Banggai Rescue Breeder "All Call" - looking for collaborators

So here's the 411.  Part of my mission with Banggai Rescue is to do a bunch of experiments myself.  HOWEVER, in addition to the general research I will be doing for the book, and in combination with what I have set out to do, I am also keen to involved the Banggai Breeding community at large.  Why?  Well, to be blunt - I am NO EXPERT.  I do not feel that my contribution to our breeding chapters in the book should be the "Matt Pedersen Banggai Breeding Bible" - far from it.  I think this is "our" book to give to the breeders that come after us.
 
So in the coming weeks and months, I'm going to want to collaborate with past and present breeders of Banggai Cardinalfish.  I haven't decided how I want to coordinate this effort yet (I may set up a down and dirty quick private forum for us on another website...or I may just email breeders in more of a newsletter fashion).  While I work out the kinks, our timeline IS ambitious, so if you are interested in being a collaborator in this project, please post your interest here and I will add you to my list.  We may still be a month or two away form the collaborative portion of this project, so don't worry if you don't hear anything right away.
 
THANK YOU for considering being a part of this collaborative effort.  I point to my past works as examples of how I collaborate with people; I am a "credit where credit is due" man whenever possible.
 
Thanks,

Matt

Hi Matt, I would be interested in participating (should my fish be willing to assist).
 
At this stage they have not started spawning, so depending on what you are looking for I may be of great or no assistance at all.
 
regards
 
Darren

I would be willing to help you out Matt.  I have past and present experiences with a few different pairs. 

What I wouldn't give to be able to jump in on this. 

I'm in.

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

I am in,  I had some limited success with one pair and now have one pair and another pair on the way

I would also like to contribute.

I would help out if I could Matt.  I had a pair that wouldn't hold so I have a few different artificial incubation pics plus I have about 10ish banggai's now that I am trying to pair up.

I would be willing to help! I have a pair that is breeding but I have not had luck. The male keeps swallowing the eggs. 

i'm in too! but i'm in the same boat as Cuda and Road. mine wont hold past day 3.

Will there be a focus on artificial incubation? I bought a mag stirrer just to experiment with banggai eggs with it. Crazy I know.

 
but the big question - is your artificial incubation working?
 

 
HA...yes, AI is one of my main focuses for research.  I think most people here know that the only way I got ANY baby banggais was through AI years ago.  I've seen some people build on my success in that dept.  Still, what we need is a method that allows you to strip a fish on day 1 and incubate all the way through.  That would be the gold standard.  Maybe someone thinks they have it...if I can replicate, we're all collectively good to go.  If not, well, that's why I have 8 tanks set up JUST for artificial incubation experiments.

My current pair has spawned three times now, and held for 2 days, 2 days, and 3 days.  Frustrating.  On their next spawn I will be stripping the male as soon as I see his mouth full.  I've had limited success with AI in the past, so I'm interested to figure out a sure-fire method. 

I have recently acquired a pair That I have high hopes for. If I can be off assistance you can count me in.

Of course, you can count me in.  90% of my focus in breeding has been in bangs.  Own way to many and play with them way to much when I can.

Let me know what I can do, Matt. I haven't reared a ton of them, but I think I was pretty early in rearing them on non-living food and in higher-flow tanks.
 
Also, I'm a fair to middlin' proofreader.

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

Rearing sans live food is going to be a great thing to nail down if we can - I know Andy and Chad both have experience there, and I recall others as well.

I'll ask this one right here and now - anyone have any good ideas for "cleanup crews" in bare bottom broodstock tanks?  I'm leaning towards some sort of shrimp..perhaps peppermints.  As you probably know, banggais really don't eat food off the bottom...sometimes if the current is moving it.

All of my broodstock tanks have a lot of bristle worms that seem to do a good job of cleaning things up as well as reproducing. 

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

I will help.  My pair are very young, and was shocked they spawned.  But willing to lend a hand

Proud member of the first dedicated breeders site in the UK
Marine Fish Breeders Club - UK
H.Zosterae - 60 DPS

I'm willing to help out as well.  I've got a pair going now that has held in the past and can get more from the Trop.  My issue now is that these buggers do not like PE Mysis, they do love the Hikari brand mysis though.

like Jish said... deposit... NO refunds  -thejrc

Let me know what I can do. Last time I bred them we wrote about it. Did AI and it was pretty easy, I'd have to check to see when I stripped though.
Been planning to get some again for a while now, but didn't because of my trip. Back soon and will be getting some fo sho.

