Banggai Cardinalfish Breeding Log

My pair just mated for the first time. I've had them 3 weeks. I guess I have about 21 days to prepare my zip ties. Any idea how much variation there is on the hatching time?

Catching the male would yield the biggest cache of babies. Otherwise its a net or I would even try a siphon. My africans never seem the worse for it when they get sucked up the canister intake.
 
Update:
I how have both pairs of Banggai's spawning. The second pair's male released his fry last night. I only managed to catch four. The first pair of Banggai's, the male has a mouthful of eggs.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15683088#post15683088 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Frogmanx82
My pair just mated for the first time. I've had them 3 weeks. I guess I have about 21 days to prepare my zip ties. Any idea how much variation there is on the hatching time?

Catching the male would yield the biggest cache of babies. Otherwise its a net or I would even try a siphon. My africans never seem the worse for it when they get sucked up the canister intake.

Mine are releasing at exactly 21 day. I wouldn't try siphoning, they are very easy to catch with a brine shrimp net.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15691710#post15691710 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by timrandlerv10
Best place to look for mated pairs? I'd rather do that then play russian roulette with two in a tank at the lfs!

Not sure. I would post a thread on you local reef club board.
 
New Photos of second batch of fry I caught last night. I only caught four. :)
The smaller ones are 1 day old. The larger ones are 1 month old. Look at the size difference.

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I just had two babies get out today. One is pretty well formed but the other is struggling to swim with a yolk sack still needing to be absorbed. Tomorrow is day 21. I have brine shrimp eggs hatching and put some frozen rotifers in.

I'll post pictures tomorrow.
 
Good luck Frogmanx82 ! I don't think the frozen rot's will help much. These banggai's are very picky eaters. Keep us posted on how they do.
 
I should have plenty of live shrimp tomorrow. What is the best food to try besides that?

Only 5 babies are out. The papa just won't let the rest out yet. I see some copepods on the side of the glass. Could the babies eat some of those?
 
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One tip i have for you as far as catching the fry is to use a turkey baster... I use it to catch my reidi seahorse fry, my dwarf seahorse fry (which are extremely tiny), used to use it for my baby betta fry as well.... Hope this helps!!

AWESOME PICS BY THE WAY!!!
 
Hi, congrats on the banggais.
You may need to watch for the 2 older banggai killing the smaller ones.
It can be useful to contain the smaller batch in a floating cage for the 1st 6 weeks so you can target feed them more easily.

Some alternate foods I got my batches onto are:
finely minced seafood mix of raw fresh mussels, prawn, snapper (local type of fish)
mixture of BBS and finely ground dry cyclopeeze, granules and flakes.
Tool used for target feeding was a 5ml syringe with a short length of airline attached to end.

I've just delivered 17 to my LFS - the male released 29, I had no losses until they reached close to 3 months of age and then they started to kill each other. Lesson learned. The next batch will be caged in smaller groups to see if this reduces losses.
Hope that info is of use to you.
 
Hi, congrats on the banggais.
You may need to watch for the 2 older banggai killing the smaller ones.
It can be useful to contain the smaller batch in a floating cage for the 1st 6 weeks so you can target feed them more easily.

Some alternate foods I got my batches onto are:
finely minced seafood mix of raw fresh mussels, prawn, snapper (local type of fish)
mixture of BBS and finely ground dry cyclopeeze, granules and flakes.
Tool used for target feeding was a 5ml syringe with a short length of airline attached to end.

I've just delivered 17 to my LFS - the male released 29, I had no losses until they reached close to 3 months of age and then they started to kill each other. Lesson learned. The next batch will be caged in smaller groups to see if this reduces losses.
Hope that info is of use to you.

Thanks for the much needed info. You will see why by my next post.
 
Every time I tried to take his picture, he would duck behind the corals. LOL

As the lights cycled off for the night, the male would take his favorite spot for releasing his fry. The first ones were spit out at almost midnight. Five at a time. This time I did something different. I kept the return pump and the Vortech mp40 still going. As the first ones hit the current, it was a race between me and the other fish in the display tank. Mostly the other banggai pair.
 
So the male continued spit his fry out (five at a time) untill 2:00am Saturday. I collected in total 18 little ones. :D With 5 still remaining in the display tank. They swam to the bottom where I couldn't reach them.

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