papagimp
COMAS Rocks!
(picture above is of my male bangaii, holding a clutch of eggs)
Pterapogon Kaudnerni: The Bangaii Cardinal
Origin: Banggai Archipelago in Indonesia.
The Bangaii Cardinal is one of my favorite fish and makes an excellent addition to any reef tank. They're failry shy, docile and extremely reef safe. Luckily for me and many others, they are also very easy to breed. This particular species of marine fish has a very unique method of breeding, very similar to the mouth-brooding cichlids in African rift lakes. A male bangaii will find a compatible mate, this can take from a couple days to a couple weeks for the pair bonding to take place.. They then will proceed with a mating dance, which I've been unable to witness in person. A couple weeks later, the couple will spawn, and the male will take the clutch of eggs into his mouth for approximately 19-20 days when the eggs then hatch. After hatching the male will hold the larval fish for another 6-10 days. Essentialy taking care of a difficult process for us. Once these little guys are released they are free swimming and on their own. These newly released bangaii's are known to host within the long protective spines of certain species of urchin in the wild. So a surrogate urchin or real urchin is recommended to give these little guys a place to hide and feel safe. Recent estimates account for about 50 to 120 thousand individuals a month are being captured for sell in the ornemental fish trade. Since this particular species in endemic to the bangaii islands, I am in full support of captive breeding and raising of these fish. They are extrememly limited in the wild and in 2000 it was proposed to put these fish on the threatened species list. I don't know any newer info on this though. sorry.
Now that you have a bit of backround info on these awesome fish, here where I'm sitting: I have had one successful spawning and release of 12 babies. This happened without any outside influence on my part so I chose to wait for a breeding log until I could get more photo's and information. But, my pair is jumpin' the gun again and have just spawned again last night, 11/09/2006. So heres the breeding log for discussion and I'll give some info about my setup and anything special I'm doing for breeding purposes.
My pair are currently residing in a 55g mixed reef tank, 10g sump w/cheato, 54w x 4 teklight, 100lbs of LR, 3-4inch sandbed. MJ1200, Seaclone Skimmer, Cap1800 return pump. This is a very simple setup, with alot of cheap gear being utilized. The reason I mention this is that people shouldn't be afraid of trying to breed these fish because they may feel there setup won't do. I will eventuall setup a breeding center for my bangaii's, involving a 20gL for the parents to live and spawn, and another 20H for a grow out tank, complete with a long-spined sea urchin.
Back to the fish; Since live foods have shown an increase in spawning with captive fish, over eating prepared meals, flakes, pellets, I have been feeding frozen mysis cubes. This is as close to live foods as i could get for them, and they relish every morsel they can get. Since there last spawning I have made sure that the male gets well fed, he does not eat during the incubation process and will lose much of his body weight, as does the female after spawning. So they have both been fattened up a bit over the last several weeks. I missed their spawning and even their mating dance this time, but i couldn't miss the male holding a large bunch of eggs. This is one of the only times you can sex the species, the male holding eggs (as seen in the photo at the begining of this thread) will take on a bulldogish appearance with the lower jaw protruding out a bit. After his last release, his mouth went back to looking identical to the females and it became very difficult to tell the difference. Now I simply have to wait until they release. The female in the meantime will be eating heavily, and on anything she can get too. Once she fattens up and builds enough of her body mass back, she'll be ready to spawn again. And from what I've seen before, it won't matter if the babies are released or not, she'll still entice the male. And may i add, that was a funny site to see, If any fish ever gave his spouse a dirty look, it was then! So, while I'm waiting here are a few of the photos I've managed to get so far.
My last batch o' babies! 8 now remain out of the original 12. 3 deaths were due to human error, the 4th I am unsure. In all likely hood, he starved. The babies are being fed newly hatched brine shrimp. Since the aretmia nauplii loose almost all nutritional value after 24-36hours post hatching, I attribute this to the death of the most recent baby. I'm feeding the nauplii a mix of yeast,micro-food, and phytoplankton. Hopefully this will suffice nutrion wise to sustain the babies. Newly hatched shrimp are added every couple days to this shrimp culture and there being fed quickly enough to warrant frequent hatchings. The Bangaii Babies get fed once in the morning prior to work, and several times after i get home in the evenings. Since they are contained in a breeding net for the time being this makes it easy to feed em. I've actually started taking them out of the net and puting them into a specimen container in the evenings, this keeps the nauplii in the container with them and not spreading around the entire 55g.
For some more information on Bangaii's and breeding here is a link to a very thorough manual on the topic:http://www.raingarden.us/banggaimanual.pdf
Just a side note: These are my first marine fish ever succesfully bred, and hopefully will be my first succesful fish raising as well.
Thanks to everyone for their support and I'll be posting more pics and information soon!
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