Well, an estimated 6 days since release and the 8 babies are still doing fine. looking fat, under a magnifying glass, and swimming about having fun. A good chance they will make it. but there are some other troubles at about age 2-3 months that can mess them up . More on that later. back in 2001 my first breeding pair had a pretty regular 4 1/2 - 5 week spawning cycle. pop out a new batch of12-36 little fish every 5 weeks. for a couple years until the hurricane power outage of 2003 wiped out my tanks. after spawning , Dad would incubate the eggs in his mouth for 21-24 days while abstaining from eating, GULP, and then release them after dark. then he would eat like a wolf for another week or so until seduced again. poor guy could only eat 1 week out of 4 or 5 each cycle. so i have been feeding them lots of brine and mysis every hour or so on his rest period now.
Meanwhile, the flirtation and cuddling is getting more intense. I would think they will spawn again sometime between now and Sunday. Which means, that in another 3 1/2 weeks, there might be a new batch of baby Banggais in the frag tank. Its gonna turn from being a frag tank to a Banggai Cardinal nursery lagoon in a month or two.
I’ll never get this tank torn down! It takes about 9 months to grow them to the typical size you see in the LFS.
Yes, that’s the current plan AJ. I did a major weeding on the old 75, plucking grass and scraped the windows. Dosed a lot of Lanthanum chloride to cut the PO4 in the tank and kill some weeds. Then someday , I’ll work on digging the base rock out of the calcified brick of a sand bed.
I was looking around today, only saw 6 babies all day, then 7 tonight at a feeding. I might have lost one, or they are doing a better job of hiding.
No problem though, I missed it again! It seems while I was out a while, the parents went ahead and had a Nooner!! Dad’s floating around with a mouthful again! And a big Grin… So, 20-23 days from now, assuming i fed him enough and he can go the distance without eating, another batch of babies will pop out about sept 15- 18.
I can see it coming now. My frag tank is turning into A Banggai Nursery Shallow Lagoon!! Population explosion every 4-5 weeks.
Well, a little set back this weekend. Daddy Banggai dumped the egg bundle some time this weekend. not sure why. but maybe just hungry. he started feeding again . So i’m feeding them both pretty heavy right now. Im sure they will spawn again soon. They do that sometimes.
I’ve lost a few of the babies too. but i still have 5 left that are getting bigger, almost half an inch long now. So i did a long over due major cleaning and water change the past few days. vacuumed out lots of mud from the sand. That should make them feel better. it looks like i might be keeping this tank up for last.
Thanks Sneeyatch, i should be better prepared to feed them next time. this batch might have hatched a few days before i cleaned the gunk off the glass and then spotted the survivors. had i started feeding them sooner there might be more now. i get a kick out of watching them though. nice fishes. quiet, compatible and look cool when they get bigger .
they have a little quirk when they get about 2-3 months old. they seem to develop panic attacks at any disturbance for a while. when scared, they will freeze up, mouth and gills gaping, and sink to the bottom, paralyzed. sometimes they wake up in 20 minutes, sometimes they dont. one time i lost a whole hatch school, just putting the turkey baster into the water to feed fresh hatched brine shrimp. they all panicked and died. real frustrating. but most grow out of that phase in a month or two. dont know why they do that.
or like the possums in my back yard. when breeding them its just a big bad hurdle to get over. and then grow up some nice fish.
the ones we usually see in the LFS are about 8-10 months old. depending on size. small egg hatches of 1-3 dozen fish every 5 weeks, need lots of high protein foods, quiet groups and natural attrition make them not to economical on a breeding scale. not like say clown fish with egg hatches of 200-500 at a time, every couple weeks. so every one counts. still , they are special. they only live in a very small island area east of jakarta.
Little Update. The remaining 5 little guys are still doing fine and growing. up to between 5/8" - 3/4" now and looking good. I feed them pinches of decap BS eggs, and arctic pods every couple hours or so. or whenever i pass by the feed jars. they have a very short digestive system and need constant input. I really think that when i forgot to put the hydor koralia pump back in, before they hatched, helped them survive. they are not strong swimmers, and just the slow circular gyre motion created by the return line alone, lets them glide in gently flowing tank water and allows the food to come to them. too much flow burns them out. so my tank is now a quiet, cool lagoon.
Oh hey, You’re welcome. havent updated in a while. i had 4 left and growing when i left for the last month meeting. but i got home to only 3. dont know where it went. but i still have three left from the original 10 i found perhaps a day after their release and started feeding them. they are getting bigger. looks like if you layed them on a quarter, their dorsal and tail fins and nose would touch the edges. The parents have had a couple aborted spawnings. Dad held the eggs for a week or so, and then dropped em. dont know why. i havetime to raise anotherbatch if they cooporate, before i take the tank down. I wish they would. I like these nice peaceful fish.
Hello, no new hatches. The parents have spawned a couple times, that is not a regular cycle of every 5 weeks. But they dumped the eggs after a week or so. didnt carry them. I dont know why. but i still have three juveniles growing up from the first find back on August 20, 2014. getting pretty big, about an inch long now, nose to tip of tail. as usual , they are still pretty finicky about what they eat, and the size of the food. mostly like decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and freeze dried arctic pods. i hope they learn to nibble at the smaller bits of flake food and frozen brine shrimp and mysis i feed to the parents and my pair of clowns too. but they mostly like the small , high protein decap BS eggs. Im almost out of my old supply from raising clown fish a few years back. I need to order some more from brine Shrimp Direct.