I just noticed one of my cardinals is hording baby cardinals in his mouth. But they caught me unprepared. How do i raise these?
Should i move them to a different tank, or will they be okay with clowns and cleaner shrimp?
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
I just noticed one of my cardinals is hording baby cardinals in his mouth. But they caught me unprepared. How do i raise these?
Should i move them to a different tank, or will they be okay with clowns and cleaner shrimp?
Congratulations Astrivian. Raising Banghais is relatively easy. The male holds the eggs and the fry for about 24 to 30 days depending on temperature. Once they reach the free swimming stage, they will venture out and at the first sign of danger zip back to safety. The fry begin to leave the confines of the male's mouth when they get to big for him to house. Broods are relatively small from 20 to 30 being about average. At this stage they will be miniature adult replicas about 1/4" long. Because of their huge mouth Banghais are easy to feed. Newly hatched BS are eagerly taken and should be supplied in quantity several times a day, especially early morning.
At this point it is best to remove them to their own container. A 10 gallon tank is sufficient but must be prepared before hand. A word of caution... I found the fry susceptible to death simply by moving them. I had a ten gallon tank set up with their tank water, water parameters identical, and when I netted a couple and transfered them to the ten, they drifted to the bottom and several died immediately. I think they died of shock due to capture with a net even though I was careful and they were easy to catch. I was shocked. To prevent this, I tried siphoning them up with a 1/2" hose. I'd get one or two in the hose and stop the siphoning with my fingers and gently release them from the hose into the ten gallon. Several still went into shock but, most recovered and were fine. After a couple of weeks I began introducing them to flake food and frozen BS. They didn't present much of a challenge in raising after the initial challenges of moving.
Good luck. Pictures would be nice.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
Hey thanks guys. I have been doing some reseearch on these and found a good article from Hawaii. It suggested making a fake diadema sea urchin with plastic wires and pvc caps so the fry could hide. At the moment the fry are still in the mouth of the dad, and i see fins and eyes poking out every now and then. So far, i have not seen any leave his mouth to eat. I tried target feeding some cyclopes-ez but they ignored it.
I still have an ugly (not that the fry care) 10 gallon hex tank. What would you put in there Dick? Would powerheads suck up fish and make fry sausage; what about an air bubbler? Maybe i could plumb the hex into the main tank for heat and O2, would that be worth doing? I could toss in a couple pieces of LR and a small ball of chaeto from the sump to give them some copepods to munch on.
I was thinking about trying to move the male cardinal while the fry are still in his mouth. If i can coax him into a jar or trap of some type i could move the lot without exposing them to air (theoretically reducing stress). Do you think this would be worth a try or might it stress the male to the point of spitting out or eating his young?
Oh, i will post pics when i find a new camera. My piece of junk broke.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Yikes, this process must have been farther along than i had thought. The fry were released into the water last night. There are just two that i could find though.
I moved the two fry out into a 10 gallon hex filled with tank water, a very small powerhead, a heater, and a huge ball of red algae. I put some cyclopes-ez in the tank a bit ago and saw one fish darting like he was eating it. Can't be sure though. I am heading to the LFS now to get the base for the brine shrimp napulli hatchery (the one in rob's video).
I read the bangais might spawn again as early as a couple of weeks if they are fed well. I think next time i might try to gently move the male out into the hex tank. The fry are nearly impossible to get out of my display tank; i had to deconstruct several rock piles before i could get to them, probably stressed them out too much, we will see. I need to build a phytoplankton raising setup so i can start raising real food.
This is so cool.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Sure thing bobby. Just a note on the school. I tried three in a very lightly populated 100 gallon and one was beaten and killed by the others.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Banghaii Cardinals are impossible to sex, until they spawn. If you see them spawn you will see lots of side by side shimmering and at the point of egg release the female releases a ball of eggs and the male releases his milt. The eggs appear sticky because they are in a neat ball. The male instantly scoops the egg mass into his mouth. At this point the male will not eat again until the fry are released. That is a period of thirty days or perhaps a bit longer. If you didn't witness the spawning but, one of the fish has a swollen jawline and drooped throat area, that is the male. You will be able to see the egg mass if you can look straight onto the fish.
At this point the fish should be separated because the female will continue to eat and become gravid and ready to breed as soon the male is free of the current batch of fry. BUT, at this point, the male is not strong enough to handle 30+ days of raising another batch. He should be given at least 2 weeks of heavy feeding to re-condition him for the rigors of another spawn.