Waste is and excess food always seems to be a problem in my smaller tanks.  Aptasia and waste collection is always a problem.
 
I am going to be stripping the tanks that hold pairs to bare bottom and seeing just how much settles.  I have never run any of my bang tanks bare bottom, as the one time I tried the pair never seemed to 'settle in' so I added gravel and macro and within a few days they were behaving much more calm.

Well all, this is some informal information I'd like to ask you all to complete:
 
1. How many fish did you go through to get your pair(s)? 
 
2. What mortality rate have you experienced with wild and/or captive-bred broodstock?
 
3. What size tanks are you using for broodstock?  What can you tell me about the setups that you feel might be important (eg. bare bottom, substrate, hiding places, etc?)
 
4.  How are you doing on incubation with your parents?  Have you noticed anything that you believe causes them to incubate fully / stop prematurely?
 
5.  Have you tried artificial incubation of the eggs?  If so, can you elaborate with details on the age of the eggs when pulled, the type of incubation, and whether you've been successfully, failed, or both?
 
Feel free to post your responses here for all to see.

 Sure, we ordered 30 large banggai from Exotic Reef Imports. They were on sale that week, which means they were a whole dollar less than normal. The banggai arrived individually bagged, taking up almost two boxes. I opened up all the bags and released them into the same bucket, adding water from the quarantine system to acclimate them, added a little prime to fix up any ammonia. Our Quarantine system has 16 separate sections/tanks. I went through the banggai that we got in, and sorted (venting method) them by male, female, and undetermined. The fish that I could sex were paired up and given their own section of the quarantine. Unsexable fish were split into two groups, and placed in a 4 foot quarantine section. Two fish died from shipping trauma within 48 hours. After a few days of eating and adjusting to their new tank, I went through the unsexed fish again and could determine more males, females, and unsexable fish. I continued this routine every day till they were all paired, and the remaining fish kept as singles. Within a week, all the banggai had been sorted. The real test was time, being kept together and watching for fin damage, I was able to conclude a near perfect success in pairing them. Three weeks was enough time to fatten them up and sell them as male and female pairs at the expo.

Last time or this time?
1. How many fish did you go through to get your pair(s)?  Last time, 2009, I was given some wild caught fish, I think 2, and they died within a few weeks, and purchased some captive bred, probably 6 or so, perhaps more, had 3 pairs from them. 
  
2. What mortality rate have you experienced with wild and/or captive-bred broodstock?  Wild ones died within weeks, captive bred had some mortality, if I recall correctly, but they mostly lived.
  
3. What size tanks are you using for broodstock?  What can you tell me about the setups that you feel might be important (eg. bare bottom, substrate, hiding places, etc?) I used 20 gallon highs, because they are the biggest tanks I own and they can be isolated permanently.  My QT is my final tank.
  
4.  How are you doing on incubation with your parents?  Have you noticed anything that you believe causes them to incubate fully / stop prematurely? All my spawning pairs would not hold for more than 3 days.
  
5.  Have you tried artificial incubation of the eggs?  I did not try this.If so, can you elaborate with details on the age of the eggs when pulled, the type of incubation, and whether you've been successfully, failed, or both? 

 

1. gone through many banggai, and sold them as pairs. Before I had wholesale access, I only bought them as pairs from other people.
2. buying my banggai already established from another tank had no losses. Buying from wholesaler so far has had very few losses.
3. from 15-200 gallons.
4. Currently only have one pair that I pull from. I pull the male every time I see him with eggs, open his mouth and look at the eggs. If they are still eggs, I return him to the tank. If they have hatched, or are almost ready to hatch, I pull them at put them in an egg tumbler.
5. tumbling eggs for me almost always fails. I try to wait till they've hatched, and then have very good success.

