Banggai Batch #1 (1 Viewer)

[Jaypilot]

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?

Cool man I called city pets and they said they were out of Ova but they would have it again this week so I will be looking for that soon. Are you feeding baby mysis or chopping mysis? Right now I am chopping mysis but its a little time consuming so im going to try to find baby mysis and try that. I am also using cyclops and they seem to like that better.

As far as going to market I think you are probably pretty close. Most of the ones I see online that sell from 15-$20.00 are small, dime size (body only). Of course the larger it is the more expensive it is. I have seen them as large as quarter size and those for for about 30-$35. Basically they need to be large and strong enough to make it in a normal display tank with good flow. LOL its hard to tell when they are ready because you look at them everyday and they never seem to grow, but having some that are almost a month old and other that are almost a week old there is a HUGE difference.

Congrats on getting your first batch to market!!

 

[rlpardue]

Meh, I might have gotten ahead of myself. There is still time for some to die if some of them didn't make the transition to frozen. Most of them, if not all of them, are eating pieces of mysis now though. Right now I use Hikari mysis; I don't chop it up, although many of the pieces aren't whole shrimp. I've used Hikari since keeping seahorses, since my female horse would only eat the shrimp that still had the head on it (go figure!). The male would eat whatever. Hikari tend to stay in fewer, larger pieces, while PE Mysis tend to end up just a slurry of mysis pieces. PE might be better for Banggais in that regard, since they start nipping at the small bits first. I just put a small frozen bit of Ova and a bit of Hikari mysis in a cup, add some saltwater, then keep it in the fridge for 24-36 hours while I feed sporadically throughout the afternoon and evening.

I'm annoyed that my cell phone camera broke; now I can't upload easy pictures of the fry. I took a couple pictures with a point-n-shoot but then realized I don't have the mini-USB cable around.

The fun part of the story for today is that I stopped by City Pets and got a little fry cage from Donnie. I netted four random fish and put them in there and I'm watching them to see if a pair forms. Hopefully there will be two big ones in the middle of the cage and two small ones in the corners lol. That would make pairing easy. The breeder cage has two sections to it, and at first I had a pair in each section; but I figured I would have better luck this way, plus the sections were tiny and I felt bad.

I think my fry are around dime-sized not counting their fins. Maybe a smidge under a dime. It's funny how I get so excited about selling them and making a few bucks in profit; yet I sunk a hundred into the project plus countless hours of time. I wish I had a full-time job lol.

 

[Jaypilot]

Meh, I might have gotten ahead of myself. There is still time for some to die if some of them didn't make the transition to frozen. Most of them, if not all of them, are eating pieces of mysis now though. Right now I use Hikari mysis; I don't chop it up, although many of the pieces aren't whole shrimp. I've used Hikari since keeping seahorses, since my female horse would only eat the shrimp that still had the head on it (go figure!). The male would eat whatever. Hikari tend to stay in fewer, larger pieces, while PE Mysis tend to end up just a slurry of mysis pieces. PE might be better for Banggais in that regard, since they start nipping at the small bits first. I just put a small frozen bit of Ova and a bit of Hikari mysis in a cup, add some saltwater, then keep it in the fridge for 24-36 hours while I feed sporadically throughout the afternoon and evening.

I'm annoyed that my cell phone camera broke; now I can't upload easy pictures of the fry. I took a couple pictures with a point-n-shoot but then realized I don't have the mini-USB cable around.

The fun part of the story for today is that I stopped by City Pets and got a little fry cage from Donnie. I netted four random fish and put them in there and I'm watching them to see if a pair forms. Hopefully there will be two big ones in the middle of the cage and two small ones in the corners lol. That would make pairing easy. The breeder cage has two sections to it, and at first I had a pair in each section; but I figured I would have better luck this way, plus the sections were tiny and I felt bad.

I think my fry are around dime-sized not counting their fins. Maybe a smidge under a dime. It's funny how I get so excited about selling them and making a few bucks in profit; yet I sunk a hundred into the project plus countless hours of time. I wish I had a full-time job lol.

That is too funny, I have to agree with you but its alot of fun spending all that time and money watching these little guys to grow up. Now if I could get my wife interested in it and then I wouldn't feel so bad. I use the breeding boxes with the subdiviers as well but just like your self I dont use the dividers. I like giving them room and I think your right if you have 4 in there you may be able to better pair them up.

