My Banggai Breeding Journal

[Magicj]

After having reasonable success with breeding Amphiprion ocellaris I have been planning my next challenge.

For some time I have been interested in the Banggai cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni). I became aware of a hobbyist in the North of the State who was closing down his tank - he had a pair that had bred a number of times in his tank - if nothing else, that overcomes the problem of trying to pick a male and female.

The first spawn occurred on 23/2/14 but the male decided to eat the eggs on day 16 - maybe he was too tempted by the clown fish nest that hatched on that night.

The second spawn occurred on 20/4/14. Last night I decided to strip him of the eggs i.e. 12 days post spawn. After a fair amount of effort I was able to obtain a number of eggs - they are pretty much eggs with eyes at this stage.



I almost had a major disaster during the night when I had a malfunction with the egg tumbler but, luckily, the eggs survived and have developed quite a bit in a short period of time





Cheers

[Ben Paul]

Looking good
Good luck it's not easy to get them through
Hope the tumbler doesn't fail again for you

[Magicj]

Thanks Ben.

The tumbler is still working reasonably well so that it all works out as planned.

[Ben Paul]

How are they going ?

[Magicj]

How are they going ?

Not good - my DIY egg tumbler is not working as I would have hoped. I have had a few eggs die but also had a number hatch but the fry have been sucked into the top sponge and died. I changed over the tumbler last night to a pump driven one but I suspect I have been too late. I still have a few viable eggs remaining but I think they have been handled too much over the past week and doubt that any will survive.

If nothing else, I have learned a lot with this spawn which should help with subsequent ones. I ordered a Ziss tumbler today which should help a lot.

Cheers

[Ben Paul]

Better luck next time never herd of a ziss tumbler where are they from

[damer]

Good luck, at least you are having a go.

[Magicj]

Better luck next time never herd of a ziss tumbler where are they from

There was a recent writeup on reefbuilders about the Cobalt Egg Rocker - http://reefbuilders.com/2014/03/17/egg- ... plication/. This is just a rebranded Ziss egg tumbler which has been used in the freshwater world for some time.

I have continued to have problems with my DIY egg tumblers - I have lost quite a number to fungus and a few to my own mistakes with the end result that I currently have 3 fry remaining although I suspect that one will die overnight as it has a damaged caudal peduncle which appears to now be showing some fungus. Hopefully I can keep these two alive, learn from my mistakes, and have much better success with future spawns.

[Magicj]

After some major issues I have one survivor who is now at 32 days post spawn. It is eating well on gut loaded BBS and is growing quickly



Hopefully I will be a bit more successful with the next spawn.

Cheers

[damer]

You only have to raise one to be successful. Well done.