Bangaii's first brood

[ashrem]

Should have started this thread last month but here goes.

Heres the tank:

The tank is about 13 months old and I purchased five bangaii cardinals about a 10 months ago. I got three left due to overflow jumping issues.

A pair of the bangaii always hung out at my sebae:

This Halloween i noticed that one of the bangaiis wasnt eating and his jaw looked "swollen".

Low and behold I saw eggs in his mouth after about an hour of staring.:beer:

Fast forward about 20 days and I glimpsed into his mouth again and saw little eye balls. Spent couple hours trying to get a picture inside his mouth but never got one.:headwally:

At 25 days, the male is no where in sight. I couldnt find him in the rock works either. He wasnt in his normal hangout near the sebae and the female now starts hanging around the third and last bangaii.

I was crestfallen and accepted that he was gone and so were the babies.

But wait when I next fed, he pops out of the rocks and chases the food but doesn't eat. His jaw still looks "swollen", I was joyful again!

At that point I made an artificial urchin out of Aquamend epoxy and 4" zip ties. I was hoping the male would spit out the babies and they would find shelter in the arms of the urchin.

Well at day 30 I got concerned since still no babies. The male hides in the rocks and I can only get him to come out when I put in a huge amount of frozen mysis.

Its day 33 and when I coax him out of the rocks he doesn't eat and his jaw is still extended. Still no babies.

Anyone ever go this long and no babies?

 

[ashrem]

Well that sucked.

The bangaii came out today for a feeding and ate a shrimp but his mouth was still extended. Suddenly a baby bangaii shot out (WHOOOHOOOO!!!!)...

and was promptly eaten by a anathias.:furious:

I couldnt get a picture till later but his mouth is back to normal and I cannot find any more babies around.

 

[_shorty_]

Wonder if the process would have taken less time if the dad knew it was safe to let them go? I don't know, never bred these guys. Just speculating, since I didn't know the process took so long. I assume you'd need to pull the dad out, or separate off your breeding pair (if you want to raise them). There's a thread not too old on here where Someone is raising babies by pulling out the dad and putting him in his Xenia refugium and he gets some babies to grow in there.

 

[Chelle's Ocean]

SHAME on you Anthias! lol
Was reading this and getting to the good part when whoosh-the baby was gobbled up I was hoping you got a baby or two or three
Good luck next time

 

[ashrem]

SHAME on you Anthias! lol
Was reading this and getting to the good part when whoosh-the baby was gobbled up I was hoping you got a baby or two or three
Good luck next time

Thanks, I am prepping for the next batch. Unfortunately my wife would kill me if I put up a new rearing tank so i will have to make things better in this tank. I am looking at placing up more rubble and rock work for the potential babies and setting in couple more faux urchins for them to get used.

 

[davidcoral]

How long did you have the bangaii before they began to spawn? Did you always have two seperated from the other one? I am trying to determine if I have a male and female cardinal myslef in the hope that they will one day spawn.

 

[ashrem]

Had them about 7 months. They were not too small when I bought them but no idea what age they were then.

 

[ashrem]

Noticed that the original couple reformed and the other male is now excluded from the group. Guess took a while for the egg holding male to regain his strength and be accepted by the female.

 

[frizzo98]

That is pretty cool I was hoping I could do that but every bangaii cardinal I buy it dies within a month. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Reefer54]

That is pretty cool I was hoping I could do that but every bangaii cardinal I buy it dies within a month. What am I doing wrong?

just out of curiosity, do you happen to be buying wild fish or tank bred, tank bred fish of pretty much every species is much more easily adaptable to tank life.

you would have post more info than that, but i would be led towards tankmates, underfed (they are nocturnal) or water quality.

 

[sadams303]

For what it is worth, I had Bangai's breeding in an old tank (since torn down) and I'd try to catch (semi often successfully) the Dad, and put him in my refugium, he would usually spit out the juveniles within a few days, and then back to the main aquarium for him, and then I'd hatch brine shrimp and feed the refugium with the babies, was successful enough to get maybe a dozen to the size the lfs store would buy. Planning a new tank and definitely want Bangai's in it, a bit more work but a lot of fun