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| Banaggi Cardinals; Pairing and Breeding | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 12 2010, 05:56:13 PM (740 Views) | |
| Post #1 Mar 12 2010, 05:56:13 PM | fisher32 |
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So besides my other projects banaggis always intrigued me. The dedication by the male to hold eggs from spawn to hatch. The first problem we have is pairing. In the past I have actually been successful in determining sex...maybe it was luck. My trip to a local store browsing for an addition I believe will prove fruitful. There were in round numbers 20 banaggis in the tank. I know from research they will pair off and these being fairly young made it hard to tell using my instincts male from female. After all there were quite a number in the tank. So I observed them during my lunch hour and noticed 2 of them seperating from the pack... I knew this was a sign...time will tell but my gut instincts tell me I have a pair for life. I do hope this couple do it right and the male will do his best to spit out all those beautiful baby banaggis. I know a few of use have dabbled in rearing these beautiful creations of nature. So chime in on you trials and tribulations. What worked best for you. And your accomplishments. Thanks Bob |
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| Somthins fishy around here....and I like it that way! | |
 
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| Post #2 Mar 13 2010, 07:21:42 AM | Suzy |
| Strong work and good luck! |
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
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| Post #3 Mar 13 2010, 09:33:42 AM | Amie |
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Excellent, I hope your method works. There are other ways to tell the difference between male and female. One is called venting. You have to get a really close up clear picture of them. I have a post somewhere around here about raising these. I had to strip the eggs from the male and put the eggs in suspension in order to get any babies. Search for banggai babies, or something like that. |
stormy, stormy nights
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http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/interns.html Tell them Adam sent you. | |
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| Post #4 Mar 15 2010, 03:58:27 PM | BobC |
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Bob K. asked me about my Banggais over on Clint's thread. I replied that they were still too young but I was hopeful for the future... Well, guess what? I was wrong, they are not too young - apparently there was a spawning early this morning... you can see the males now distended jaw in this front view pic (male on upper left): Posted Image Male again on the left.(sorry for the 'blue' ish pics, my backup camera stinks!) I f you look very closely at the female you can just make out the ovipositor (egg tube) in the area where the ventral fins meet the body: Posted Image Male in front here. Right now he is holding the egg sac "high" inside his mouth, so it is bulging more from "side to side" than protuding at the lower jawline... that should change as the eggs grow and mature. Gestation time is around 18 -22 days, on average, with another 2 - 7 days where the male keeps the now free-swimming fry inside his mouth. Posted Image Also note that this pair will spend alot more time together in close proximity to each other. They were basically inseperable today, except at feeding time... then the female leaves the males side to make short bursts out to grab some food. Of course, the male does not eat the whole time he is carrying... Posted Image SO, a pretty nice surprise today! B) |
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| Post #5 Mar 15 2010, 06:21:57 PM | Clint |
| That is fantastic! Are you getting everything set up to try to raise the babies? |
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| Midvale (435) 213-6215 | |
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| Post #6 Mar 15 2010, 06:43:33 PM | BobC |
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I had a pretty cool setup last time that worked really well... Basically I "piggybacked" a 10g tank to my main display and used it as a nursery. I used a siphon tube to draw in water from the display into the nursery tank, and a powerhead with a sponge filter over the intake to return water back into the display tank. With this type of continuous water exchange between the 2 tanks, it meant that I didn't need to worry about maintaining a stable temp, or O2 levels, or worry about topoff or water changes to combat ammonia buildup in the nursery. The only maintenance I had to do on the nursery tank was to vaccum up the little bit of detritus that would build up on the bottom of the tank every few days. I eneded up raising 2 broods of Banggais this way, and was trying for a 3rd, when my breeder female died during the 3rd spawning attempt. |
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| Post #7 Mar 15 2010, 06:48:23 PM | fisher32 |
| Nice work Bob! I hope mine gets the idea and we have some sucess in our ventures. Mine are real timid and I ended up putting them in the sump where there is plenty of food and a lower current than my tank. Thay need to settle in and I'm hoping for the best. I have tried them in the past but the male would spit the eggs and not hold them for the full term. The best of luck. Keep us posted. |
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| Somthins fishy around here....and I like it that way! | |
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| Post #8 Mar 16 2010, 08:04:16 AM | Suzy |
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So, if the power goes out, the nursery could have issues? The tube in the display is very high in the water column? Your experiences of them reminds me of FW cichlids. The parents try to keep them in a cave after they are born by sucking them up and spitting them into the cave, and sometimes, they accidently swallow a few! Oops! So are the eggs in a sack at first? Each egg is not loose? Are the parents in the nursery now, or in the main display? (Fingers crossed the display is a planted tank! |
Seahorse Whisperer
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"i was informed of some dolphin related testing going on up there" Too Funny! | |
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| Post #9 Mar 16 2010, 06:14:01 PM | BobC |
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I dug through my "Archives" and found a few pictures from the last time I was raisng Banngais, circa 2007 (I think). Hopefully this clears things up a bit... This was the setup I used. A 10g "nursery" that was plumbed into the main display. Note the 2 tanks were level with each other, so that if there was a power interruption I did not have to worry about the nursery being "drained" too much by the siphon action: Posted Image Here's a top view that shows the input siphon along with the powerhead return to the main tank. The main advantage to all this was I did not have to do any water changes to the nursery tank itself, and the fry would be in an environment of constantly stable and aged water; no worries about an ammonia spike from uneaten food or detritus buildup: Posted Image A side view showing the bare bottom tank, with just a sprig of chaeto for cover. I ended up installing a small airstone just to keep the water surface from becoming stagnant, since both the siphon output and the powerhead return were under water: Posted Image Interestingly enough, when I first put the "pregnant" male into the nursery the female stayed as close by as she could... here they are with the female still in the main display (right) and the male in the nursery tank: Posted Image Here is a shot of the first brood of 12 Banggai babies, maybe a week old or so: Posted Image Here are the babies at about 1 month old: Posted Image When my male became "pregnant" a 2nd time - just a week after delivering the first brood - I had to figure out a way of isolating him while the first brood babies were still in the nursery. I went out and got a tank divider and that did the trick. The male is on the right (under the heater) ; the first brood babies on the left of the divider (you an see a few if you look carefully): Posted Image After the 2nd brood was born, I put all the babies on the left side of the divider, and left the male on the right side to recuperate. Here is a shot of some of both broods together; the 1st brood babies were about 3 times the size of the 3 day old newborns here: Posted Image And yes, the eggs are tranferred from female to male in a kind of 'sac'; the eggs look off-white at first, then turn purplish a few days after fertilization. Once the eggs start to hatch the sac breaks open / dissolves and the fry at first just kind of 'hang on' inside the males mouth. At this time the fry still have their own yolk sacs. After a few days you can actually see them start to swim inside his mouth - sometimes a fry head or tail "pops out" for a second or two, before the still-protective Dad adjusts his jaw to force the fry back in. I have wondered if the fry feed off of the mucus inside the males mouth at this time, but I am not sure if that is true or not. In any event, about 4 - 6 days after actually hatching the male lets the fry leave his mouth. By this time they are the size of standard FW " livebearer" fry and can be fed newly-hatched Brine shrimp immediately. |
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| Post #10 Mar 16 2010, 06:16:02 PM | BobC |
| Oh, and right now both parents are still in the display tank, which has a generous amount of Caulerpa and Chaetomorpha algae along the rear wall for cover... |
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