single but would like a mate.

Thanks and good luck with getting your male to hold full term.
 
thanks Shiloh, unfortunately im not even up to that stage yet. The babies dont hatch, the father abandons/eats the eggs after a few days...

Im trying to get around that problem. :(
 
As far as fish go, my tank consists of a sailfin tang, gold-banded maroon clown, lawnmower blenny, a firefish, and the pair of bangaii. I was looking for the bangaii's for a long time and then my LFS had them one day, so I bought 2 of them so they wouldn't be lonely. I just lucked out and randomly got a male + a female.

The fish are pretty spoiled too. It's in a 72g bow-front with an outer orbit metal halide setup, 7" crocea clam, zoas, 12+ inch sebae anemone, a few sps corals, big long-spine urchin, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp, turbos (which spawned and had babies a few times) and astrea snails, sea cucumber, serpent stars, sand-sifting tiger star, emerald crab, and hermits.

I think that the anemone and urchin helped a lot. They felt comfortable in the ecosystem and decided to breed. The adults love to hide next to the anemone and urchin just like the babies. This is behavior that bangaii's also exhibit in the wild. My nitrates are always around 0 - 10 ppm, salinity 1.024 - 1.025, pH of 8.2 - 8.4.

The funny thing about all of this is that I didn't even know that they spawned, until I saw 20 babies swimming in the urchin and anemone.
 
That is awesome i would really like to get a mate but have heard it is near impossible to tell. Mine loves to tuck itself up against the elegance coral when i am messing around with the tank.
 
well it seems the male is a complete idiot! MAN this is FRUSTRATING!

he is eating again with no signs of eggs, next time in going to try and catch the bastard (if i can, since he always ducks into the LR as soon as he is holding and does not come out).

as always, the page will be kept updated just in case (by some miracle) the male decides to hold on to the eggs.
 
6post note: i will try change the foods around (a homemade mix as opposed to mysis/enriched brine). Hopefully something can get this idiot to hold on to the eggs.
 
My male has gone full term on holding for four out of the last five times he has spawned. The one time he did not hold (lasted about two weeks) was when there was a lot of disturbance in the tank. I had to fix an overflow problem so I had my hands in the tank a lot. I try to keep the tank very quiet wihle they are holding and even for go cleaning the glass in the early stages so as not to cause any undo alarm. The only tank mates in the spawning tank are a lawnmower blenny and a green mandarin. This past spawn I removed the male on day 26 and he deposited 20 babies in my rearing tank three days ago. All the young are eating newly hatched artemia and doing fine so far. I conditioned the parents with live enriched adult brine, rod's food and frozen mysis. Seems like they spawn about two weeks after each brood is deposited so I hammer the male with food three or four times a day while he is not holding.
Bob
 
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