Breeding Log: Pterapogon Kaudnerni

Ya know Travis, I've been raising these little tykes for several months now, learning all I can and preparing myself as best as I know how, but when I saw these little guys yesterday, it was completely and utterly aweseome how tiny they really were! I had forgeten that they get spit out that small. Really put the larger ones into perspective. What's nice, is there are so many babies in the 2.5 now that I can actually see the "mass" from the other room. Used to have to walk right up to the tank and search hard to find em, but they all school together right now. Very cool to watch.
 
Well, I for one thought you did a great job of creating pictures in my mind. Thank you for taking the time to share!
 
Well, still only have the 12. I guess we lost 8 that first night. But these 12 are already munchin' the freeze dried cyclopeeze and looking great. The 3 older juvi's are lovin' the larger tank. Swimming all over the place. For their first feeding in their new home, I stuck in the same food combo I was giving there parents, some reef plankton and mysis thawed and soaked in a bottle of tetraselmis. To my surprise, the larger two went straight for it, and ate themselves pudgy! The third is still kinda small and young and waited for cyclopeeze before eating. Oh well, I'll get him sooner or later :D
 
That's great Adam. It's amazing how fast they grow, yet how long it takes. It's just like children. They grow like weeds and time goes by quickly, but the next thing you know their 18 years old, as big as their parents, and ready to leave the house.
 
....It seems like only yesterday the little tykes were gooing and gaaing over their bottle, now they wanna hang out all day with there friends and never call to let me and jess know where their at....

The smallest of the 3 juvi's is lovin' the urchin in the tank. He's too big to swim amidst all the spines, but he sticks right next to it like he was a baby still.

The male did not enjoy joing the female in the 55g last night either. She started in on him from the moment he went splash! Trying to spawn already. He ran and hid in a cave and I havn't seen him come out yet. You all seen the previews for that movie "Norbert" coming out soon, with Eddy Murphy? That was what it was like. He was runnin for his life from a super "hungry" female!
 
Update: Angel of death makes a visit.

Update: Angel of death makes a visit.

No idea why this happened but I wound up loosing all but 2 of the babies. All were witnessed eating regularly and well. Freeze dried cyclopeeze just like all my small bangaii. The tank is obviously more mature than it was the last batch that went in. Water quality is so-so, a little more nitrates than I want, but otherwise identical to my display tank. The only change made to their holding tank was the replacement of a crappy 6700k bulb to a 50/50 10,000k/actinic 03 mini compact. All the shrooms in the tank look far better but I can't seem to figure out what killed so many babies so quickly. Lost 8 overnight after the release. I chalked that up to either starvation and/or stress from the move. The rest just went one or two a day until now I only have the pair remaining. They seem to be actively feeding. Swimming and exploring their surroudings well. No noticable behavoir to indicate poor health or anything else. I'm stumped.

But on the brighter side. The male is holding another batch again...this time in my 55g again.

this whole learning process is turning into a pain in my backside people, lol. But I'm persistant. I will find a way to get higher survival rates and make this work for our benefit. May just take longer than I hoped.

Keep ya'll updated later! :D
 
Hey Guys,
I happened to be online researching the many varieties of cardinals. Since I am amazed at the fact that they are "mouth brooders" I thought it would be super cool to get some. On the 7th or 8th page of websites & articles I ran across some interesting information that you may or may not be aware of. A group did a research project over the course of many months in order to determine why the males will eat their young. "In a nutshell" they believe that the males may eat the young as long as they know that there is a "ready" female(s) around. They think that the male knows when the species must be saved and when it is ok to eat them because they can immediately make some more.
Have a great Friday.
DeLynn
 
Thank you DeLynn, I had not read that, but it does kinda make sense. I only had my pair spawn once in the 20g they were in, but before them ale realeased babies, the female had been removed. The only time they had been separated since I got em, and the male did not eat any of the young as far as I can tell. But again, he also had a nice Urchin in the tank to protect the younglings and the moment the last baby was out of the tank he was fed well and removed to the 55g with the female again. I'd like to check into this further, do you remember the website you found that information at?

And fwiw, i would highly recommend some bangaii's if you are interested. Other cardinals are great too, but bangaii fry are larger and easier to raise from what I understand, plus less common than other species, we need people breeding them.


Update: I still have the two remaining babies, and they seem to be doing okay, but so did the rest. I think me and jess are going to try the BBS once again during the next release and try to ween to babies onto cyclopeeze instead of offering it as a first food. Our survival rates seemed to have been better when we were doing that, but again, I'm new to this so there may have been factors involved that I havn't figured out yet. Trial and Error.
The juvi's are looking awesome though, Simply marvelous finnage on two of them, very long banners and all. I'm sure they'll look much prettier than their parents did. And they have grown noticably since being added to the 20g. may be the extra room, it may be the extra feedings. Not sure yet. Just happy their still kickin' it.
 