 

[rlpardue]

OK Jay, I've officially posted the fish for sale! Yesterday I transformed a 20-Long into a multi-compartment pairing tank. It looks like a game of MOUSETRAP gone wrong. (I decided to prop up the dividers with PVC and eggcrate instead of siliconing everything and making a mess). Today I'm going to start test-pairing them. I got worried that they would kill each other inside the little breeder's boxes. This way they'll have more room to swim, and I'll be able to tell whether or not they're interested in being next to each other or if they stay at opposite ends of their boxes. I'll edit this post later with a pic of the 20-long.

Here's the link to the Sale thread (please delete this if it's in any way inappropriate)
http://www.marsh-reef.org/coral-liv.../37315-banggai-cardinalfish-bonded-pairs.html

 

[Jaypilot]

Congrats lee they are looking great. mine are right at a month old and I need to get them in a larger grow out tank. I have a 10g cycling right now. I am hopping to get them in there soon because my other male is ready to spit a bunch more and I need the breeder box for them.

 

[rlpardue]

Test pair #1. Wish me luck.

EDIT - I came home today (Friday) and instead of three sections with two fish in each section, I had two sections with three fish in each...I'm regretting not just siliconing the dividers up while I had the chance...

 

[Jaypilot]

Ya thats no good. fortunately the fish are still young and you still have 6 fish rather then 4

 

[rlpardue]

True that. I re-divided them and my hunch is that I have one pair and two fails. I'll have more time to sit and observe tomorrow. They all stopped eating for a day after I moved them into the new tank. They're all eating again now I believe.

I really wish I had some kind of cage for them all which has "pairing compartments" with a gate at the front of each compartment. That way I could simply herd them in or out like cattle. (I don't like netting them unless I really have to - it can't be good for them to get netted every other day). Can anyone think of some material that would let me do this?

I need something rigid that will stand up straight and form walls. It also needs to be easily cuttable. Something like waterproof cardboard. I wish I was free tomorrow for the second acrylic workshop, somebody would have an idea.

Side Note - Today at long last I picked up a Desjardini tang that was exactly what I was looking for - small, colorful, curious, no visible parasites, and eating pellets. I picked it up from SMReef - that guy is really cool and can apparently get any fish you can imagine. I saw a gem tang there lol. Anyway, I brought the tang home only to find one of my two Tiger Wardi gobies on the floor, still wet but dead. I'd had that pair for a year and hoped to maybe try breeding them one day if I ever learn how to culture small copepods (probably unlikely). They were my favorite fish...I hope the Desjardini ends up being really really cool, because I would've been home otherwise lol. I don't know how the goby managed to fly up, over a tall rim and not hit the ReefBrite strip that is 1.5" above it. The rest of the canopy is entirely closed. Another lesson learned - fish will eventually find a gap if it's there.

EDIT/ADD: I just found a promising article describing a method of sexing Banggais. It involves looking at their "vent". I've heard references to this method before but have never seen such clear pictures showing what to look for. Someone must have stared at these fish even longer than me lol. My awesome wife and I had a date night tonight - tomorrow she may get to help hold a magnifying glass steady so I can stare at a fish's "vent" for awhile

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/how-to-determine-the-sex-of-banggai-cardinalfish

 

[LSUFireGal]

Maybe try those rigid sheets of clear cross stitch mesh? You could cut "doors" in the panels and cover them with a solid panel that you can pull up to open the doors. Since it comes in clear you could make an outside frame the same size as the tank and sew/weave the corners together with fishing line, then sew or weave the dividers in wherever you like. Then you don't have to silicone anything, plus you can just cut the line to resize the compartments or store the material flat when you aren't using it. You could maybe even just use several small zip ties along each seam if weaving the fishing line is too difficult.

 

[LSUFireGal]

Here is a link to what I am talking about. Hobby lobby and michael's sells it locally.

http://www.herrschners.com/product/7Mesh+Plastic+Canvas+Sheets+Set+of+6.aspx

 

[rlpardue]

Sweet, thanks! I'll stop by one of those stores tomorrow. I think the process of pairing up all the fish will be easier with doors and mesh. I appreciate it!

 

[LSUFireGal]

It just came to me one day when I needed an acclimation box for a new fish. I made it out of the rigid mesh and it was awesome. It is reef safe too bc it is what everyone is using to make their DIY algae scrubber screens out of. Glad my redneck ingenuity is possibly useful. Lol

 

[Jaypilot]

Thats a good Idea LSU. What did you use to tie the mesh screen together with?

 

[LSUFireGal]

I used monofilament line (fishing line) and it held together well. Make sure to use more recently manufactured line that way it doesn't have any nastiness that could leach out. At first I used small zip ties on the corners to hold it together while I weaved the line around the edges to hold them together. I would assume you could just use a few zip ties along the side instead of weaving it together but I wanted a cleaner look.

