baby bangai

[reef bound]

Had to share! I'm a proud new mom. We came home from holidays a couple weeks ago and I noticed my pair of cardinals had indeed turned out to be a male/female pair. On closer inspection, my boy had his mouth full of eggs. Not sure how long they'd been there, or when they would be gone as we have quite the mixed reef with what I'm sure has enough predators for the babies to be a nice light snack. Low and behold this little fellow made it to my sump and was swimming around this morning, so I transferred him to my refugium. The male still has his mouth full, so maybe we'll find a few more. Not sure what we do now, I never expected a baby. My Qt is in use right now, too, so I guess we just see what happens.

[fishytime]

Hey congrats! The fuge sounds like the best spot for the little fella. Im sure others with more experience trying to raise fry will chine in, but perhaps artemia (baby brine shrimp)???? They are cheap and easy to hatch.

[Leah]

OH,
That is cute!

[Piscez]

That is very cool! You must be proud :smile:

[justinl]

For a successful rearing, you need two things: small food and an urchin. Artemia will do for food although you'll need to gutload them. The best urchin to use is a long spine (diadema sp.). Or, if you don't want an urchin, you can use a surrogate (DIY urchin) made of a ball of epoxy putty with popsicle sticks or BBQ skewers stuck into it to simulate urchin spines. banggai larvae associate with urchins for protection

[sitandwatch]

Very cool

[reef bound]

I do actually have an urchin in the fuge, not a diadema, but a hitch-hiker with spines about 1 1/2" long, and it's so funny that just after I read justinl 's post I checked on him and he was over beside the urchin. I'm off the the LFS to check what they have for me.
(I kinda want to take my big boy out and shake him till he spits the others out, but I know that's bad--lol). I know I'm not gonna get anything done today because I'll be going to check out the sump every five minutes to see if there's more. I love this hobby!

[reef bound]

.....and then there were TWO.

[TheRealBigAL]

Wow congrats. This hobby is so cool :smile:

[fishoholic]

Very cool. Good luck with them I hope they make it.

[Doo]

Very cool!

my male was holding about a month ago and all the sudden the eggs were gone (3 days later). I figured they were just new at it. I was watching them shake and dance last night and I hope he will be holding again soon. Not to hijack the post, but why would you not strip the male - I did it a million times with africans - are SW fish any different?

[justinl]

Not to hijack the post, but why would you not strip the male - I did it a million times with africans - are SW fish any different?

I don't see the point in doing this really... I suppose you could but I would be terrified of harming the adult while it flops around... they're not very big and it would be easy to break somthing. I would also be very reluctant to use a sedative in my tank/on the fish. IMO, it's probably best to just let the spawn in tank. If no predators are in the display, let the babies stay. You're bound to lose some over the overflow (a certain death I'm sure) but since they stay with urchins, some are likely to survive... probably. Another solution might be to just transfer the holding male into a breeding containment (sump, fuge, separate breeding dedicated system etc) if predators are present.

[justinl]

oh, I figure I should just post this in case you don' know... When you transfer the larval fish, you have to keep in mind that they are SUPER fragile. no nets. It's usually best to scoop it out with a cup if you can manage it. You could use a net or something to gently guide it to the surface where you would then scoop it out with said cup though.

[reef bound]

done ;) I think next time will be a different story, with a small tank at the ready for the male to let go of his loot. Of course, if I'm wanting that to happen it won't happen again, right? We'll see what happens in the meantime. Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

[Diana]

Not to hijack the post, but why would you not strip the male - I did it a million times with africans - are SW fish any different?


Yeah I used to do this with africans a lot too.... but you would have to tumble the eggs if you stripped too early. Bangaii cardinals are so little and delicate I would not be inclined try it....

My bangaii's have been having babies for almost 2 years now, and they all get eaten up fast in my reef. The other day I was sitting on the couch and out of the corner of my eye I saw a little white dot scoot across the tank and yellow tang ate it up in no time. Poor lill babies! And I do have a longspine in there for them. I guess he wasnt around!

-Diana

[Myka]

I stripped my Bangaii. I never hurt him. :)

[spoot]

I wonder if a DIY long spine would work to save some babies for people that don't have one in their tanks.

[reef bound]

No worries about a hi-jack, Doo. This isn't something we were even expecting. Our reef tank has a wide variety of creatures in it including a niger trigger, purple tang, yellow-tail damsels,....the list goes on. Quite aggressive little guys, so I wasn't thinking of breeding anything. I was surprised to even know I had a male and female cardinal as when I got them a few months ago they were so small. We're pretty new to this hobby and I wouldn't even begin to know how or when to strip anything. Now that I know I have a male and female breeding pair, I think possibly a new tank is in order.