Banggai Fry Due Soon

kaxt

kaxt

Member
My male Banggai has been holding eggs for 20 days now. I'm hoping to catch the fry and try to raise them. Does anyone have suggestions on how to catch the fry? I've heard of people catching the male before he releases but based on where he has been hanging out, I doubt I would ever be able to get him.

I've also heard of people getting the fry to eat frozen foods from the very begining. I'm interested in any pointers on that as well. Im going to be hatching live brine just incase, but it would be awesome if I could trick them into eating frozen early on.

I'll post pics if I'm successful catching fry.
 
Congratz. When mine had been holding for 27 days I tried to net him in the excitement he let 7 go. You could try putting a fake urchin near where he hangs out. I know my baby banggai would stay in their fake urchin. I fed mine copepods and brine in the beginning but I too have heard of people doing Golden Pearls or frozen from the beginning. I wasn't that brave/smart. I also found the live food to be easier on clean up. I didn't vacuum twice a day like many I just had live phyto and live food. Made it a bit easier to keep food in there so they could eat all day. Also kept the water parameters in check as the phyto took up some of the load and helped enrich the brine as it swam around. I tried to keep newly hatch brine on hand but got lazy and didn't always have new brine but did keep it fed and enriched as well as possible. I think it also helped I had some copepods so that upped the nutrition a little.

Good luck and keep us updated. Especially if you try non-live in the beginning.
 
Best of luck! I was just reading up on Banggai breeding in the October edition of "coral" magazine. Hopefully someday we will be breeding them. I don't have any advice for you for now, besides best of luck!
 
Thanks guys. I like the idea of using the fake urchin. I was planning to make one for the grow out tank but never thought of using it to actually help catch them in the begining. I just made one out of water weld and toothpicks.

Tonight will be the three week mark. I didn't realize that they could hold for 27 days, I thought that 21 to 23 was normal. But that explains why it seems like he still has eggs not fry in his mouth at this point.

My pair is still young and small so I didn't expect the male to hold this long, especially because it's his first time. He has definitely eaten some because his mouth looked bigger before but he still has at least a few and he is looking very skinny.

My 'hopes and dreams' are that I will be able to grow them out in the return section of my sump. It's about 15 gallons and the intake for the external pump has a strainer on it with very small holes. That way I won't have to worry as much about the tank staying clean since it will have all the filtration from my display. If that doesn't work, I'll set up a 10 gallon tank with a sponge filter. It makes sense that live food would be easier when it comes to keeping the tank clean though.
 
I would use plastic zip ties next time instead of toothpicks. Not saying they wont work but i would just worry about the sharpness. But i worry alot lol
 
I didn't try a fake urchin, but when I tried a real diadema it got largely ignored, maybe due to the lack of threats in the tank.
A LFS here tried it with a fake urchin but it didn't work for them.

Another thing that may attract them are anemones. I've seen my adults hanging out near my giganteas and once even found one of my females snuggling up with a H. malu.

But in general success in a community or reef tank is less likely.

I had 2 of my pairs spawn within 2 days about a week ago but both males lost or ate the eggs only a few days later. It was likely due to stress from other tank mates or the pushy females.

I wasn't prepared this time, but later I plan to set my 3 pairs up in a specialized tank with separate compartments for each pair and isolate the males a few days after spawning so they are safe from the females.

MrsReefK said:
Best of luck! I was just reading up on Banggai breeding in the October edition of "coral" magazine. Hopefully someday we will be breeding them. I don't have any advice for you for now, besides best of luck!
Click to expand...

They have been bred for about 20 years now. Much of the banggais you find in stores these days are captive bred.
 
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Yes, there is a good history of breeding and lots of good reading and advice, can't wait to join the club soon!
 
Zip ties is a good idea for the urchin. I originally tried weed wacker line, but it didn't turn out well, so I grabbed the toothpicks. I'm not sure the urchin is going to work either, because the pair seems to be staying away from it, even though I put it in their favorite spot. I'm going to leave it though because it certainly isn't hurting anything being there, and maybe the fry will feel differently about it than their parents.

The most aggressive fish I have in the tank are a pair of occ clowns, and they don't pay any attention to the cardinals. The male is still holding, we are at day 23 now. I hope that since he has made it this long, he will hold until they are ready to be released. I've heard of multiple people finding fry in their sumps after the male released, so I guess there is still a small chance that I could get at least one to raise even if I do miss the actual release. The past two days he has been hiding a lot more than he had been, so I guess we are getting close!

Sunday night I tried to catch the male, but he's still pretty quick even though he's super skinny. I didn't want to stress him out too much, so after two quick attempts I decided to leave him alone. I might try again tonight. Maybe I'll get lucky like Kizanne and he'll spit a couple if I start to chase him.

I have live brine shrimp, that hatched yesterday, in a tank of live phyto, plus I have frozen BBS and Cyclopeeze. If they turn their noses up at the frozen stuff I'll at least have something live to feed them until I can hatch new BBS.
 
He held for almost 5 weeks. I was really getting worried about him.

I tried to catch him almost every day for over a week and was wondering if he wasn’t releasing because he was trying to protect his fry from the giant new predator. For the first few weeks I could see the eggs in his mouth but for the last two weeks or so I couldn’t actually see anything in there, just that his mouth was swollen and he wasn’t eating.

I was never able to get any fry, and I even spent a decent amount of time scanning the tank and sump after he released but never found anything. I was just relieved at that point that he was eating again though, I’m sure they will give me another opportunity to catch fry.
 
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