Species: Bangaii Cardinals

Size of pair: Male about 2 1/4", female about 2"

Age of Pair: Not exactly sure, I purchased three from LFS on 1/30/2008 and they were about 1" in size. They were tank breed fish from a local breeder. Two paired up in a short while and they have been with me for 9 months. They are probably a little more than one year in age.

Social structure: First housed in a 55G. The tank was setup with a lot of Liverock and a few soft corals. Lighting was from CF's and maintained for 10 hours a day. They were fed frozen mysis, enriched live brine shrimp, and Ocean Nutrition flake food for several months. They formed a pair fairly quickly. The pair was moved to a 40G breeder tank six weeks ago. This tank is setup with liverock and bare bottom. Other tankmates include a lawnmower Blenny, Pygmy Angelfish (temporary housing) and a Green Mandarin waiting to be paired up.

Previous spawnings and general background information:
The first spawning of this pair took place in April of 2008. The pair was in the 55G with a Singapore Angel and I was not present when the male deposited. Only two fry were left in the tank when I returned from vacation and those were removed to a rearing tank. One died after a few days but one is thrived and is now 6 months old. The pair has spawned several times since then but I was not in a position to collect and raise the fry. On September 19, the male deposited 21 fry in my rearing tank but I lost the entire batch due to O2 depletion on day 4. Currently, the male is incubating the fry again and I am attempting to raise this brood.

Current Spawning information:
The pair spawned late last week and the female transfered the eggs to the male on Sunday, October 5. The pair had been fed extensively on Rod's fish food, Enriched Live Brine, Frozen PE Mysis and Ocean Nutrition Formula One Flake leading up to the spawning.

Preparation:
Started cultures of "L" strain rotifers and Phyto for future feeding in the event the fry are premature. NHBS will be started closer to the end date.

Updates will be posted each week

I took a few pictures of the male Bangaii holding the eggs tonight.

This first one is a side view of the male, you can see the larger lower jaw and how it protrudes.
http://www.georgia-birding.com/Reef-tank-10-06-08-004-Bangaii-male.jpg


the next one is a head on view of the male.

http://www.georgia-birding.com/Reef-tank-10-06-08-024-Bangaii-male-holding.jpg

Finally, you can see the eggs in the males mouth in this shot.

http://www.georgia-birding.com/Reef-tank-10-06-08-029-Bangaii-eggs.jpg

Pretty cool!
BZ

Awesome pics!!!

I can't wait to see how this batch turns out. Keeping my fingers crossed for ya!

Very cool!

Awsome pics.

Thanks for sharing

Wonderful clear pics. Hope the oxygen works out for you this time. Look forward to viewing this thread.

Thanks Nancy! The trick will be not over feeding the young this time, I hope.

Another setback. The male aborted this brood. Not sure why but it may have been the Pygmy Angelfish that was too active in the tank. I have to move the pair to their 29G breeding tank and seperate them from the other fish. As soon as I can get the tank drilled I'll make the move.

Male holding again. Hopefully he will not abort this batch.

Another setback. The male aborted this brood. Not sure why but it may have been the Pygmy Angelfish that was too active in the tank. I have to move the pair to their 29G breeding tank and seperate them from the other fish. As soon as I can get the tank drilled I'll make the move.

Aborting babys is sad but at least now we know that the fish arent catholic. THANK GOD!!!! j/k lqtm.

hey bob, have you ever seen: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+7927+16873&pcatid=16873

now it will not likely be enriched like yours, but this may be much easier than rasing your own brine and fish

Thanks Ricky... I did see it but have not tried them. It's not that big a deal for me to hatch BBS and I have a ton of eggs. I am trying to decapsulate them now which is new for me.
BZ

We're all crossing our fingers for this batch!

ha! Thanks! I'll keep you all posted.

hope to have egs for you one day soon.

Here is the latest update on my adult pair. The male released the babies on 12/27 when I moved him in to the rearing tank. He released 19 babies this time. After the first day, the two smallest (under-developed) died. I split the other 17 in to two tanks, one with 10 babies and the other with 7 to hopefully not lose all of them if something went wrong. So far, all 17 are doing well on NHBS enriched with Selcon.
The 7 that were born last week to the young pair of BC, are still all alive and doing great as well. It is amazing how fast they have grown when I compare them to the 2 day old babies. They are twice the size of the 2 day olds and look almost identical to the adults at just one week.

