In an unexpected surprise, my Diamond Goby pair, or Valenciennea puellaris, have laid a successful spawn of fry. Probably their 4th time or so, but I never attempted to recover eggs at hatch time. In this case, I was able to dig up the eggs that were developed enough to hatch as I was disturbing the nest. There were at least several hundred of them but at this time I have no way to feed them so for the most part they are Banggai Cardinal food. Now that I've confirmed the spawning I'm considering preparing for the next spawn.
In other news, tomorrow I'll be bringing my first full batch of Banggai Cardinals to a store on consignment and hope they find good homes.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Bangaii Cardinals 2/20/12
Quick update with an interesting event that happened to me earlier this week. My fourth batch of Bangaii Cardinal fry were released on the 11th of this month with a incubation time of about 25 to 26 days. They were released be briefly raising the male out of the water, in which he would spit the fry out. The males usually spit out all the eggs or fry the moment they hit the air. I got 26 fry in that batch, which was a pretty good number, and so far I've only documented one loss the next morning.
The surprise that prompted me the write tonight was how the male didn't seem to be eating and still had a bloated mouth. The other male did the same and after a few days he seemed to have went back to normal. What I didn't know was apparently even after an inspection, he still was hiding some fry or unhatched eggs even after being taking out of the water. He just didn't want to spit those out. And on the 16th, 5 days after the release of the others, I noticed a fry in the male's mouth and to my surprise, extracted 16 more fry, for a current total of 42 fry. They were a little bit smaller and a lot hungrier than the fry that were released sooner, but seemed healthy for the month part. From my understanding, 30 days is about the limit before the fry must get food after hatching. I was just very surprised the male was still carrying fry and didn't occur to me he might have had more than the 26. The male on the previous batch did have the same issue with having a bloated mouth and not eating for an extra few days, and I realize now he might have had extra fry then too, however those did not survive if they were released since at that time the male was sharing a small tank with a Maroon Clown and Damsel that probably ate the fry. In future I will keep closer eye on the males. I wonder if there are any other documented cases of Bangaii males retaining fry or eggs even after being taking out of the water and physically held and checked for fry.
On a side note, my first batch is now almost reaching four months and might be finding new homes soon. They're not as large as I expected and did grow a bit slower than my second batch because I was in process of learning but they appear to be quite healthy if not a bit more skittish than the other batches of fry.
The surprise that prompted me the write tonight was how the male didn't seem to be eating and still had a bloated mouth. The other male did the same and after a few days he seemed to have went back to normal. What I didn't know was apparently even after an inspection, he still was hiding some fry or unhatched eggs even after being taking out of the water. He just didn't want to spit those out. And on the 16th, 5 days after the release of the others, I noticed a fry in the male's mouth and to my surprise, extracted 16 more fry, for a current total of 42 fry. They were a little bit smaller and a lot hungrier than the fry that were released sooner, but seemed healthy for the month part. From my understanding, 30 days is about the limit before the fry must get food after hatching. I was just very surprised the male was still carrying fry and didn't occur to me he might have had more than the 26. The male on the previous batch did have the same issue with having a bloated mouth and not eating for an extra few days, and I realize now he might have had extra fry then too, however those did not survive if they were released since at that time the male was sharing a small tank with a Maroon Clown and Damsel that probably ate the fry. In future I will keep closer eye on the males. I wonder if there are any other documented cases of Bangaii males retaining fry or eggs even after being taking out of the water and physically held and checked for fry.
On a side note, my first batch is now almost reaching four months and might be finding new homes soon. They're not as large as I expected and did grow a bit slower than my second batch because I was in process of learning but they appear to be quite healthy if not a bit more skittish than the other batches of fry.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
2-12-12
Got a bit of a generic title for today's belated post. No pictures and it's a mixed bag of sorts of various topics. I just had my 4th set of Bangaii Cardinal Fry! Which an audience watching me catch and separate the fry from the male parent. I'm also in the market to consider breeding Seahorses as my next attempt on aquaculture. Split between H. reidi, H. erectus, and H. zosterae as my top choices.
