My male has been holding eggs for 16 days. I was able to get him out of my display tank (from tip here) and I have him in a refugium type tank by himself. After he releases the young, how much time do I have before I have to worry about him eating them? Is it hours? I was going to put in a fake urchin. Will the babies eat the fauna in the tank? Its loaded. Going to raise some BB shrimp as well.
Thanks in advance.
hey man, congrats
hmm the first question is difficult. each male is different. I have heard that he wont eat any until he has released them all, but have also heard contradictions to that rule. gonna leave that question out in the open .
However if you make the fake urchin realy dense in the center, the bangai babies will likely congregate their, safely out of reach of the male.
what kind of fauna are we talking? lots of different species of copepods? Or amphipods? isopods? skeleton shrimp? to answer your question they will likely eat anything that looks like food and can fit i ntheir mouth, that would be most of the infauna, but their are some dangers to consider as well.
I have seen certain isopods in my seahorse tank attack my baby zots.
I have also witnesed a large skeleton shrimp atatched to the end of a small fleeing zot. The seahorse was swimming (looked like it was doing the jerk LOL) into the water column trying to get away from the skeleton shrimp, so i didn't see if the shrimp was being aggressive or if the horse was just using the wrong shrimp as a hitching post.
marine ornamental aquaculture has a huge learning curve, i have changed my current set up twice already and am considering another big change.