Pretty cool!
BZ

Another quick update on the Bangaii babies;

Spawn #1 (Young pair) - 7 hatched 11 days ago, all doing well
Spawn #2 (adult pair) - 19 hatched, 7 days ago, 17 doing well, 2 lost day 1

Young Pair male still holding eggs again! Expected hatch date is 1/18.
No signs of spawning for the adult pair again yet.

All the young are still eating NHBS with Selcon and in seperate tanks.

Next step is to move them to the grow out tank in another 2 weeks.

bob

Glad the babies are doing well.......looking forward to some more pics :) keep us posted!

:eek: Today I had a bit of an emergency with one of the tanks with the Bangaii babies. The ammonia alert that I use in the tanks was registering safe, but I always like to check with a test kit once or twice a week to be safe. Well, two out of three were fine, but one of the tanks tested very high for ammonia. I did a quick 90% water change and dropped the ammonia level back to the safe range. I'm hoping the babies in that tank were not affected by the high ammonia. They all seem fine now (and were not really showing any signs of stress before either). I'll do another partial change later tonight and check levels again. Now I am glad I split up the young in to multiple tanks! Hopefully disaster was averted for these guys! I will also step up the WC schedule on these tanks now that they are getting bigger and test more often.... man, this is like having another full time job!

BZ

man, this is like having another full time job!

wow, you have a lot going into this. Are you going to continue to raise the young much after this batch, do you hope to do this often, or no more babies! lol

wow, you have a lot going into this. Are you going to continue to raise the young much after this batch, do you hope to do this often, or no more babies! lol

I'll keep raising the Bangaiis as long as they keep popping them out! It's alot of work but I enjoy it. If I have to hit the road again for my job things may change but so far I am sticking close to home.

Bob

you ain't kidding! these tanks take more time than a few of my jobs! I've spent 3 days trying to catch my pair. I even had the female in her tank, but the starving male just wouldn't get in the trap. success today! So i'll be hitting you up for advice soon. The female is already dancing.

Sweet! I'll PM you my number in case you want to talk.
BZ

All 24 juveniles are doing great. I combined the juveniles in the two smaller rearing tanks to a larger holding tank this week so the 17 from brood #2 are back together again. The 7 juveniles from brood #1 are still in the small tank, but I'll be moving them in this weekend.

PM sent

how are the little ones doing?

how are the little ones doing?

All 24 are doing great! I now have them all together and getting ready to move them to a larger grow out tank this weekend. They should be ready to go to new homes in a couple of weeks. They are eating frozen, flake and nhbs now. I actually had to move a pair of neon gobies in with them to seperate the two pairs I have now. That's only temporary while I finish the plumbing on the brood tanks. I'm getting there!

BZ

thats awesome...glad they are all doing great.....keep mein mind when you are looking for a new home for them...love to have acouple. :)

no doubt, I have an empty 30g that's just waiting for a pair to be ready. lol

I have not updated here for awhile. The current adult pair have been "retired" to live in my 210G. The younger pair continues to produce young and I have had good luck with them. On 2/9 they released 17 babies and just last night, on 3/10, another 15 babies. Right now there are three tanks going with juvenile Bangaii's of assorted ages. The oldest were from the 12/22 batch and almost three months old. I've noticed that they are no very fast growing, even with the continuous feeding. Seems like it takes about six months to get them to a releasable size. As I have been doing this awhile, I now have even more respect for anyone who raises fish to adults! It's a ton of work. The next time I pay alittle bit higher price for tank raised fish, I won't even flinch!

Bob

Yes, six months is about right to get them to about nickel (body) size and marketable. At least that is what it took for me. Good side of things is that you can mix several batches together after about four weeks. But if there is more than that amount of difference in age, it is a problem.

Still interested, as I mentioned in PM back on Jan 14.

I hope to be in line when they are marketed!!

Jason

Nothing like seeing first hand. Really cool! 6 -10mm version of an adult. Good Job Mr. Bobz