2nd "pair"? (Bangaii)

Well i think i have a pair, but i have not been able to id them 100% yet so i am still in the dark a little bit.



They are only eating live brine, so i have some work to do.  At any rate, i have had them about 4 days now they eat live brine readily and have not shown any aggression towards each other in there shared ten gallon next the premnas in my basement. 

Can anyone lend some help here with an ID on sex's?  I did't think there were any physical cues, and based my "pair" assumption solely on the fact that they dont attack each other (they act like the other one does not exist).

Is this your first pair of Bangaii? Or are you already breeding them?

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Sorry, the title does lead a little bit...

I meant to say, this is possible my second "pair" of marine fish that could spawn.  Not as the title suggests, my second pair of baggai's.

That's what I thought but I wasn't sure

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Im starting to worry a little bit about the smaller of the two banggai's.  It has not eaten in 3 days, and refuses live brine.  Anyone have any tricks for these guys?

Ive tried:

frozen H20 mysis
Frozen H20 mini mysis
H20 marine fusion (squid, clam, krill, mysis, brine, some seaweed)
frozen brine
frozen cyclops
frozen rots
formula 1 pellet (soaked, and un soaked)
New life spectrum flake
Live brine shrimp

None of those will elicit a feeding response from it.  Meanwhile, the larger of the two is eating live brine and a little bit of frozen brine.

Wow..You've run through about all the options I could suggest and then some..Have you tried seperating the two and see if he will eat without the other one around. Maybe it's a stress issue.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

This might be an extreme long shot but... do you have any idea how old these guys are?  How big are their bodies?
 
When I got mine at MACNA (Sept) they still called them "juveniles" and they spawned for me in October.
 
While your's look pretty small (hard to tell for sure) it might be possible that you have positive proof of who the male is... hopefully that is the case and the one isn't just stressed out.
 
There is no other perfect way to tell the sexes apart, other than aggression.  Males tend to have a "bulkier" jaw but that can be hard to tell.
 
Does the one that is eating seem to be paying any attention to the one that isn't? 

Yeah, thank god i kind of went crazy when i found our Kee's and Moby carried H20 foods.  I bought one of each a while back and i am still creating ways to use them up lol...

Continued in my response to Tal....

No idea, they were sold to Kee's as "juvi's" but like you mentioned above, who knows what that could mean.  Also, i thought they become viable at around 9 monhts...so juvinal must not last to long with these guys.





That thought had not actually crossed my mind...lol.   If only it were that easy

 The smaller of the two is the one that is not eating.  It ate with the other one at Kee's in those little containers that hang on the tanks. 




As far as i have seen, neither of them even acknowledge the other one.  No bumping, no swimming at/towards each other, no reactions, nothing. 

I will be separating them for tonight.  I have a 29 gallon filled to the brim (not quite, but almost!) tied into this system that is full of zooplankton of all sorts, so if it cant find a meal in there by itself it is doomed.  I will also be trying to feed it some live brine while its in there....so we will see.

Thanks guys! 

Forgot to comment on there size.  One is larger than the other (thicker and longer).

The smaller of the two is around 3/4-1" TL.  The larger is around 1-1.25" TL.  Bodys are almost quarter sized, but not quite yet.

If they're quarter sized they might be old enough, keep an eye on them and check out his mouth.

Hey Ray just an FYI. You can quote multiple messages in a single reply really easy here. Just go to the messages you want to quote from and hover over the
Reply to Message menu.

Then click the Add to Quote option for each message you want to quote from. On the last message you want to quote hover over the Reply to Message menu again and select Quote message The reply will automatically insert quotes from all the messages you selected...

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

 
I missed this the first time I read through.  I'm the one that asked Gary to get some of the H2O food... now I have to runup and get some!   Thanks for the heads up!

Im not certain what they have right now, but when i grabbed some a while back they only had 2-3 items.  I think kee's had a larger selection because they were doing some freezer deal with the company.  But i can understand if Mobys is your first choice lol.



Thanks   I am used to Vbullet or phpbb...ive never belonged to a forum that ran on ASP lol.

Anyways, the smaller (non-eating) banggai is seperated and in the larger 29 gallon that is plumbed into the tens.  I have not tried to feed yet, i am going to wait until later.

Yeah, Moby's is much closer, I'm not driving 45 min for food.   I need a few other things any way.
 
I've been wanting to try that food.  It must be good if Matt W. is letting them use his pics for their advertising.

The guy (Chris Turk) who founded H20 was the curator at the Steinhardt (sp?) aquarium in San Diego for 20 years....if anyone knows a thing or two about the needs of fish, it would be him.   So far i have been able to compare his mysis, cyclops, and coral food to ocean nutritions stuff.  So far i am very impressed with the cleanliness of the food after its thawed.  Also they sell  a "mini" mysis that is about 1/2 the size of regular mysis. 