Adam,
I looked & looked but couldn't find the exact article I read last night. Sorry. I actually started off checking out the red chromis and ended up on cardinalfish. The bangaiis are very unique but since I don't have several tanks, it would be difficult to separate them when needed. There are other cardinalfish that will school and don't need to be separated, but of course they aren't as cool as the bangaiis. I'll need to give this some thought.
Thanks for the info.
DeLynn
 
I wouldn't say that the bangaii's NEED to be separated. All the juvi's I had now were released in my 55g and I just happen to catch em and put em in a separate grow out tank. I just recieved my pair of PJ's from P. thompson yesterday, I love em, but definatly not as "POW!" as the bangaii's are. I'm also partial to the flame cardinals. I would love a few of them in my 220 later on. so many fish, so little room. Bangaii's will also school, as is there natural tendancy to do so. male/female pairs will form and go off on their own to spawn, but they are not monogomous and will eventually return to the "herd". I'm considering getting several females for my big tank and keeping just the male separated. This will be the optimal way for me to breed em if I can get the whole eggmass extraction/kreisel thingy down.
 
Everything I read indicated that they would fight a lot if they weren't separated. Maybe they don't if the tank is large enough. Either way, you've had enough experience with them & I'd rather trust your knowledge. I only have the 40g right now & I'm already starting to run out of room. Right now I can't fit another tank into my budget, but the bangaiis are very, very cool. Flame cardinals sound cool too. I'm still thinking about it. Maybe if my "ship comes in" or if I find me a "sugar daddy" I could have a GIANT tank. My sunroom has over 600 sq ft & I could fit a pretty big tank in it or... maybe turn the whole thing into a reef tank.
Later,
DeLynn
 
You have to keep Males separated, but not a male/female pair. At most you would simply separate the pair temporarily if they are spawning too often and the male is in risk of starvation. but he'll abort the eggmass if he really needs to. My pair hang out all the time, side by side, until they spawn. then the male hides best he can and the female kinda "watches his back" for him. it's rather interesting to watch em interact.
 
Too bad you can't keep a bunch of males and just one or two females. The females could keep the males full of brooding babies and the males wouldn't get exhausted.
Thanks for the info.
 
I agree, this is one of the reasons that many claim that raising bangaii's for money isn't worth it. The cost to raise and breed them barely covers the upkeep cost for most. Due largely in part to the amount of space required for keeping males separated and whatnot. It's not much of a factor for me right now since I'm raising and breeding in current "display" tanks. My 20g growout is used for stuff like star polyps and button polyps so their not in my other nicer display so I might as well put some fish in there, like the babies. But if I had to have separte tanks for everything, I could easily see it costing more than it's worth. 6 months of trying to breed and raise and I have a whopping total of 5 babies in the house. 2 new fella's, 3 five month olds. And havn't made a dime on them either. So for somebody who loves letting nature take it's own path then having a breeding pair living in a nice display would be awesome. No worries about trying to raise any babies, they'll just feed the other livestock, but you still get to see the awesome breeding habits of this interesting fish.

Did you ever deal with african cichlids during your time with freshwater tanks? Very very similar from what I'm told.
 
Update: 4/23/07

Update: 4/23/07

So I finally had a pair of bangaii's sucessfully raised and passed them on to one of my fellow reefers. Success at last!

But now on a sad note, Saturday evening my Male bangaii simply dropped dead. We were watching TV and he sank like a stone, wiggled, and dead. Water quality is definatly an issue but weather or not it was the ultimate culprite I don't know. None of my other fish, the female bangaii included looks sickly or unhealthy at all. Seeing how they were spawning less than two weeks in my tank, they could just be "old". I really don't know. So, If my current grow-out tank is not housing another pair for me, than back to the drawing board and I'll be getting some more broodstock in the future. This was by far the hardest fish loss we have experienced. he was my special little boy :(
 
Thank you Krbekk, it was massive blow to the family. I even think the dogs were crying over that one :D But on the plus side, I now have a confirmed female, two juviniles in grow out, and from what I have personally seen, a male bangaii will be far easier to weed out than a female bangaii. So it's shouldn't be too long before I got another breeding pair going strong. In fact, I found some pretty decent pricing on that IBFishstore.com website for bangaii cardinals. And they can also get the flame cardinals, another favorite of mine.
 
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