Banggai Batch #1 (1 Viewer)

[rlpardue]

So I think I'll start my own Banggai breeding thread and stop hijacking Jaypilot's. I have a batch of babies that are about 2 months old now (since the male spit them at 25 days). I gave 14 of the babies away and should still have around 12 or so. I noticed the first aggression recently. If you look closely at the pictures you'll notice that there is a pair of fish which is more to the left than the others. This is the dominant pair, and they stake out their territory so that they get the first swipe at passing food particles. The current or "gyre" in the tank is moving food particles from left to right.

The dominant fish are clearly beefier than the others. If you look in the second picture, you may be able to discern that their second vertical dorsal fin (the long one up top) stretches further back than the same fins on the other non-dominant fish.

I've been adding some Oto mini-pellets after crushing them up a bit with my fingers. The fish go into a feeding frenzy and seem to be nibbling at small specks of pellet-dust but for now they are pretty dependant on baby brine shrimp. I also have been adding some mysis and fish eggs ("reef caviar") and they seem to be picking at it too. Hopefully I can wean them soon and maybe place the dominant pair up for sale. I'd say the fish are about the size of a quarter now.

I'll post some pictures of their earlier development later.

EDIT/ADD: One sad bit is that my male hasn't eaten since he started holding his second batch. I let that batch become fish food and he doesn't seem to have anything at all in his mouth but the male still isn't eating. He's clearly much skinnier than the female now. I'm growing concerned that he'll starve himself to death. Last night I did see him take a nip at a BBS in the water, hopefully he'll eat today.

 

[mike13oy]

Very nice Lee.
I still have 7 left from the 14. 7 RIP from overfeeding BBS before i left for a weekend trip. They all die happy with a big fat orange tummy.

 

[rlpardue]

Lol. Glad to hear a bunch made it! Do you see any aggression or a dominant pair yet?

 

[mike13oy]

Do you see any aggression or a dominant pair yet?

Not yet

 

[Jaypilot]

Looking good Lee. They are starting to get their spots which from what i understand means they are starting to sexually mature. Being that you seem to have two that pair up also indicate the same thing.

 

[rlpardue]

It feels like I have reached one of those phases in a project where I'm like: "Um, so what do I do now?"

They are still not weaned off of BBS so I can't send them to other people, but they're mature enough to start pecking at each other lol.

Aha, I have an idea.

Anyway, I think tomorrow I'm going to try and "test-pair" some and see how it goes. When I picked out my current Banggai pair, I just sat with a guy from Fish Gallery (Daniel - very helpful and careful with the fish he sells) and we stared at two Banggais in a container for 30 minutes lol. I think we might have tried a couple of different combinations before I settled on the two that we thought got along the best. I'm going to try and do the same tomorrow, starting with the dominant pair (if I can catch them). I'll put a couple of fish in a clear container, leave for an hour then watch them from across the room to see how they do. It would be great if it works and they all start eating mysis.

 

[Jaypilot]

Did you do any "test-pair" today? If so how did it go. I had a bad day today. I never got a chance to feed my fish yesterday because I got home so late, so this AM before working with my wife I went and got a few BBS and fed them. Then this afternoon when I got home I realized I never put the airline back in the bottle and all the brine shrimp went to the bottom and died. So I had to through away a full of gut loaded shrimp. So then I went over to my second bottle full of shrimp and it the base wasn't stable I guess and I spilled the whole thing on the carpet (SSSSHHHHHHHHHHH don't tell the wife). So I spent the next hour trying to clean that up. Man I hope that room doesn't stink tomorrow.

So right now I just have a 5g bucket full of old brine shrimp. some are a day old others are 2 weeks old. All have been gut loaded and thats what my fish are eating for atleast the next 24 hours

 

[rlpardue]

Wow, two-week old brine shrimp! Just curious, how big are they at that point?

Alas, I didn't get around to test-pairing the Banggais. Instead I spent the day re-siliconing my new (used) tank. It was pretty labor-intensive...regretting trying to go the cheap way, should've just spent money on a new tank.

I'll see if my wife will let me spend this evening with the Banggais. Do you guys think they are big enough at this point to use a brine shrimp net without harming them? Using cups is tedious and it's difficult to isolate specific individuals.

Also, I should mention that my Banggai male is holding eggs AGAIN. It's pretty frustrating, since he went approximately 6 weeks without being seen to eat. He then ate for 3 days before taking another batch of eggs into his mouth...He's so much skinnier than the female, I now understand why people sometimes put the male in a separate holding tank for a while to let him fatten up.

I also have been seeing the babies eating pieces of mysis and possibly also Nutrimar Ova.

 

[Jaypilot]

Congrats on holding AGAIN I think. My as of yesterday is also holding again. He went exactly two weeks from spitting the eggs to holding again. Though he put back on a lot of the weight that he lost I think he could have put on more. My third pair that has held 5 other times in the past ate his eggs again on the 7th day. If he doesn't start producing he may be going up for sale (I'm a little over stocked anyway).

As for your guys and a net. The safest way would be to get a clear container and try to coral the ones you want in there with the net but not actually catching in the net. I say that from on day one when my male spit out the eggs the only thing that I had next to me was a regular net, so I used it and so far all 19 or 20 are still alive doing great and swimming just fine. So its hard to say just be slow with them either way.

