So easy you can do it by accident!

So as some of you may know back in the beginning of June we had a weekend long power outage while the whole family was out of town at a wedding. When I returned home I was greeted by a nearly total loss of everything in my system. Except for 2 corals everything in my display tank was dead and those corals looked pretty rough. In fact the only things that made it was my Bangaii pair, my male Clarkii ( lost the 12 yr old female ) and a carpet anemone. Eveything else was dead or dying. It was pretty hard to take.

 

I ended up bypassing and draining my display tank for almost a month. After a bit of aquascaping I refilled the tank and connected it back into the system but I didn't put anything into the tank and the lights have remained off since June. The male Clarkii just stayed in the 22gal tank with the Carpet that the pair had been in. I converted one of the two 100 gal Rubbermaid Agri tubs to big refugium. Put in some Sand, Added a big pile of LR on one side and planted Turtle grass and Blade Caulerpa to the other and tossed the Bangaii pair in there. And that is how things have sat since probably late June. I'd see one of the Bangaii once in awhile but they seemed to spook easy and would dart inder the eggcrate I put over part of the top to grow out some corals in the hopes of one day moving them to display again. 

 

Now the way the system is setup the water is pumped upstairs to the display from there it comes back down to the basement splits and part of the water goes to my skimmer, and part flows through my broodstock tanks. From there it goes into the first 100 gal Agri tub which is now a big refugium/coral growout tank then into a second 100gal Agri tub then to the pump and we start over again.  

 

Now we go back to that display tank. Remember that I drained it and left it drained for nearly a month. And the lights have been off for almost 5 months. This tank is built into the wall and there is a small room behind it... with no lights. I was looking for something in that room last and since the room doesn't have a light of its own I flipped on the actinic T5's so I could see. Unfortunetly I didn't find what I was looking for but when I stood up and happened to glance in the tank. If you recall I never put anything into this tank.

 

So imagine my surprise when this was looking back at me:



 

Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy, Ican't find the battery charger for our good camera but that is exactly what it looks like, A BABY BANGGAI! I stood there in shock for a few moments and low and behold it joins up with another one:



 



For size reference on the right side of the picture there under the rock that is exposed eggcrate.  So apparently that Banggai pair that I just threw in the refugium downstairs months before had gotten a little busy! What makes this even more amazing is that if you recall from my system layout described above these guys traveled out of my refugium, through a second tank, and then through a PUMP to get up here!

 

So it seems that totally by accident I have raised my first fish and didn't even know it!

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Sweet; but how do you provide the required documentary proof for your reports
 
 

Rook

I can't! As far as the MBI is cocerned this is a meritless victory. I did't document the system at all and in fact it appears that the parents are no longer with us. So in all fairness I don't deserve any points.
 
Duplicating this success with documentation however, That is the real deal. I basically pulled off a almost 100% hands off breeding success. Put two fish together and let nature do the rest. If I can repeat it and show others how to do the same, MAN, that would be something.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

This is so cool! I was on the phone with Chad when he turned on the light and discovered these little guys. Pretty exciting moment for sure.

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

 

Wow, nice surprise.  I wonder how much, if any, the subdued lighting in the display tank played?

 

Chris

I'm sure it played a part as I've noticed much higher levels of pods in my dark fuges than in the lit ones but the biggest factor was probably having a 200 gallon tank to themselves with zero competition for food.
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Quick, lose two Flame Angels in there! 
 
Awesome!

I'll have to work on that

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Chad, congrats!  There's a shop in Chicago (Old Orchard Aquarium) where they have broodstock in a 300 gallon reef tied into their systems...babies make it through the system and pumps somewhat regularly it seems.  For Banggais, this is pretty much one of the truly few marine fish we could have breeding success with this way.

I, jokingly, mentioned to Chad that it would have been cool to have little "fish cams" attached to them to see how they made it through the pump and at what stage. That is the part that really amazes me.

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

That is the part that I also find the most shocking. Honestly when I put the parents in the tub my goal was to pull something like this off. Add Brood stock, Stir, bake at 350° for a couple weeks, and POOF!, baby fish.  Since things had gone so badly in my tank, and was really neglecting everything, I never imagined that they would breed let alone carry to term and have anything survive. The odds of having 2 fry make it through the pump in one piece on top of that seems the astronomical!
 
None the less I do plan to do this again with a bit more care and attention on my part and a great deal more documentation. If I can establish a protocol to breed these guys in a $70 tub attached to my main system with very little direct work to pull it off (ie, no food culturing) what excuse does anyone have for not trying CB?

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

The truly scary thing is that even with the hands off approach you took, it was still probably better odds than in the wild!
 
So long story short, get a swimming pool, make it a 10k reef pool and just let the fish do their thing.  Poof - babies!
 
I'm sure its not too cold in Michigan in the winter, right

Such a fun little surprise!! 
I was walking into the broodstock room at Atlantis Marine World to talk to Todd while he was feeding the other day and he flipped out because a baby black oscellaris was in the tank with the parents and a tiger goby that was completely through meta and eating flake food.  He has no idea how it survived.  It must have been eating flake scraps from the beginning or nibbling some kind of copepod contaminate off the walls or something.  That little guy was a champ!

