Baby Bangaii's

[canadawest]

Well I was completely off in my prediction of the size of this latest brood. And it appears the size of the brood doesn't have as much of an impact on the health of the babies as I suspected because:

I've got 20 great looking baby Bangaii fry swimming around in the nursery tank again!!!

I thought the brood would be much smaller because at a count of 11 it seemed the male had spit out most of them, but it's amazing how small the babies are, and how many more were stil in his mouth. If you have seen an adult Bangaii Cardinal before, try to imagine 20 mini-Bangaiis in it's mouth? Truly remarkable.

I don't want to jinx it, but so far this has been the healthiest brood to date. It's been almost a week since the first fry were released, and no losses thus far Whereas in the previous brood there was at least one loss per day for the first week. I anticipate a much higher survival rate this time, perhaps even 100%, as opposed to the 50% survival rate of the last brood.

Great looking babies. All are well formed, active swimmers, healthy eaters. I'll try to give more updates as the babies mature.