Banggai Day 20, help calm my nerves

After 3 spawns that did not make it past day 10 in Pappa's mouth, I have made it to day 20 for the first time.  I have live BBS hatched, and I have moved him in to a breeding net (not ideal, plan do be more prepared next time).  I have also started a breeding journal here.  I am pretty stressed and no matter how much I read, I do not feel comfortable/ready.
 
The questions rolling through my mind right now include:

• Do I need to strip the babies at some point, and if so, how?
• If I let him spit them in to the breeding net on his own, am I going to have a hard time getting him out of the breeding net?
• Do I need to be checking the breeding net every few hours throughout the night?
• Do I have to be enriching the BBS, or can I use fresh daily hatches?
• If I do need to enrich the BBS, what can I use that I can buy locally?  I looked for spirulina powder at a few places but couldn't find it.

 

That he has held for 3 weeks is a good sign he will hold full term, IMO. Most males need a bit of practice and maturation before they hold for the full time. I've never put my male in a breeders net, so I can't give any opinions there. I don't think you need to worry too much about checking too often, it may actually make the male more nervous than you are! Also be sure he has released all of the babies before moving him - my male always takes a couple of days to release them all, and has taken up to 3 days! If possible, after release you should keep him separate from the female to fatten him back up so she doesn't try to spawn with him immediately (which she will indeed try to do!). I have always just used nhbbs, and only enrich mine if the bbs are more than 48 hours old. Brine shrimp will consume almost anything, but you are interested in what the baby banggai's will need for nutrition, so using a good phyto paste or concentrate, and Selcon, are good options. Most LFS's carry these.

Most journals I have read show the full carry time by male's to be around 4 weeks. I have read of some releasing after just around 3 weeks, but I think that's not common. Mine always goes right around 30 days. Water temp also seems to play a role in gestation time.

Good luck, it's really exciting and rewarding to see a bunch of little baby banggai's. But even if this clutch doesn't work out, it's just a matter of time until success! Lots of other breeders here can give great advice and probably different approaches, etc.

Thanks for the reply Lrood!  I am really trying to resist the urge to check in on him every hour LOL.  I decided to have the BBS ready and get him into a breeder net at Day 20 after reading an article by Frank Marini.  He stated that in 16 successful rearing, he saw an average hold time of 21.5 days, with the shortest being 18 and the longest being 27.   I hope I don't have to wait to day 30, as I leave that day for a 3 day business trip and I am not even really confident I will be able to get my wife to maintain the BBS, let alone deal with separating Dad from the babies and getting him power fed.  

Lrood covers it pretty well.  At this point the eggs in his mouth should be ready to hatch if not hatched already (seems to be quite a variation in when eggs actually "hatch" depending on what we can observe in artificial incubation scenarios).  I'd have to go look at my notes, but in my fishroom the fish that held naturally did go longer...temperature can influence this probably (warmer temps = shorter incubation time).

I always strip my males around day 24-26.  The eggs are hatched, but the yolk isn't totally used up.  I look in his mouth before I strip him to make sure they are developed enough because it seems that the development varies even in steady temperature and even with the same pair.  If not developed enough, I put him back.  This doesn't seem to bother him much.
 
I feed NHBBS (not enriched), and start weaning them onto frozen Cyclopeeze around day 10.  The longer they are on BBS the harder they are to wean.  Some babies I find are impossible to wean.  I let nature take it's course in that case.

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

Thanks for the comments guys!  I may try to strip them in a few days (around day 25) if needed so that I can get an easy established feeding plan in place for my Wife before I leave for my 3 day business trip.  I take maybe 2 business trips a year.. it would figure that my first potentially successful spawn would happen right in the middle of it.

It always happens like that.  Plan a trip and something will spawn/hatch. 

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

Well no stripping needed it seems.  Papa released 3 so far this morning (day 25).  I got them out of the breeder net papa is in via a cup so not to expose them to air, and placed them in another breeder net just for the babies.
 
Should I already be offering them BBS?  How much should be offered at a time?  

Well no stripping needed it seems.  Papa released 3 so far this morning (day 25).  I got them out of the breeder net papa is in via a cup so not to expose them to air, and placed them in another breeder net just for the babies.
 