So I'm the new parent of 26 new Bangaii Fry, which is a pretty good number according to the records I'm keeping. I've been trying to track a number of things now on my spreadsheets, which funny enough was complicated enough that I accidentally read one of the number I put in wrong as was expecting the fry to be ready on the 18th, not 11th, and realized I switched a couple numbers around, so you can imagine my surprise when I was feeding the female and the male swims up to me and I see a glint of a silver eye and no sign of the orange egg yolk. I promptly went to my computer and stared at the numbers for a minute before I realized what was happening and has a nice long night getting everything ready. As of right now I have 16, 33, 18, and 26 fry as my four groups of babies from oldest to youngest. In an effort to try to keep posts here going I'm going to try to use this blog more as my note taking site sort of like what I've been writing in my personal notes, and focus a little less on pictures, and see if people find it fun to read or just too technical, which then I'll go back to more visual entries.
Seahorses. Still a hot topic even today. I try to takes votes on what they'd like to see me do next, which included Diamond Gobies, Sabae Clownfish, Peppermint Shrimp, or just more Bangaiis. Of course it's a resounding yes on the Seahorses so I'm in the market for them right now. Looking around to find a place that sells them healthy and preferably wild caught because when it comes to brood stock, it appears they don't do well if you inbred them at all because they're so prone to diseases and parasites. If I get a tank bred pair, I don't know if the two are siblings or not as compared to wild. Supporting wild caught fish isn't something I would normally support but when it comes to breeding, taking in a couple pairs of fish to potentially return dozens of offspring as alternatives to the market should be worth it. I'll post more on this once there's any headway in locating a good pair on the west coast or start setting up the tanks for them.
So I'm the new parent of 26 new Bangaii Fry, which is a pretty good number according to the records I'm keeping. I've been trying to track a number of things now on my spreadsheets, which funny enough was complicated enough that I accidentally read one of the number I put in wrong as was expecting the fry to be ready on the 18th, not 11th, and realized I switched a couple numbers around, so you can imagine my surprise when I was feeding the female and the male swims up to me and I see a glint of a silver eye and no sign of the orange egg yolk. I promptly went to my computer and stared at the numbers for a minute before I realized what was happening and has a nice long night getting everything ready. As of right now I have 16, 33, 18, and 26 fry as my four groups of babies from oldest to youngest. In an effort to try to keep posts here going I'm going to try to use this blog more as my note taking site sort of like what I've been writing in my personal notes, and focus a little less on pictures, and see if people find it fun to read or just too technical, which then I'll go back to more visual entries.
Seahorses. Still a hot topic even today. I try to takes votes on what they'd like to see me do next, which included Diamond Gobies, Sabae Clownfish, Peppermint Shrimp, or just more Bangaiis. Of course it's a resounding yes on the Seahorses so I'm in the market for them right now. Looking around to find a place that sells them healthy and preferably wild caught because when it comes to brood stock, it appears they don't do well if you inbred them at all because they're so prone to diseases and parasites. If I get a tank bred pair, I don't know if the two are siblings or not as compared to wild. Supporting wild caught fish isn't something I would normally support but when it comes to breeding, taking in a couple pairs of fish to potentially return dozens of offspring as alternatives to the market should be worth it. I'll post more on this once there's any headway in locating a good pair on the west coast or start setting up the tanks for them.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
First month with Bangaii Cardinal fry
So as I write this, my first batch of Bangaii Cardinal fry have reach a little over a month now and I just got my second batch of newborn fry yesterday and boy has it been a busy month for me. I kept meaning to post more but caring for those little guys takes up a lot more time than one may realize! (I think I started writing this at about 1pm and it's now 1am when I finally had time to finish writing this)
A bit of quick back story with my fry is that my first batch of fry came from "Male A" and it took him 3 attempts to carry the eggs to full term. After I received my wonderful first batch of babies, I thought I'd try to raise them before attempting new batches, since getting a new batch every month would only complicate my situation when I just wanted one batch to grow to adults as practice before attempting more. However, as I stated above, I just received my second batch. Why is that? Well after the fry were born, I moved Male A into another tank so he could feed and store up energy again. So I moved "Male B" from there to the main tank with the female. He was the younger of the males when I got them and has never attempted to breed yet. I figured, "Hey, it'll probably take him 3 attempts (~3 months) to get things down, that gives me time to learn from this first set."
