breeders-bangguy,azfishgal, and others

bronco300

Active Member
has anyone read the book "The Complete Illustrated Breeder's Guide to Marine Aquarium Fishes"? Seems like a nice book but haven't read much in it yet and wondered if there were any people out there who actually breed fish and if techniques line up with those in the book. thanks
 

bronco300

Active Member
well, i'll just talk until a breeder chimes in

one thing i found interesting is that he likes teh use of a wet dry with bioballs, or bale...any plastic pieces, fishing line,etc...and of course the thought has always been bioballs will just harbor nitrates etc...but he makes a point of saying it indeed will deteriorate the water IF debris is allowed to pass through the prefilter and starts getting lodged into the bioballs....as long that is not allowed it is very beneficial? thoughts?
 

bronco300

Active Member

edit: he also recommends not doing square tanks for better survival rate of the larvae...now he said if only thing available its fine, but the roundness would give better flow,etc...but fish like bangaiis or clowns would be fine in the normal 10gallon? he mentioned clowns hatch at advanced stages so are more suited for that?
 

azfishgal

Active Member
I'll chime in!
(I've gone back to school so I've been hitting the books pretty hard.)
I for one have not read the book, so I can not claim if it's good or not. The tank that my little guys are in is a 10 gallon nano (square) tank. I have bioballs and ceramic rings and they have been in there since I first set the tank up (a little over a year ago). I think I've taken them out once to rinse with saltwater but that is about all. I do change the filter pad and rinse my black larger sponge every time a do a water change (these pads/sponge come before the bio balls and ceramic rings). The tank that I'm using was my QT for all the fish that went into my DT. Luckily I was all done adding fish when the Bangaii mail spit the babies out. I for one have never had a problem with nitrates in this tank, so long as I keep up with my water changes (once a week). Oh, and I have some Kenya Tree in this tank and it's growing like crazy, so it's good enough for soft corals as well.
As far as if this tank was the best approach or not, I'm not the expert and can't say. But, what I do know is these babies have been in their for 16 week and have done very well.
Oh, I did have to block the flow coming from the return when I first put the babies in. They were getting blown around a lot, so for about 3 weeks I had some polyfilter rubberbanded to the return line to slow it down a bit.
I hope what I said made sense or even helped you any. So are you going to start breeding? And if so what fish?
 

azfishgal

Active Member
Here is a picture of the tank that I'm using for the Bangaii Fry. This was taken when it was first set up a little more than a year ago (with my first ever saltwater fish
).
 

bronco300

Active Member
thanks AZ, i am indeed looking at getting into breeding....been fascinated and of course been looking a lot into it....i will probably start with bangaii since i've heard they are easier being mouthbrooders...but id like to go over to some other species, and have a list of my hopes to get into,lol...but right now looking just into the cards and clowns.
my understanding for bangaiis is there is not a need for rotifers and greenwater setup because of the stage they are in at birth...just the BBS, which i've done for my dwarf seahorses i had so i know all that good stuff...that correct?
how many batchs have you done and how good are your survival rates?
 

teresaq

Active Member
Hey Bronco, I have a breeding pair of cloudy damsels if you are looking for breeding stock

T
 

teresaq

Active Member
They just laid thier second batch of eggs. The poor clown in thier tank has learned to stay out of thier way.
 

azfishgal

Active Member
Originally Posted by Bronco300
http:///forum/post/2543339
my understanding for bangaiis is there is not a need for rotifers and greenwater setup because of the stage they are in at birth...just the BBS, which i've done for my dwarf seahorses i had so i know all that good stuff...that correct?
how many batchs have you done and how good are your survival rates?
That is correct, BBS is all your need, so long as you fortify them with vitamins. I've only done one batch so far and my survival rate was 16/35, which from what Frank said (THE expert on Bangaii) is pretty good. I figure it's not bad considering I didn't know what I was doing.

If I wanted to try it again I certainly have the opportunity seeing my male is holding eggs again.
But I just don't have the time with going back to school. I'm getting my Associates in Applied Science in Radiologic Technology. I started college way back in 1989 but never finished (cost to much and parents were not able to pay for it). Now that my youngest is in school it's a perfect time for "mom" to go back and finish what she started. Especially if I want to help pay for my two girls to go to college.
 

bronco300

Active Member
16/35, wow thats pretty good, especially being your first time...i have two 10s and painted them black yesterday minus the one side...was going to start drilling for bulkheads but i stupid dremel is apparently broken...so that sucks...may have to go buy a new one somehow....what did you use to ween them, just shaved frozen foods? and who is frank?
good luck with school! I've thought about going again for other things...but ijust got out 2yrs ago..and hated it then...why would i want to go for another 4 yrs,lol.
 

azfishgal

Active Member
Frank Marini has been breeding Bangaii for a while now. I sent you a pm with an article he wrote. He pops in here at SWF and at -- at times. He made a few comments on my thread when I was starting out with my new babies.
To ween the babies off the BBS you need to add some Cyclopeez (just shave off a little bit) with your BBS when you are ready to start the weening process. I started in the third month. But, you never know, your little ones might take to the Cyclopeez right off the bat and if so that would be better for them. However, I started with BBS first and then a week later tried the Cyclopeez and the fry would not touch it, they were just to used to the BBS. Eventually they started nibbling at it and I would start by adding it to the first feeding of the day, nice and hungry fish.
Then just start increasing the ratio of BBS/Cyclopeez and eventually you will no longer need the BBS. My little fry also LOVE mysis shrimp. I use PE Mysis and I do have to cut the litle shrimp up in smaller bite size pieces. But they go absolutely CRAZY for it.
 
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