Breeding Journal, Species: Pterapogon kauderni (Banggai Cardinal)

Might be right around the corner or even already happened Mike.  Usually when I feed both of them come darting out from the rocks grabbing food but this time I only saw one of them doing it. I was able to locate the other but it's doing a pretty good job of staying in a place where it's hard to get a good look at it to tell if it's holding or not.
 
I'm going to watch closely tonight at feeding time and see if I see the same behavior again...But this is a good sign. Hopefully!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Cool, Chad.  My male hides when he is holding too.  Hopefully you can get a better look at him tonight. 

I'm really hoping that this is the case and he is holding already. Being in the display I should be able to finally document the process and get my points and fishy!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Well I have now confirmed that the Male is most certainly holding I was finally able to get a decent up Close look at him and he most certainly has an Egg Ball in his mouth.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

This is the best pic I could get with the crappy camera I have right now and the fact that I have to slowly sneak up on them and wait forever to for him to come out to get any picture at all
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

I was pretty sure my male was holding yesterday. I wasn't sure if my male looked more like a hamster storing seeds or someone trying to keep themselves from puking....
 
Today I went to look at other Banggai on the internet....Now I'm not so sure because my male doesn't look anything like this:

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Holy cow.  Mine has never looked like that

OK, so they aren't supposed to look like that then and mine is probably holding. I don't know if I can wait 20 days...
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Damn. That's a _ton_ of eggs. I want to know what they've been feeding mama.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Not sure, but I bet if that fish could talk we'd hear muffled swearing!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Got Finally ordered a battery charger for my good camera but don't know if it will be here in time. Took these with my wife's camera today:

 
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Since this is a flow through..A slow flow through maybe, but a flow through just the same....
 
 

I can see that the babies are now hatched in the male's mouth so I'm going to try and get him to spit them so I can collect them on my terms. Otherwise I could lose some or all of them to the parents, pump, or Clarki.
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Caught Papa tonight and this is the result:

 

 
Altogether I counted about 20 of them!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Very very cool!!  and using the good old fashioned non exploding stealth heaters at that!

Pelagically yours,
~J      

How did you know I had a stealth in that tank???
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

clever deduction... I actually read the whole thread and looked at the pictures....

Pelagically yours,
~J      

Congratulations, Chad! My papa looks ready to pop himself. I wonder if he'll release today.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

I decided to force the release. I was going to just let him go but trying to catch the babies in that tank after the fact would have been a nightmare.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Here are some shots of the Lil' Banggers new home:

 
And a close-up of the tank:

 
I decapped some eggs to hatch some bbs for them just in case but I've been putting in Otohime every couple hours and the babies change their behavior and are striking at the food in the water column so I may not need them but it can't hurt just in case.
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Hmmm....Well it appears that I messed something up. I should have hatched some BS by now but I'm not seeing any in the hatcher.
 
I'm thinking I might have boched the de-capping process so it's time to try again.  On the positive side it does appear that the little ones are eating the Otohime with no problems. I'll continue to feed every couple hours today and keep an eye on them.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Keep bubbling them, sometimes they can take a bit longer if the light isn't bright enough.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

I found two of them that hatched a while ago

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Well I got back from my short vacation and it looks like all the babies are still there. Thanks to AJ for stopping by and feeding them yesterday while I was gone. It really put my mind at ease and looks like it paid off.
 
I owe you one AJ!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Awesome news!

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

yeah I've been trying to feed them several times now since getting home to help make up for the lack of food over the last few days.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Got around to putting a video together of the babies:
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

So far so good. It doesn't look like I've lost any of them yet. They continue to eat well on the Otohime A.  I have hatched a few batches of BS to feed them. mostly because I had to go out of town a few days after they where released and I wanted to make sure I didn't lose any.
 
Yesterday I go a new fish for my display and was unplugging things and moving stuff around to get my QT tank setup and while the pump in the growout tank was off I decided to feed the little guys, since I was right there. Well to my surprise the babies paid almost no attention to the food. Usually they go nuts eating up all the food but this time it was like nothing was going on at all.
 
I decided to try this again today and saw the same result. With the pump off and nothing to blow the Otohime around it seems the babies have no interest in eating it. Aparently my use of a pump rather than an air powered sponge filter has had a major roll in my success feeding Oto rather than BBS. Just thought I'd share this little tidbit of information with the class.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

The Parents have been eating well and the male looks like he is pretty much back up to fighting weight. I was afraid that the female might be ready to breed again too soon and burn the male out. I'm happy to see that he's gained most of his weight back and if they decide to breed now I won't worry so much.
 
I noticed that the babies are now looking like they are bigger so I decided to try some frozen Cyclopeeze. At least some of the babies took right to it. I'm not sure if all of them are quite ready for the cyclopeeze yet as there are some that are still a bit smaller than the others but it's looking like they are getting close to being off the Otohime..

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Chad--That was my experience with the non-living food, too. It needs to be moving pretty well for them to go for it. Almost like they need to not have time to think about whether or not they should try whatever is floating by.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

So far so good. Still have all 23 of them ( no losses ). They are all officially now eating frozen Cyclopeeze so it's probably time to slowly phase out the Otohime. Although if I can it might be nice to see if I can get them to take pellets.
 
Here is an updated pic of a few of them taken with my new diopter lenses

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Excellent!

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

I'm pretty happy about it. Things have been going really well so far. I'm still trying to figure out a long term way to keep breeding them though keeping the parents in the reef tank is probably not really the best option.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Congrats Chad! They are very healthy!

Doni Marie~

Nice! They look good.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

Thanks... They continue to do well and now Im feeding about 50% of the time Cyclopeeze an 50% of the time Otohime.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Got back from vacation today and it looks like I lost two of the babies while gone. There was at least one of them that wasn't eating well so I'm not sure surprised. The remaining ones look good and are eating well.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

I'm glad it's going well. I had three babies that managed to avoid momma and hide in the tank from the last batch. The first only lasted one night. The other two lasted about four days before they vanished. Momma's a good hunter. I fed the heck out of her all during this last incubation and dad's got an enormous load of eggs now. I think if I could figure out a way to get the babies out of there, I would. But there's not much possibility of that. I guess I need to make better hiding places for the kids.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

You really need a large tank and a crop ton of hiding places of all sizes to pull that off I think. I wonder if a bunch of diadema in hte tank would help as well?

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

One of my little ones showed back up again yesterday, belly full and all. And that's weird because I had stopped feeding the tank anything geared toward little ones for several days. But it's a mature tank with _lots_ of algae--and I don't skim or anything--so maybe there's just a decent bit of food in the WC. Probably surviving on worm larvae and such. The algae seems okay for hiding. The kids in other tanks with diadema but without a good algae crop don't last long.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886