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.
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