Babies are here!
That's actually the ideal breeding arrangement, as your total fry is only limited by the number of egg carrying males.
A female Bangaii apparently can produce eggs as often as every 2-3 weeks. So in theory if I had another male I could have one in the main tank courting the female, while another was holding eggs in the nursery. I could in theory double my fry output. The problem then would be I would need another couple nursery tanks to raise the extra fry. At this point it is staggered nicely with one tank:
1. Papa gets pregnant
2. Papa incubates eggs for 3 weeks (20-21 days), moved to nursery tank a couple days before fry hatch
3. Eggs hatch, papa holds for another week (5-7 days)
4. Papa spits out all fry, gets transferred to refugium
5. Papa eats like a pig and gets strength back in the comfort of the refugium for 3 weeks.
6. Babies grow for next 3 weeks.
7. Papa introduced back into main tank with female. Likely pregnant again in 2-3 weeks.
8. Babies now 5-6 weeks old before Papa has new eggs.
9. Babies sold at ~2 months old, a week or two before Papa needs to be transferred to nursery tank to start the whole process over again!
If I had a second male, I would probably need two more nursery tanks, as one would be in the main tank, and the other would be in a nursery tank or refugium at any given time. You CANT keep two males together in the main tank, as they will kill each other.
We'll see how this next brood wears on me, and how the local LFS purchasing goes. If the demand is high enough, I might consider increasing my tank-raised Bangaii production, but at this point it's just a nice addition to my hobby.
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