1. Won my pair at MACNA in 2008. Lucked out that they were a M/F pair.
2. Lost pair in Sept 2011
3. Housed them in the refugium section of the sump with LR, LS, and marcoalgae. Approx 20G
4. Broodstock held the eggs most times. The last few batches before they died were eaten.
5. Never tried.

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

1. How many fish did you go through to get your pair(s)? 
 
My first pair I bought as a pair that had been retired from one of my LFS account tanks. Otherwise, about 15 fish to get about 3 pair. I get a lot of males.
 
2. What mortality rate have you experienced with wild and/or captive-bred broodstock?
 
A lot, mostly my own idiot mistakes. BTW, other than my first pair all of mine were captive bred. I did have one disease go through my system that only seemed to hit males. Killed about 5.
 
3. What size tanks are you using for broodstock?  What can you tell me about the setups that you feel might be important (eg. bare bottom, substrate, hiding places, etc?)
 
I keep them in all kinds of tanks, from 480 through 40 gal. to horse troughs. I almost always have tons of flow and lots of hiding places.
 
4.  How are you doing on incubation with your parents?  Have you noticed anything that you believe causes them to incubate fully / stop prematurely?
 
Immaturity is the largest cause of egg swallowing I've seen, IMO.
 
5.  Have you tried artificial incubation of the eggs?  If so, can you elaborate with details on the age of the eggs when pulled, the type of incubation, and whether you've been successfully, failed, or both?
Nope. Not yet. Since I have lots of hiding places catching the male with low stress seems impossible.

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

I was very lucky in that I managed to pick a pair out of a group of juvi's in my LFS tank.   I chose my two on jaw and head shape, I went for a fuller square one (male) and a thinner streamlined one (female).   It was a complete guess, and had arranged with the lfs to bring one back and try again if I needed to



Unable to tell from personal experiance, my lfs can not tell me if my fish are wild caught or captive bred.   I think they are wild caught, as they are both very skittish


 
The pair are in a 200lt tall tank that I use for my mandarin.  Thier tank mates are anthias, bi-colour blennies and mandarin.  I feel that giving them an over hang of rock to hid under is important in making them feel secure.   I tried keeping my male in a breeders net to fatten him up, but he became to stressed, so I returned him to his mate.   They also seem more settled with other fish in the tank, but am also inclined to say this could effect breeding, especially in my case with Anthias.  My pair are still young so will look to either move the anthias, or the banggais at a later date
 

 
My pair have spawned twice and each time he is holding them longer.  The first spawn was eaten within 5 days, the second he ate them on day 10.   I think hunger and age is the bigger factor here
 

No not as yet

Proud member of the first dedicated breeders site in the UK
Marine Fish Breeders Club - UK
H.Zosterae - 60 DPS

1.  So far, I've only had success buying already paired fish.  I bought a group of 10 wild fish awhile back (only type readily available here), and all 10 slowly perished one at a time before any pairing occurred.  That happened over about 8 months.  They would shoal together and eat ravenously, then one day one would be off by itself, and the next day it would die.  One of the females paired with an older male I had, but she eventually perished as well, and they never reproduced even though they were paired for a few months.  I recently bought a group of 4 small wild adults to try pairing.

2.  I have had ZERO luck establishing wild Banggai myself, although I've had no deaths in already established wild fish, nor any issues with captive bred fish on the occasion I've been able to acquire captive-bred.

3. 15 & 20 gallons for established pairs.  Up to 55 gallons for groups.  Low light, and low traffic area I find is the most important.  I also find they are more comfortable in tanks with fake plants rather than live rock or PVC.  They don't seem to care about substrate.

4.  Previous pairs I've always found to start out holding full term, but after a year or so they start holding for shorter and shorter times.  My current single pair doesn't hold worth a darn...eggs mostly gone in 24 hours.  They've had 6 spawns that I know of.  I have heard that nitrate around 20+ppm will cause Banggai to abort/swallow, but I haven't been able to confirm this...something I'm looking into myself now.  Nitrate in my broodstock system is above this level.  Previous pairs that I mentioned above that held full-term at the beginning were kept in very low nitrate systems.  Hardly evidence as there were many differences between those systems and my current ones, but something to look at for sure.
 