Should I already be offering them BBS?  How much should be offered at a time?  

I start offering bbs on day 1. Be aware that bbs can swim through the standard breeders net. I got around this by keeping the light source centered over the breeders net since that's what the bbs will head for. To much water flow in the tank will defeat this method though, and just wash the bbs out of the net.

Congrats btw! Be ready for more to be released tonight!

OK... I didn't notice this the first few times I offered the BBS today, but after reading your post I watched closer.  It does indeed wash right out.    I'm going to have to figure out a better solution quickly.  I have a new Fluval Spec V 5g tank still in the box sitting here that I could set up, but I am not sure If the fry would end up being swept in to the overflow.  I also don't have a seeded filter for it, but I do have some Seachem matrix stones that have been sitting in a filter bag in my sump for a few months that could be added. 

Any small tank would work fine, as baby banggais are accomplished swimmers and can handle a pretty strong current.  However since most filters would also filter out the bbs, using a simple rigid airline works best.  You could put a piece or two of stone/rock in there for some biological filtration, but water changes are the key.  I raise mine in a 2 gallon kreisel with just an airline, and vacuum/change water every other day (about 50% ASW from the broodstock tank). 
 
Any more released last night?

Thanks... I ended up setting up the 5g Fluval tank last night with heater, plastic plants, an ammonia alert, filter pad over the overflow, and filled with water from the breeding tank.  This morning I moved the 4 released yesterday, and they seem to be doing good.  I will probably turn off the return pump for about 10 minutes when I feed them.
 
There have been no releases this morning.  I also noticed that the last one released yesterday still seems to have a large yolk sak attached, to the point that he can hardly swim... it seems to anchor him down.  The inability to swim was much worse yesterday, but it is still noticeable today.  
 

Attached Image(s)

OK... he has released the rest.. I lost count around 30.  

Awesome!  Yeah my Banggai tanks are just 5-gallon tanks with an airstone.  They certainly don't produce as much ammonia as Clownfish with rotifers+greenwater paste.  I just use ClorAm-X, but they don't need much of it - maybe 0.5 mL every few days.

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

Nice big clutch! I think my largest to date is 23-24.

I am really shocked with the clutch size.  I moved them all from the breeding net to the 5g and counted as I went.  Total live fish between the two mornings: 40!!! There was also one dead in the breeding net.  I offered some BBS to them, but only 2 or 3 seemed interested.  About half the clutch is hiding together in one of the artificial plants I added and the rest are in a few groups around the bottom edges of the tank.

Fantastic!  Good luck rearing, hardest part is over!

Thanks Matt!  
 
By the way, I need to credit your Lightning Project blog for getting me interested in breeding in the first place!  

Thankfully all of the babies appear to have survived under my wife's care while I was away on business for 3 1/2 days.  She was freaked out about being responsible for them as I showed her how to hatch and feed BBS daily, but by the time I was back she admitted that it was fun taking care of them.  We are now at 8 DPS with no losses.  I have read that losses tend to pick up around 10 DPS, so it seems their is always a new hurdle on the horizon to be nervous about.  

Your big challenge at this point is to monitor water quality.  Make sure to clean detritus from the bottom of the tank and do small water changes frequently.
 
I'm rooting for ya, Titus!

- David Gibson
Denton, TX

Thanks... I do frequent water changes on all my tanks, spending about 10 minutes a day on them.  For the grow out tank, I have combined it's W/C with the Banggai broodstock tank.  Every other day, I remove and dispose of 1.5 gallons from the grow-out tank (30%).  I then take 1.5g from the heavily filtered broodstock tank and place it in the grow-out tank and add 1.5g new SW to the broodstock tank.  This results in a 5% new water w/c in the broodstock tank every other day, and a 30% used water w/c in the grow-out tank.  I have an ammonia alert in the grow-out tank that I can always see, and I think I may start testing nitrates weekly as the fish start getting bigger.  If the nitrates start rising, I will look at using new SW in the grow-out tank WC and/or consider going to a larger grow-out tank.  I suspect a lot of that will depend on the survival rate as I can't imagine I will be able to stick with a 5g tank for long with the current fish count (40).