I'm sorry I did not get the G. watanabei info up yesterday. I had a full fish chore day that was topped off by having Rufus (Freedive43 here) come by with three little bandit angels to be grown out as future broodstock! So now we have backup bandits! I'd heard a lot about Rufus and his rebreather diving but this was the first time I got to meet him in person and hear about some of the fishes he's seen at depth! Pretty cool stuff. Thank you Rufus!
Wayne in Norway asked about pairing angels, particularly the watanabei. The Genicanthus are easier than other angels because you can tell males from females but that still doesn't mean they're going to like each other. I normally use the same protocol for pairing any angelfish species. I purchase 2 or three fish of different sizes and run them through quarantine together. I keep them separated when I'm not there and remove dividers to let them have an introduction while I can keep an eye on them. A real good sign is if one fish (usually the smaller) shows what I believe is a submissive posture by putting a slight bend or arc in it's body with the concave side of the submissive fish towards the other more dominant fish. When this happens at the beginning of the introduction it's usually a good match but I still put the divider back in place when I'm not around. If The fish chase each other but don't make contact there is still a chance of a successful pairing. If the fish make contact I break them up and try to introduce a different fish. I'm lucky in that some of the wholesalers here will let me try to pair fish and bring back fish that are not good matches. With the G. watanabei, I started with two females of just slightly different sizes and a larger male. They were fine through quarantine and moved into an aquarium together. The male would spawn with one female about an hour before lights out and would spawn with the second female half an hour after the first. The male became fairly aggressive towards the smaller female as spawning progressed and I have had to remove her due to eye damage caused by the male. The male is now calmer with only one female in the tank.
Aquaph8 wanted to hear more about the captive bred G. watanabei. I started working with their eggs/larvae on June 25, 2012 The first try only got to day 9 using wild collected plankton. Trial 2 only lasted 3 days and went from looking great to zero larvae over night. For Trial 3 I focused on water quality and used wild collected plankton backed up by cultured copepods and got to day 32. Trial 4 started out badly with sluggish larvae that weren't developing and only got to day 6. Then I had success with Trial 5 which started Sept. 8 2012 and the first larva to show some juvenile coloration (black trim on the fins) and benthic behavior was 80 days old, (Nov. 29). By Dec. 30 I had 4 settled fish which I moved to a growout tank. Two of them had buoyancy problems after eating dried foods and eventually died. I have since heard of ways to deal with that. The smallest fish disappeared and I have one here that is waiting for Copps to finish his new tank. She is about 1.5 inches in length now. That successful run was done using cultured copepods and wild plankton and I moved the larvae (very tedious task) to a new clean tank every week since all sorts of things start to grow from the wild plankton. My goal is to use only cultured foods and to shorten the larval phase which I think is possible.
Faith is doing great and is truly a Miss Piggy as Wayne had said. And I love fish who love to eat!
Thanks for sharing Karen, like I needed another reason to be jelous of John, LOL. Most people would think Im crazy, especially when compared to an interupta but the Genicanthus angels excite me more than the Centopyge. I love watanabei and you had my attention for sure when I heard of your success breeding them. I wish you continued success and can't wait to see what the future brings. Are you working on another round with ese guys at the moment?
humaguy- your tiny bandit must be the cutest thing! I'm not sure how the adults would react to her but I've had good results when a fish of the same species is that much smaller. Can the adults see her through the isolation box? If they can see her now and are not displaying at her it will probably be fine. Fingers crossed.
Adorable little Bandit Huma.
This is all so interesting and exciting! I am at a loss for words! I've been wondering about the costs associated with breeding. We've been talking about making another donation to the project, but not towards new fish. We'd like to "sponsor" some of the expenses, if possible. Does anyone with experience have a suggestion about what would be helpful? Thanks!
Wow great info on the angels. I am just being curious, and by this I mean I have little to no experience with raising saltwater fish with the exception of Pterapogon kauderni, but why are the amounts of, for example, clownfish, such larger than angels? I read that you successfully raised 4 Genacanthus Watanabei. I am just interested, that's all.
I am excited to see baby bandits and Interruptas angels! Maybe this time next year you will have plenty of baby bandits the size of Huma's :celeb2:
Karen - what are your thoughts on male watanabei's color pattern returning back to female pattern? Or any genicanthus for that matter?
If the male in captivity due to tank size constraints does not have a harem, then it forces a change back to female, or as Karen mentioned, a partial change.
I'm not sure if this is 100% right but it may be a right start.
over the past 3 years i've had multiple male genicanthus angels revert back to female colors because of a more dominate male geni but different type. This has happened with lamarcks, swallowtails and bellus. After removing the 'bully' , one would revert back to male.