Man was I wrong. The little hero decided he'd break the odds when it comes to his species and captive breeding. He held them full term. About two weeks in I was starting to wonder, but after 3 weeks I had to prepare the first batch to be moved downstairs to a 20g. Sort of a rushed deal but I hope it's cycles. It seems so since I had it running a couple months already as a QT for other fish and used some spare live rock from my main. Male B decided to "barf" the fry when I tried to catch him, before I even tried to move from net to a cup of water, which is a little unusual but I managed to react and scoop the net out before they got loose in the main tank, where more than just the Bangaii live and would probably eat them. It was day 26 or 27 I believe, so I expected the eggs to be hatched. I'm glad I didn't have to hand tumble the eggs this time like the first batch.
I'm going to throw in a couple quick recorded videos here. First one will be a the little over one month fry, and the second one will be of the newborn fry. Hard to imagine how fast they grow in a month. The rounded fry are so cute when they still have their yolks.
For a bit of numbers, my first batch has 28 survivors when I counted them as I moved them to the new tank. I think I had about 36 to start, but since I had to hand tumble them to hatch and it was my first time, within the first two days of hatching I had 8 that didn't make it, but since then I never saw one get ill or die. The new batch has about 36 of them, which I think is a coincidental number. Since they were hatched already, but still with their yolk sacs, I hope I get a better survival rate. First the first two weeks I run two of those 2L bottle hatcheries, and then I move down two a single one after when training the fish to eat frozen foods. I go back to two when the male carries to about 24days since I try to catch on day 25 or 26 when I see hatched fry in their mouth.
A bit of quick back story with my fry is that my first batch of fry came from "Male A" and it took him 3 attempts to carry the eggs to full term. After I received my wonderful first batch of babies, I thought I'd try to raise them before attempting new batches, since getting a new batch every month would only complicate my situation when I just wanted one batch to grow to adults as practice before attempting more. However, as I stated above, I just received my second batch. Why is that? Well after the fry were born, I moved Male A into another tank so he could feed and store up energy again. So I moved "Male B" from there to the main tank with the female. He was the younger of the males when I got them and has never attempted to breed yet. I figured, "Hey, it'll probably take him 3 attempts (~3 months) to get things down, that gives me time to learn from this first set."
Man was I wrong. The little hero decided he'd break the odds when it comes to his species and captive breeding. He held them full term. About two weeks in I was starting to wonder, but after 3 weeks I had to prepare the first batch to be moved downstairs to a 20g. Sort of a rushed deal but I hope it's cycles. It seems so since I had it running a couple months already as a QT for other fish and used some spare live rock from my main. Male B decided to "barf" the fry when I tried to catch him, before I even tried to move from net to a cup of water, which is a little unusual but I managed to react and scoop the net out before they got loose in the main tank, where more than just the Bangaii live and would probably eat them. It was day 26 or 27 I believe, so I expected the eggs to be hatched. I'm glad I didn't have to hand tumble the eggs this time like the first batch.
I'm going to throw in a couple quick recorded videos here. First one will be a the little over one month fry, and the second one will be of the newborn fry. Hard to imagine how fast they grow in a month. The rounded fry are so cute when they still have their yolks.