5.  I'm working on this right now with my current pair, but my experiments are too young to have any value yet, other than to know what I'm trying now isn't working (it is simply a brine shrimp pop bottle hatcher with methylene blue).  Currently I'm working with eggs that are around 4-8 hours post-spawn.  See my recent thread, "Adventures with Artificial Incubation of Banggai Cardinals" in the Banggai Cardinal Breeding forums.  In the past, I've used a tumbler on eggs that were close to hatching (around 20 days IIRC) with some success.  That tumbler used water flow rather than air flow and was set into an established tank rather than trying to keep the tumbler water sterile.

So...what's the status of this "call all" Matt??
 
 
1 and 2) I have recently had much more success pairing using the "vent method" - 100% with 3 pairs.  I've had a lot more success with wild-caught juveniles lately too which I contribute solely to making homemade frozen food which the Banggai love.  I am able to provide a wider spectrum of Banggai palatable foods - homemade mash w/ gelatin, PE Mysis, and occasional H2O Brine Shrimp (can't find enriched BS around here).
 
3)  Same.
 
4)  Still no success.
 
5)  Still no success.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Will be ramping up here in a little bit

1. How many fish did you go through to get your pair(s)?
I have had 20 fish in total (8 origional all did not make it, second batch 2 doing well, third batch 10 with 8 remaining), at this stage I have 3 pairs, 10 fish total.  These have been seperated using the vent method.

2. What mortality rate have you experienced with wild and/or captive-bred broodstock?
One pair was purchased from another keeper and I have no knowledge of their background, they were in the previous owners tank for approx 2 years.
18 fish were purchased as wild stock.  8 of these remain.

3. What size tanks are you using for broodstock? What can you tell me about the setups that you feel might be important (eg. bare bottom, substrate, hiding places, etc?)
1 x 2x1.5x1 tank, bare bottom with a one pair of Banggai and an adult clown pair also in the tank.
2 x 2x1.5x1 tanks, lots of rock and caves with one pair of Banggai and a juvi clown pair growing up also in the tank.
1 x 3x2x2 tank, lots of rock and caves with group of banggai, one clown and four long nosed hawk fish.

4. How are you doing on incubation with your parents? Have you noticed anything that you believe causes them to incubate fully / stop prematurely?
Currently leaving eggs with male.  Eating eggs at day 3-5 as far as I can tell.

5. Have you tried artificial incubation of the eggs? If so, can you elaborate with details on the age of the eggs when pulled, the type of incubation, and whether you've been successfully, failed, or both?
Not tried

1. 2 fish. I had two adults. I didn't sex them or anything before introduction. I got lucky to get a pair. 
2. Lost one of them have not tried to introduce another yet. 
3. 92 corner tank that is setup as a reef tank. There is also a pair of clowns and a vlamingi tang. 
4.  I was letting the male do the incubating. I was never succesful with him raising eggs to the end.  
5.  No 

Another, more BROAD survey, was launched today through CORAL - http://surveys.verticalresponse.com/a/show/252795/6a3c9970b5/0  - please if you all can take a moment to weigh in, that'd be great!

Another, more BROAD survey, was launched today through CORAL - http://surveys.verticalresponse.com/a/show/252795/6a3c9970b5/0  - please if you all can take a moment to weigh in, that'd be great!

1. I have 2 pairs currently.  The more established pair I purchased as 3 juveniles and lost 1.  The new pair I got, I only purchased the 2.  The newer pair, one of the pair only wants to eat live food.  I've tried increasing flow but the fish in question will mouth the food and spit it out.  I've even tried frozen adult brine and still no luck.  So 2 pairs, 5 total fish.

2. I've lost just the 1 WC juvenile from question 1.

3. Tank 1 is ~30G shallow tank and tank 2 is 8 gallon cube.  Tank 1 is bare bottom with 2 Occelaris clownfish, a fake urchin and a floating bowl for shelter.  Tank 2 has light dusting of sand, live rock and some Caulerpa prolifera for hiding places, 6 scarlet hermit crabs and a tiny Clarkii (temporary). 
4. Have not had a spawning event yet.

5. N/A

like Jish said... deposit... NO refunds  -thejrc