Hand stripping bangai

[L333]

Hi all,

My bangai breed quite regulary (in synchrony). Anyway I used to breed cichlids and would stripp females at approx 2 weeks to get maximum babies as if left to full term would get less babies. Another reason for stripping in my situation is bangai all share tanks with pairs of clowns, nocturna gobies and dotty/grammas so letting male release in false urchin etc would just be a free snack... I think.
I always remove the females to another tank where they will breed with another male within a few weeks.

Basically i have read that at 14days onwards the babies are developed enough to stripp the male except the male seems a very delicate fish for me to catch and lever mouth open and jiggle up and down to get babies out. basically I am having trouble with the technique?

Have spoken to other breeders and they say that theirs often spit in the net!! Others experiences?



James

 

[FMarini]

yup-- stripping works fine, you don't have to wait til day 14, you can do it after a few days.
If your able to do a search for banggais and stripping you'll find a fair amt of threads. this technqiue was actively discussed, and no the males aare not a fragile fish, a few folks catch the male, pleace head dowen and press downa nd forwar don the jaw, the eggs pop out.

 

[papagimp]

I've heard of others using the rounded end of a paperclip to "pry" the lip open and then remove the eggs by moving the fish backwards in the water and let the eggs come out thataway. Havn't tried it personally but it's the technique I'm most likely to try at this point. And yes, I've also heard of males releasing the babies when being caught or relocated. Stress factor I'm assuming causes them to abort, but in a net it's more like an attempt at aborting, as long as they don't go the other way and swallow em.