For a bit of numbers, my first batch has 28 survivors when I counted them as I moved them to the new tank. I think I had about 36 to start, but since I had to hand tumble them to hatch and it was my first time, within the first two days of hatching I had 8 that didn't make it, but since then I never saw one get ill or die. The new batch has about 36 of them, which I think is a coincidental number. Since they were hatched already, but still with their yolk sacs, I hope I get a better survival rate. First the first two weeks I run two of those 2L bottle hatcheries, and then I move down two a single one after when training the fish to eat frozen foods. I go back to two when the male carries to about 24days since I try to catch on day 25 or 26 when I see hatched fry in their mouth.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Reboot (plus more)
It's been a long year, and I admit blogging is not something I do naturally. It's very easy for me to overlook and forget to write about a dozen different things I wanted to write about. I'm going to try to reboot my blog and get into the motion of things again. Now is an especially good time because I am raising my first batch of Bangaii Cardinal fry! They are about a week and a half old now and here are some pictures of them one of my sump partitions:
I've been keeping three adult Bangaii Cardinals lately, one female and two males. The second male I've been keeping in my side tank along with a very old Blue Damsel and Maroon Clownfish. This is the first batch of young that made it to release by the first male. It is technically his third batch, which puts him in line with most Bangaii males when they first start to carry eggs. Most sources seem to indicate that the first 1-3 attempts may not go to full term as the male isn't used to or ready to carry the eggs the full 3 weeks or so. I will probably do a more detailed followup post about this batch of fry and some of the setups I am using that I've built.
Honestly, I'm not quite sure where I want to take this blog right now. I do know I want to keep my first breeding attempts or progress updated for those that are interested. I'm also considering doing some basic product reviews for anyone out there that would like to hear my opinions of the various products I pick up. As with most aquarists, we end up buying many products, some of which we love, some not so much, and even some that seem to work for us, but somehow not for others. Anything I might say in the future are not necessarily going to be the same experience with someone else. Just take it with a grain of salt along with all the other opinions out on the web you might find.
As a side note, I've recently become a volunteer at Aquarium of the Bay as a Water Quality Technician, which is basically a fancy way of saying I test their water parameters for them about once a week. I think I shall make a quick post with a few pictures about my experiences there and hope that I'm not breaking any rules by doing so. Should be free publicity if anything. They're a non profit aquarium with a heavy focus on local conservation. Anyone that lives or is visiting San Francisco that hasn't been there before should definitely take a look around. They run some pretty spiffy exhibits.
So that's that. Stay tuned for future updates and drop me a comment or an email over here with any comments, questions, or suggestions about what you'd like to see me post more of.
I've been keeping three adult Bangaii Cardinals lately, one female and two males. The second male I've been keeping in my side tank along with a very old Blue Damsel and Maroon Clownfish. This is the first batch of young that made it to release by the first male. It is technically his third batch, which puts him in line with most Bangaii males when they first start to carry eggs. Most sources seem to indicate that the first 1-3 attempts may not go to full term as the male isn't used to or ready to carry the eggs the full 3 weeks or so. I will probably do a more detailed followup post about this batch of fry and some of the setups I am using that I've built.
Honestly, I'm not quite sure where I want to take this blog right now. I do know I want to keep my first breeding attempts or progress updated for those that are interested. I'm also considering doing some basic product reviews for anyone out there that would like to hear my opinions of the various products I pick up. As with most aquarists, we end up buying many products, some of which we love, some not so much, and even some that seem to work for us, but somehow not for others. Anything I might say in the future are not necessarily going to be the same experience with someone else. Just take it with a grain of salt along with all the other opinions out on the web you might find.
As a side note, I've recently become a volunteer at Aquarium of the Bay as a Water Quality Technician, which is basically a fancy way of saying I test their water parameters for them about once a week. I think I shall make a quick post with a few pictures about my experiences there and hope that I'm not breaking any rules by doing so. Should be free publicity if anything. They're a non profit aquarium with a heavy focus on local conservation. Anyone that lives or is visiting San Francisco that hasn't been there before should definitely take a look around. They run some pretty spiffy exhibits.