At 2 week the brine shrimp you can start to see the hair filter feeding legs, they are not full grown and I don't think they will reach that stage until about 6-8 weeks. The 5g bucket that they are in is not heated and the water temp I would guess is around 72 degrees so its not the optimal growing temp and they do seem to be growing slow as a result. Size wise they are about 1/4 of the size of my 2 week old cardinals. And I have to tell you the brine shrimp being that big compared to the cardinals still had no chance and they were quickly chomped down.

Its easy to do I just filter out the hatched eggs and the rest goes in a 5g bucket with an air stone. Once a day I add about 5-10 drops of roti grow (same time I feed the 24 hour old brine shrimp). Its pretty amazing how you can add the roti grow and the water has a nice green tent and about 24 hours later its almost crystal clear again. So I really should be feeding at least twice a day but who has time for that.

 

[rlpardue]

Whew, fortunately the male only held that batch of eggs for two days. He is feeding so aggressively that he chases other bigger fish when they snag a mysis. I'll fatten him up as much as I can before his wife chains him to his ball again.

One cool thing I've found is that the baby Banggais (now ~60 days or so?) are loving Nutramar Ova. I thought I'd give it a try since I've seen a lot of finicky fish for sale on LiveAquaria Diver'sDen accompanied by a note like "Eating Ova very well". They're more aggressive when eating Ova than they are with mysis. I think this will be my standard first frozen food from now on. Ova is made from prawn eggs that are 1/16th of an inch. I'll be feeding mysis and Ova mixed together so that they'll transition to mysis eventually.

Jay, that is pretty awesome about growing BBS out to a bigger size. I might try that since I neglected my rotifer culture and I think it crashed. Hopefully this weekend I'll try test-pairing the fish. I think I'll need a large number of small clear containers that I can somehow plumb into my system. Lol, if I plumb them into the large Banggai holding tank, then I will have satellite tanks for a satellite tank for a satellite tank (sump) of the DT.

 

[Jaypilot]

They are still small enough I think I would try to buy a few of those larger breeder boxes or nets. As long as you put no more then two in each on I think they will be ok and you will be able to possible determine if they could be a pair or not. If you do that then you wouldn't have to worry about plumbing anything since they already have a lot of room for water movement.

Where are you able to buy Nutramar Ova at?

 

[rlpardue]

Good call on the breeder boxes/nets. I hadn't thought of that. It will be perfect, and so very easy and cheap.

You can probably buy Ova at just about any LFS. Just call before you go. I got mine at City Pets. I think I'll try to start my next batch of fry on Ova early, see if I can get them big and fat real fast

Today I went and picked up a batch of adult brine shrimp. I'm trying to trap some cute but evil coral-eating blennies and they go nuts seeing the brine shrimp swim around in the trap. They haven't gone in there yet but they will. As an afterthought I threw some brine shrimp into the Banggai tank; after looking a little scared for a few minutes they started gobbling them up. Transitioning to full-size mysis should be happening within the week I think.

Lol, I'm going to have a Rubbermaid full of breeders' boxes with pairs of a threatened (maybe endangered) species in them...I guess it's better than wasting time watching TV huh?

 

[Jaypilot]

Ya these little guys are fun. I will have to look for Ova this weekend. About half of mine already seem to be eating either chopped mysis or cyclops, The other half take it in but spit it out. Hopefully soon I will be able to have them just on mysis so that I can save the brine shrimp for my second batch coming any day now. I have a 20 gallon cycling right now with live rock and old filter pads and a HOB filter so I will be moving them soon. I will move one first and make sure he does alright then I will move the rest after making sure the water is stable.

 

[Jaypilot]

rlpardue, when you babies were first spit out were they free swimming. My cardinal just spit out 3 more babies today but they are kind of sitting on the bottom. I ask this question because this is my first pair that has held full term so I really don't know how far along they should be. It looks like most of the yoke sack is consumed but their bellies are still full so it seems they still have a few more days before they will except food. The male is still holding a mouth full but being that he spit out 3 today Im sure he will spit the rest out in the next few days.

 

[rlpardue]

Mine have all been free swimming Are they laying on the bottom or slightly swimming above it?

 

[Jaypilot]

They are laying on the bottom kind of keeping their balance on their fins though. Im not worried about them my other cardinals were the same way after I took them out of the tumbler for a few days. So since yours came out as free swimmers I think mine are still a few days premature. All three last I checked on them were still alive so Im not worried about them, Im sure they will get a little stronger in the days to come.

 

[rlpardue]

Awesome. It sounds like you have a preemie-support hospital ward in your kitchen My wife doesn't know it yet, but tomorrow she's gonna help me separate my fry into mated pairs

I'm shutting down the BBS hatcheries tonight! I am so over that process...

Have you been using that probiotic shady-looking white powder I gave you in a plastic baggie? I swear it'll make them grow twice as fast, if not more. It'll also supposedly keep bacterial infections down (although I can't attest to this bit, only the boost in growing).

 

[Jaypilot]

I haven't used it yet. I was going to use it when i moved them over to the grow out tank. I was wanting to shut down my BBS hatchery but i have some new little guys on the way. Im kind of worried about tge new cardinals though becauae they will be only a week old and then i will be off on a three day trip. So i guess these guys will be my little test fish to let me know how long i can leave them.

 

[rlpardue]

So my Banggai fry are officially onto mysis and Ova now. I stopped feeding them live foods. How big do you think they need to get before they can go to the market?

 

[LSUFireGal]

I am so glad you are sharing this. It is so interesting!