Bangaii Breeding Journal

[Myka]

I went to strip the male yesterday at 24 days holding the eggs, and they are still eggs! Ooops! They are almost fully developed, but definately still in the egg. Luckily he didn't spit them all out when I opened his mouth to take a peek, but one egg did come out.

I put the one stray egg into a net and just let it sit propped on the edge of my display tank. This morning the egg was gone, so someone must have sucked it through the net.

This time I'm going to put the breeding net right into my display tank, and try raising them in there instead of that 10g tank. Hopefully it will work better.

Originally Posted by Myka

So on Jan 7th I stripped the male of the fry. He had been carrying them for approximately 25 days last time. I didn't have an egg tumbler, so I had to wait for them to hatch in his mouth before stripping him.

Hmmm, ya so I guess he was carrying the eggs for longer than 25 days last time...

[Myka]

Today is day 28 since the male first received the eggs on the latest batch.

I just stripped the male a half hour ago. Lots of babies! I counted somewhere around 28-30...they won't stay still long enough! I think it was perfect timing for stripping as the babies are almost all swimming very well, but still have a bit of the egg sack. There are 4 that are swimming jerky, and may have swim bladder issues as I suspect the first batch did. I think this batch of babies is much stronger than the first batch I tried to raise.

I decided to try something a bit different with them this time in hopes it will work better. I put them into the display tank. I have one of those old "livebearer" breeding traps, and is plastic instead of netting, which I decided to use in hopes that none of the critters in the display tank can suck them out as I've heard this is possible. I'm hoping they'll be ok. I'd feel awful bad if they all got sucked out by some critter! They're so cute, all huddling in the fake plant, which is that best I can do for a fake urchin.

[Myka]

The 4 with what I think are swim bladder issues aren't showing any change. All of them are eating BBS. I make sure that the BBS that I feed them are less than 48 hours old so that they haven't developed their exoskeleton yet and are much more nutritious.

[untamed]

Very cool. Yes, they are cute. This makes me want to get a couple of cardinals and see what would happen.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by untamed

This makes me want to get a couple of cardinals and see what would happen.

Well, eventually you'll get a pair, and then the female will pump the male full of eggs repeatedly. If you don't intervene he will end up starving to death because she won't let him fatten up between batches!! Poor little dude...

[JOEL]

How can you tell if you have a male and female I just got two today and from what I
could see at the lfs there was three in one tank one on one side and two together I tryed
to push them togethere but the one was chased away about four times. do you think I may have a par I hope so.

[Myka]

It's possible. Time will tell. If they are siblings, then it's tough to tell.