Hey i did't try and feed the picky baggai coral food...it might work lol.

Yes, that's what Matt told me.  I picked up the 50/50 Plus and the Spirulina formulas today.

I'm going to have to check that stuff out. Do they just make frozen food or do they have any pelleted food as well?

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

We're kinda hijacking the thread here, LOL  As far as I know it's only frozen at this point.
 
FWIW, I relly like it, you don't have to cut it up like the Ocean Nutrition food since it doesn't have all the binders.  It doest seem much "cleaner" as mentioned, just food and nothing else.

Well the non eating bangaii is still not eating.  I have thrown everything listed above at it again, this time while it is alone in the LR filled 29 gallon.  It perks up when live brine is added, but it does not actively chase any of them down.

Any ideas?

I'm still thinking that he might be "holding".  Trying to think positive for ya.

Thanks Tal!  The other one (the one that eats) is starting to take frozen brine much more readily.  If the non eating kicks the bucket, i am going to take the eating one and place it into my main tank so that i can free up a tank for a "performing pair" should i find some.

I was watching the non eating one for about 20 minutes today, and i seen it open its mouth a few times (like a yawn) but it looked pretty empty   Still, i tried live brine and they literally crawled all over it.  It did not even look twice at them...

The "yawning" sounds like he's shifting eggs around.  How long has "he" not been eating?  Males go 21 days without eating when holding so even if he's not holding he should be around for a while.  If he's just stressed, hopefully he'll get over it soon.

I picked them up on the 9th of May.  I witnessed it eat then, and that was the last time.  Neither of them ate the first day they were in my care, then the 2nd day is when #1 (the eater) started to eat live brine. 

How do they react to bright light?  I have a super bright 3 watt single LED flashlight that i could use to get a better look in "his" mouth, but i dont want to startle it into spitting the eggs if "he" does indeed have some.

Mine get a bit freaked out by flashlights.  I would just place a brighter light above the tank, slowly, and see what you can see.  I just took some pics and video of mine, I'll upload them in a minute.

Here are a few pics. Notice that mine has a little white protrusion under the jaw.  I'm not sure if that's common or not but it's only visible when he's holding. (After looking at the pics I see that it isn't visible, it's more obvious in the video) 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ1MAfpOXYo
 
You'll also notice in the video how his mouth is open a bit, not closed like the female's.  Mine has been holding since the 14th or 15th.
 




 

Thanks for the pics and the words Tal....but its dead.  I came home, and the crabs had eaten most of it by the time i seen it. 

Now what should i do with the unknown juvi banggai?  Put it in my display tank (which has a occy pair, a blue damsel & a diadema)?  Wait for it too mature and then find a compatible mate?

Sorry for your loss

Hopefully you can make a go of it with another cardinal.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Oh, man!  I was really hoping for the best.    If I were you I'd still work on trying to make a pair.
 
Getting another one from a different souce would be good for genetics too.

Sorry to hear about your fish!    Seems to be a bad couple of weeks for banggais.    I lost my 3 babies last week as well.  

And Fishtal... a little off topic... thank you for posting that link to the banggai video!  The next thing you know.. I'm watching South Park's "Gay Fish" episode.   LOL  I think I lost a couple hours out of my work day!   And I'm not even sure how I managed to make my way from one topic to the other.  I seem to recall something about Vampire Moths in there too. 

Thanks for the words guys, i usually hold off on attachments to fish for a good couple of months (by then its full blown love lol) so this loss was really no big deal.  I feel worse that i took one out of the dwindling numbers availible and did nothing productive with it.  That is what makes me leary about getting another one, but if i do finally get a pair and i get one full spawn out of them that should make up for any loss's that occur during this stage.

Well the big boy (I have no idea what sex it is, but im tired of calling it "IT" lol) ended up in the diplay tank with a pair of occys, a pseudochromis, and a blue damsel.  No aggression between anyone, and i feed pretty light.   Hes usually the first one to grab some food, so this looks like it will be working for now. 

Ill still be keeping my eyes peeled for some banggai's or a conifrmed male or female, so if anyone hears anything post it up if you dont want it.

did you try live adult brine or newly hatched, also, from what i understand, if two of the same sex are together long enough and one becomes dominant and is consistantly trying to reproduce, the other will eventually change sex.

Sorry to disagree but, Cardinalfish are gonochoristic, incapable of sex reversal.

I attempted both live adult brine, and nhbbs.  No luck, it was not happy at all....to the point it would not eat no matter what.

Did you ever find another mate for your banger?

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis