Bangers at 2 weeks

[timmmysli]

Hi all,

I've managed to get my bangaii babies to the two week stage which is cool seeing that it's my first try.

I started with 21, well so I thought until I counted 22 four times today. They were partially released by the male on the 3rd of Jan 2010, he let three go over the entire day and then I stripped the rest at lights out as I didn't want him to eat them overnight. Up till that point the male had been kept in a breeders net in my 200ltr DT from around day 13. After I stripped the male I put him back into the DT.

One day old

A day or two after release I set up a 20 ltr tank with three sides blacked out. I added a heater and a sponge filter that had been in my DT for a month or so.

Two days after the release by the male he was already holding eggs. He only lasted a few hours before eating all of the eggs. After this I've found it really hard to get him to eat again. I've basically had to retrain him onto all foods, he didn't eat anything at all until I tried some live blackworms around 4-5 days after release.

One week in

So far I have gotten the little bangers eating chopped up blackworms, some eat frozen bbs, some are eating off the bottom of the tank and all are eating NHBBS.

Currently I'm :

6:30 am Feeding Frozen bbs
4:30pm Trying dry foods, flake and crushed mysis
5:30pm Feeding chopped up live blackworms (6-8 worms)
7-8pm Gently Unsettling any scrapps from the bottom of the tank
And adding a small amount of nhbbs
10pm Cleaning out the bottom of the tank, removing 2ltrs 10-12%
Adding 1ml of Ammo lock into a 2ltr drip to complete the waterchange
10pm I'm adding enriched nhbbs into the waterchange drip

A pic from today

At two weeks some of the bangers are starting to outgrow and outcompete thier siblings. A few, maybe 2-4 aren't interested in the feedings as thier pecking bits of leftovers off the base of the tank. Funnly enough some of this ground crew are outgrowing the others but the rest of this crew are by far the smallest lol

 

[timmmysli]

So theres a where I'm at post.

Now any suggestions on what to expect next? Tips on how to wean them onto oto A or frozens would help.

Sorry I forgot to add that I feed frozen bbs with my nhbbs every feed.

The parents

 

[Scott-CapeCoral]

that's very cool. When they spawn, do they attach the eggs to a rock like clowns? Could you give some info as to what to look for during the process, and how to collect?

 

[timmmysli]

The male bangaii normally holds the eggs in his mouth for around 21days before releasing the babies. Mine held to the 21 day mark then slowly started to spit them out, at that point I had him in a breeders net. The babies are around 5mm at that point and can't escape out of the net.

 

[Mrbeachbum2]

Did you buy them as a pair? Or get lucky?

Thanks!

 

[timmmysli]

I purchased a pair and the male never ate then died.

I then grabbed another male and he ended up holding eggs within a few weeks.

My lfs has three males in the shop so I might get another one to rotate around seeing that the female seems to produce eggs three times a month.

 

[tommyb]

How do you "strip" the babies from the male? How big is your DT?

 

[timmmysli]

To strip the male I held him in my hand and pried open his lower jaw with a piece of plastic rod. Then whilst holding his jaw open I moved him back and forwards at the waters surface.

My Dt is only small around 200ltrs.

 

[tommyb]

To strip the male I held him in my hand and pried open his lower jaw with a piece of plastic rod. Then whilst holding his jaw open I moved him back and forwards at the waters surface.

My Dt is only small around 200ltrs.

That is pretty neat, I didn't know you could do that. Is he easy to catch when it is time to do this?

 

[timmmysli]

No its not easy at all

From what I've read if you scare them to much they can eat or spit out the eggs. So i didn't try to catch him until pretty late, my first few attempts didn't work. Each afternoon I tried to catch him until I finally got lucky.

Once I caught him I mad sure he wasn't lifted out of the water as that would freak him out and from what I've read again is that if you lift them out of the water he's more likely to spit the eggs out. Once he was in the breeders net I didn't go near him for days to let him settle into his new home.



I lost my first banger yesterday which sucks but I guess thats going to happen.

 

[agsansoo]

Congrats timmmysli !
My only advise so far would be, keep feeding them BBS.

 

[timmmysli]

Well I have only 10 bangers still alive after a good 6-7 weeks.

Around the 5-6 week mark I started to have one die off each day.

Most of the bangers left seem to feed well except for maybe two.

I've lost one clutch of eggs, while I was catching the male i stressed him out too much and he spat the eggs.

But the good news is today I caught the male with a large mouth full. I think its only day two and I already have him in a breeders net.

The reason for catching him so early is that I purchased another male two weeks ago. He's been floating around in a DIY net for the last two weeks. When I bought him he had some fin rot starting but with heavy feedings that seems to have past. I also dosed fairly high amounts of a bacterial additive thats meant for fish health.

I've released the new male and the female seems rather excited and is hassling the crap out of him already only minutes after release.

If I'm lucky I'll be able to have the old male release the bangers in 20 days then I'll put him in the floating net. During that time I hope the new male might hold for me and I'll be able to start a rotation cycle going.

If I can manage to do this I'll start culturing rots and phyto again to help speed up the growth rates of the little bangers. The 6+week old bangers I have are still really small so I figure they must need more food more often and rot's are a simple way of providing food 24/7.

mmm during typing out this post the females had a go at the new bagaii. Maybe its a female to but then the way my original pair were fighting last week its hard to tell.

 

[timmmysli]

So I've purchased another male. I had already purchased what I thought was a second male only to have it attacked by the existing female (after 2weeks of fattening up and training onto frozen/pellet)

I've had the new male in the cage for two days and this morning after a good feed it escaped into my DT with the breeding pair.

It went straight over to the pair and just hanged out with them for a while. After both of the pair checked him out the old male attacked it and chased it off.

Is this a good sign that the new fish is a male? The female puffed up a bit and got a bit excited but didn't actually attack it, the male pushed it into the corner of the tank and had a good number of goes at trying to bite it.


Its now back in the cage and the original male is trying its hardest to get to it, angry little fish


On a sad note I've lost nearly all of my first batch of bangers. Ther've gone off nearly all food. Most of the time during feeding they seem to be more interested in watching me than looking for the food.