If you want Banghaii to pair, you need to begin with a group. As Astrivian pointed out, the problem with getting three is that if two pair off they will kill the third. Be prepared to move or give away the odd ball. If you buy six your likely to wind up with two pair.
These are very desirable reef fish that still command a fairly high price considering they are quit easy to breed and raise.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
At this point the fish should be separated because the female will continue to eat and become gravid and ready to breed as soon the male is free of the current batch of fry. BUT, at this point, the male is not strong enough to handle 30+ days of raising another batch. He should be given at least 2 weeks of heavy feeding to re-condition him for the rigors of another spawn.
Right on Dick! I noticed my male has stopped eating again and i am worried his fish wife convinced him to take on more eggs! Poor guy.
He will likely spit these eggs out as i read they can do if the male hasn't eaten enough. That's okay, live and learn. He needs to put some fins down with his wife!
I have been feeding frozen mysis and brine with selcon and garlic extract, but i gather this is not a very well rounded diet. I have tried feeding Formula 2, but they just spit it out (the clowns like it though). What other foods would be good? I heard clams and scallops can be a nice addition and i just ordered some brine shrimp eggs and selco for enrichment.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
The male is indeed holding eggs again, as of 1/21/08. I have decided to give TR a step-by-step post series on how i am raising them. Currently, the male is holding my second batch of eggs. The first batch produced 2 fry which are still alive and well after 14 days on their own. The strategies i have used thus far to raise them i will likely continue, albeit with some modifications.
Step 1.1 - Identify that the male is carrying eggs.
To recap briefly the breeding behaviors of these fish, the female releases eggs likely sometime late at night. The male then sprays the eggs with milt and then holds the egg clutch in his mouth for protection. This transfer of eggs is very quick and not often observed (I have yet to see an article where someone has witnessed the exact egg transfer process).
As you are not likely to observe the actual breeding process, look instead for the male to be holding the eggs. This is easily identified by the following signs:
Distended mouth area, like he is puffing his "cheeks" out.
The male will not eat when offered food, but the female will.
The male will hide in a shaded area.
If you can look into his mouth, you will see bright orange eggs.
Although i have not experimented with this as of yet, i would imagine it is important to have a shaded area for the male to go to. If this occurs in your display tank, as it does mine, there might be enough crevices in the rocks for him to hide. If not, a short length of 4 inch PVC pipe should do the trick (although it doesn't look as nice as live rock).
Step 1.2 - Now what?
The question now becomes: What do i do with the male? He will hold these eggs for about 15 days and then hold the live fry for another 15 days, on average. Once the fry are released they are under immediate threat of being eaten by anything that can fit them into their mouth (including their own father and mother!). If you intend on actually raising them for sale or trade, the fry should really not be left to fend for themselves in a populated display tank.
There seems to be some debate about what is easier to do at this point, and i will try both and report back. Option 1 is to move the male to another tank. Option 2: move the fry when they are released.
I tried Option 2, moving the fry, the first time and i can attest that this is not easily done. If you are not prepared or not able to move lots of rocks around your display, i suggest going with Option 1: move the male. The fry are very small (about 1/8 of an inch) and although they are easy enough to see, they find the smallest holes to hide in.
The trouble with moving the male, as i have read, is that too much stress on him can cause him to "spit." In other words, thinking he is saving his own scales, he spits the eggs or premature fry out to die. This is, of course, not what you want to happen (_1_). If you move the male, do not do so with a net. Exposure to air will likely be too stressful and may damage the eggs. Fish traps or even jars seem to work best for this.
This time around i am going to try to split the difference, so to speak, of option 1 and 2. I don't want to take the risk of stressing the male out and losing my clutch of eggs, nor do i want to destroy my rock work again to get the fry into the other tank. Since my display is long and rectangular, i can easily section off a side (about 1/4) with eggcrate and window screen. I will try to gently encourage the male to swim into a prepared corner and use the eggcrate to section him off from the rest.
In this case, a "prepared corner" means removing most of the rocks from the area, especially ones with hungry corals on them, and dousing the lights above this area with layered window screen. Just to make the male happy, i will also add a cut section of PVC for him to hid in. When the fry hatch, they will need some place to hide from the male, and for their own sense of security. I will discuss hiding places in further detail in the next post.
_1_ : As a note, i have read some studies where the keepers try to raise eggs to hatch without the male. None that i know of have had any success.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
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