Well, I came home from work today to find my male Banggai is carrying a clutch of eggs in his mouth. I'm pretty excited, but I'll see what the next few days bring. I've had this pair since last fall and they have spawned in the past in my BC29. However, the male does not go full term and after a few days, eats the eggs! So I'm hopeful I'll have better success this time!

Man... two opr three days in I'd start getting pretty hungry myself.

Good Luck!

I hear ya Pickles!! It amazes me though how they do this for 21 days!

Good luck!

i've been wanting to purchase a pair of banggais for a while now but always seem to miss the opportunity. hope your male doesn't get too hungry this time.

How it works out.

UPDATE!! As of today, the male is still holding eggs! This is the longest he has gone without eating them, so it's lookin' good so far!

As of today, Fri. May 1, I came home from work and checked in on the Banggai Cardinals. And what did I see???



Eyeballs!!


The eggs have developed enough that I can see them. Pretty freaky!! I don't know if I can get pics, but I'll try.

AWESOME!!! Question for you though. Do you have a longspine urchin or a fake urchin? I heard they were somewhat necessary for banggai breeding..

Right now, I don't have any. They spawned in my display tank, a 29 gallon BioCube. Because of my rockwork and corals, it would be difficult to get him out without spiiting out the eggs. So, I'm thinking I may wait 'til close to delivery and try to remove him.

I'll have to set up a nursery tank for the babies. I saw a thread where you can make an artificial urchin out of some epoxy and long toothpicks. I may give that a try.

Try to find some thin plastic rods for the "urchin". I read a breeding article, and one of the pics showed the epoxy urchin with some black rods.

rods or expoxy and toothpicks will work. def try to get the male out before the hatch for two reasons.

1. babies wont be eaten

2. Give the male time to recover and feed since he hasnt eaten in 28 days.

Thanks, Both good points! My lfs said the female will stay close to the male and will eat the fry as soon as they come out of the males mouth. I am going to have one of the employees ( who has experience with Banggais ), help me this week-end.

Congratz Gerard!!! This is amazing!!! I call first dibs!!

update!!!!!!!!!!

As of today, the male is still holding the fry. It's been 2 weeks today. I just got the nursery tank set-up today. I'll let things get adjusted in it and try to put the male in there tomorrow. Hopefully, he won't spit them out during the transfer.

Goodluck!

Good luck

Well tonight I took the male out and put him in the nursery tank. I don;t know if he's still carrying eggs or not though. It was quite a chase around the tank trying to get him. I ended up having to take out most of my rocks to get him because the darned acros kept snagging my net! I can't seem to get a good look at him. I'll wait 'til he get settled down and try to look again.

hopefully, he still has them.

Good News!! I have the nursery tank in a darkened room and I went to look at him with a flashlight tonight and I still see eyeballs! I need to get the wifes' camera and take some pics!

GRATZ man! at my school we have a breeding pair of Banggai cards when ours release the babies they flee into the urchin and we honestly turkey baste them into a 2.5g goldfish bowl that we have moded and is suspended in the tank.

This past Thurs. the male unexpectedly spit out a ball of eggs. They were developed enough that I could see the eyes and a little bit of a tail sticking out behind the egg sacs. I was scrambling to come up with something or some way to save them since I don't have an egg tumbler. So I scooped them up in a net and placed an air stone under the net. I let this run for about a day. I decided to let them out of the net and let nature take its' course, survival of the fittest, right? Well I'm pleased to report that with only a few casualties, the majority of them have survived! They are developed enough now that I can see the fins and they are turning more black in color. And they wiggle around a lot more.

The male is still in the tank. I tried feeding him, but he refuses to eat. So, I'm wondering if he still may have some eggs in his mouth?

BTW, I made a fake sea urchin using some epoxy I molded in to a ball and used skewers as the spines.

Awesome! lmk how yours goes, keep us updated.

Got to post some pics...

I need to see this urchin

Well, I took some pics. Here are a couple of shots of the babies. They're laying on their sides, but they do wiggle around a lot.





And the fake long spine urchin

they look funny on their sides

I think they look even funnier with their big bellies, kinda like their owner, LOL!

haha, I just made the same fake urchin. If you dont mind, can you take a pic of the male and female? Im trying to see if i got two males or male and female.

Hey dtfleming, check out this link. I used this to determine the sex of my cardinals and it seems to be pretty accurate. It uses the "venting" method. It shows both a diagram and if you scroll down there are pics. Hope this helps!

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2064

What a difference a couple of days make! A lot of them are now free swimming. I'm going to have to get some BBS for them real soon.

This is really cool. Be sure to keep us updated with some pictures!

Way cool. Way Interesting.

Tks.

very nice good luck

Took a couple of pics tonight. They are up and about now. They also have developed enough that they now look like "Mom & Dad"! I'm going to try and feed them. Think I'll try some frozen BBS and frozen rotifers.

Here's a group photo:


And here's a couple of them in the fake urchin I made:

Sweet nice work

cool, feed those little guys

I like how there is only one line for each fin. Very nice. This may be the only way we can get banggais in the future if they become endangered in the wild.

that is so cool congrats.
but why do they need the fake urchin?

cuz out in the ocean they hide in a long spine urchin for safety.

that is way cool

shame i dont have the space for babies & such

Here's another pic of the youngsters a week later. Looks like they're coming along really nice! I still have about 15 of them.

adorable! that is really cool.

wow that is so cool! You could make some moolah if you keep them spawning........

Great job, if you sell to local stores you will really be doing your part in stopping the overharvesting of these fish.

thats awsome man you have any updated pics??

That is sweet man! Its like raising salmon in school lol

Well sadly and (I'm embarassed to say), I lost the whole batch due to my negligence on keeping up with tank maintenance. However, as of a week ago, the male now has a new clutch of eggs in his mouth that he's incubating. He is presently in the display tank.

I'm working out a possible trade with my LFS as I have decided that breeding and raising fish is more than I have time for, maybe later.

Well congrats on getting that far! My male is currently holding eggs again and this is the first batch that hes held for more than 3 days...its now been 17 days. I plan to feed freshly hatched baby brine, and see how that goes.

I am gonna catch him in a day or so and place in him a breeder net until he releases the eggs at which point my adventure begins haha.