 

[Jaypilot]

Cool I like that I was trying to figure out a way to make bigger containers because the breeder boxes just arent big enough.

rlpardue, how has your pairing up been going?

 

[rlpardue]

Never underestimate the power of redneck ingenuity. Lol seriously.

I'm going to try to make a mesh box out of zip ties, the mesh canvas stuff (went and got it at Hobby Lobby), and possily some eggcrate (if it needs more support).

This will be my third attempt at making the boxes - on each of the past two mornings I've come downstairs to find three Banggais in a single container...grr

I tried looking at their vents and did see what that article was talking about. I'm growing a batch of BBS to feed them so that their bellies will be super-ful will stick out. That way the vents will be more visible. So I think I'm going to try to transition from a "test-pair" method of looking for signs of aggression to physically sexing them. Then I'll keep them in pairs for a week prior to sale (just to double-check my vent-peering).

If I sit on the couch and watch them for awhile, they do seem to hang out in groups of two or three. The groups of three are more active, swimming towards each other, away from each other, back together again, etc. My guess is that they're sorting themselves out into possible pairs. I'm going to try to "respect their choice" if possible by herding them into certain boxes. I have to take a pic of this with my wife's phone - they're much more visible in the 20long tank than they were in the rubbermaid box.

EDIT-
So I checked my two adult fish using the "vent" method (discussed above), and they have the predicted number of vents: one for the female and two for the male. The babies are a little more timid than the adults, probably because I've been trying to force them into little boxes all week.

I took a look at the fry to see if I could see any of their vents. The results were ambiguous - I saw a vent or possibly two on some of them, and on some fish I saw none. I'm going to try again once they've gorged themselves on BBS and some Ova. Supposedly it's easier to do when they have full bellies. Not sure why I'm logging so much info; hope it's useful to someone one day. I think the main reason there aren't more people keeping pairs of Banggais in home aquariums is that they're difficult to sex.

EDIT #2 (editing my posts helps keep the number of entries down) - I managed to use the "vent method" to sex two juveniles. I put them into a plastic canvas mesh box (thanks LSU!) I'll come home today and observe them but I feel fairly confident it's a male/female pair.

 

[rlpardue]

OK so update time. The remaining 12 Banggais are fat and happy. (Pic attached). They're eating the Hikari/Ova combo with gusto. I decided to re-start the BBS feedings (only once per day) so I can gut-load them with the probiotics snake oil that's been pretty successful in my limited experience.

Thanks LSUFireGal for the plastic canvas tip - it worked very well.

The Banggais are now sharing their 20long with two tailspot blennies that I'm really really hoping are a male/female. They were in the same tank at the LFS, along with a third. It looked like the biggest one had claimed the rock pile and tolerated one of the smaller ones to come pick at his rocks, but the third small one was banished to a corner. It was an impulse buy, but they're great fish, contribute little to the bio-load, and I've been watching for a pair of blennies for awhile.

 

[Jaypilot]

Looking good. I still have been looking for hikari ova but haven't found it yet. I kind of took a step back when I mixed my 7 week old with my 3 week old cardinals. I almost had the older fish going for cyclops but since I mixed the too I have been feeding BBS mostly and that's all they want mow .

 

[rlpardue]

I forgot to mention - my male is holding again. On Monday (4/1) afternoon I saw the female doing her hoochie dance in front of the male; the next time I looked over he had a mouth BULGING with eggs lol. It really looks like he's choking or something - his eyes seem to bulge out and he looks really nervous. He spends a lot of time in the fish trap; I guess he doesn't like to interact with the other fish since he can no longer bite them.

Yeah Jay, when I re-started the BBS feedings I noticed them getting less interested in the frozen foods. They'll still eat it, but only if it's late in the day and they haven't eaten yet. Hopefully this probiotic stuff will fatten them up quickly and I will re-wean them.

I'm 90% sure the blennies are a male/female. They're in the 150g tank now with another potential pair (of gobies).

 

[Jaypilot]

That's pretty cool. I have about 30 from my pairs second batch. I'm hopping the female will give my male another week or so but I don't think he will be that lucky. My other cardinals are back to eating cyclops again. They still get a little spoiled because my BBS are right next to their tank, so wile I'm getting BBS for my clowns or other cardinal I normaly rinse off the sieve in their tank.

I also have two pair of clowns sitting on eggs so I should have some occelaris on Sunday and some tomato/ cinnamon on wednesday .