So that's that. Stay tuned for future updates and drop me a comment or an email over here with any comments, questions, or suggestions about what you'd like to see me post more of.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Step 1 complete
Here's a few quick pictures of the display and the new black ocellaris. At first he wasn't eating anything and I suspect it was just because the QT tank was a bit overcrowded at first so I had to split some up. Of the four new fish, the Bangaii didn't make it. I believe he has some kind of stomach infection or parasite because he had very thin stringy white stuff come out of him instead of the usual fish waste. It also sorta trailed behind him a while and it looked like it was stomach parasites. I wasn't able to get pictures since I would suck out the white stuff when I saw it so the other fish didn't mess with it. I don't know how that would transfer. The Bangaii passed on shortly after I started noticing it. Maybe a two days tops.
I know I should have QT things longer and even medicated it but I fail because there's corals in the QT tank right now also and honestly the other two fish inside seemed to be eating very well still. Mostly getting these fish ready for new years since that's when guests are over and when my father wanted the fish on display so for his fish I had to give more lenience when I quarantine. With how fast the Bangaii died after noticing things, I don't know how much I could have done. I knew he wasn't eating like the other fish before he showed those signs, but it looked like general acclimation issues when the fish don't eat right away.
Anyways, the Yellow Tang and the Angelfish are the next two fish to go into the display. The angelfish first, then the Tang a few days after that once the Black Ocellaris is settled. Once the Clownfish started eating live brine, he quickly started eating flake and frozen mysis as well. I didn't get it to eat live brine until after I tried feeding frozen plankton which got his appetite working. The other fish are already eating mysis as well.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
New fish from Sacramento
Juvenile Blue Angelfish
Bangaii Cardinal (Top), Yellow Coris Wrasse (Bottom Left), and Black Ocellaris Clownfish (Bottom Right).
Picked up four new fish from Exotic Aquarium located in Sacramento, CA. I came up for the holidays to visit my aunt, but it's also a great time to check out the shop since it has a different selection from my local stores and I like them a lot. Overall they have nice selections of fish and coral with good service. Spent about 45minutes with them trying to catch the Blue Angelfish since it was housed in one of the larger coral frag tanks.
The images are when I was acclimating them to the quarantine tank that is actually also my spare zoanthid growing tank now. Funny how tanks become multi-purpose when you have limited space. I had to displace the Maroon Clownfish and Yellow Tail Damsel into my sump of the prop tank so along with the four new fish is an existing Bangaii Cardinal that I hope is the opposite sex of the one I got today but if they aren't, I won't be heart broken. With my luck I'm not expecting a pair until I get like five of them. There are two already in the display tank that my father likes but I might borrow them someday to get a pair, who knows. For now I'm just picking out the large healthy ones from different shops.
The star fish today would be Juvenile Blue Angelfish. Not only was it the most expensive by far, but never really see Blue Angelfish in shops myself, and that one was really nice looking in the store tank. Right now it's a bit faded because it's still asleep from the trip and lights are off. This fish will be going into the display tank once I make sure it's healthy and eating well. The same goes with the Black Ocellaris Clownfish that is destined for the display.
The Yellow Coris will be for my prop tank to replace the 6-Line and hopefully clean out some of the tube snails that are growing all over the place no matter how little I feed the tank. Most seem to be eating off the Tang's excretions as their food source and I can't stop the tang from eating the algae. The Bangaii is going to stay in that tank with the other one until I decide for sure what to do with them. I just couldn't pass up a decent size healthy one that only costs about $12 from the shop. Better price than anywhere in SF so far.
Anyways, that's my new fish. I'll try to get better pictures and post about them as things develop. Probably going to let my friend name them at some point so be warned about that. Oh, and the people from Exotic Aquarium were nice enough to give me a foam wholesale shipping box with bags that seemed to be over-sized compared to the small fish inside because I mentioned I came from SF and I didn't even have to ask for that extra comfort on the way home. It's nice to do business there.
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