Your probably right. I'm not sure of the stats on the size of an average clutch of Banggai fry is but 2 per clutch is probably better than the wild. 
 
To better put things into perspective (sorry in advance Tal!). Tal has actually put a a decent amount  of effort into raising these things and managed to get only 4. If this can not only be duplicated but improved slightly......Well there you go!
 
The attraction of coral prop is that it's easy to setup and doesn't require a great deal of regular attention.  The need to attend to baby fish usually several times a day is a turn off for most people and I'd be willing to be the #1 reason people don't even attempt it.
 
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

One word for you: Greenhouse. I've wanted to do that exact thing for a long, long time.

 

Edit: Sorry, the comment above was in reply to this:

 



 
My experience with the Banggais was sort of similar, Chad. A big horse trough after a bad tank crash, egg crate "caves" with parents hiding underneath, one day babies. Never any room for live foods, so the babies who survived did it by learning to eat freeze-dried cyclops really dang quickly. I almost think that might be a better broodstock situation: The parents _like_ to hide and not be disturbed, so give 'em a big tank with lots of places for babies to hide and lots of water flow to keep food in the water column and leave 'em alone.

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

I'm planning to do this again once I can get everything cleaned up and I have some better controls in place.
 
My goal is to create the same environment as I have now plus a bit more hiding places for babies and more urchins. Throw some broodstock in there, feed frozen food once a day and see if I can get some level of reasonable output.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

 

FYI, the 4 I mentioned last night were from the most recent batch. I've gotten as many as 21 in the past.

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

It was in no way a slam against you Tal and I know that 4 was not the best results that you have had in the past. It just happened to perfect example of how with this species it may be possible to set things up so that with regard to time spent you can get a much higher ROI.  
 
We are talking about two extremes here so we may find I'm totally talking out my butt here. If it does however hold true and we can show that a system setup a certain way can yield decent result with little time investment it makes one wonder why take a hands on approach at all? Can your time and energy be better spent elsewhere?
 
I'm just thinking out load.....
 

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

LOL, I knew you weren't slamming me. Just wanted to make sure that it was clear to everyone.

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

I do think you are on to something, Chad. Last time I was at the big aquarium here it had a reef tank with Banggais. (The big aquarium is private--owned by a seafood restaurant--and not terribly worried about matching animals to their habitat in the wild. Hence, Banggais in a reef tank, yellow tangs in a Baja exhibit, etc.) A very tall reef wall with lots of staghorn (lots of places to hide). It is literally full to the brim with them. They are living in every single space available. There must be a couple hundred in there of all sizes. It's actually a horrible display because the Banggais are all scared to death to lose their hiding places, so never move around at all.
 
The local zoo (which is a fantastic group) also has a big tank with Banggais and they have them in every size, from much smaller than I'd think to see in open water to adults.
 
It seems to me that the necessities are space and places to hide. Be sure that the hiding places are removable so you can get the little buggers out when you need them.
 
I'm setting up a new broodstock and/or growout system at the moment with a 100 gal. horse trough as sump. I think that's where at least one pair of Banggai are going to go.

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

This is a very interesting idea. I imagine Banggais make an ideal target for this method partially because of their well developed young. With some trial and error I think we could expand the list of species this technique works with. I'm thinking perhaps Calloplesiops altivelis and some Syngnathids might be good candidates. And perhaps we could further extend the list with a few simple refinements to the technique like adding some live rotifers occasionally to keep their population in the tank up.
 
On a related note, this got me thinking about the concept of an "ecosystem" display tank. With this technique perhaps more people would be interested in keeping some short lived species (some cephalopods, for example) if it meant that enough of the next generation would survive without the tank owner having to maintain an active breeding program.

I've seen an attempt at something like that (based on a _way_ cool tank design, BTW ) for jellyfish. The tank was separated into different zones where different stages could have their space, including a kreisel-type thing in one compartment.

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

So it seems you can do it not once but twice by accident. I decided to tear down the display and clean it so I started looking around the tank and found these guys:
 




 
5 of them.. Way smaller than the ones I had been watching for the last month or so and probably about a week old. So it would appear that although I was not able to find the parents the last time I looked when I found the first two. They must have still been in the tank and actively breeding.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

Wow... and you're taking the magic banggai tank down WHY?

That's just amazing!

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

How tightly were the rocks packed together?

Actually the rock in the display tank where I find them is really pretty open. The tank where the parents are supposed to be (if I could find them!) the rock is just piled up so it's fairly tight in some areas and kinda open in others.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis

I think you are on to something here, and have pointed out why my attempts with 3 spawning pairs ended with no success.  Hiding places, I think for the parental male as well, and water flow.  We live and we learn...

lol magical appearing banggai
 
Wish I could just start moving rock and find some salarias fry....

Pelagically yours,
~J      

lol.
 
Truely amazing success story.    Gotta try to do the same.  
 

My problem has been in getting more brood stock since loosing mine. I have one in QT right now ( not sure of the sex of course )   but I've been having a hard time finding any more.
 
I'd like to get ahold of 4-5 more at one time and see what I can do.

Chad Penney - MBI Council
Agis quod Adis