Does anyone leave the bangers with their parents??

[Laura D]

I have a pair (I hope!) of bangais. They are in a 20g with some hitchiker urchins, a little live rock, and a sandbed 3" in the front to 5" in the back. I have one of those little hang on type filters that I use to run carbon and and a small power head. This tank is doing really well, the bangais seem really happy.

I know that when the male releases his babies, he will need to be separated from the female so he can fatten up again before she breeds with him. I was thinking that my refugium on another tank of mine would be really good for this.

I was thinking of raising the babies in the 20, since this tank has urchins for them to cuddle, and there is a lot of pod life for them to munch on. I was thinking I would pull out the powerhead, and put a sponge over the filter intake so the babies don't get sucked in.

Should I remove Mama as well? Will she eat her kids? It just seems like with my set up it would be easier to remove the parents than hunt down all the babies.

[FMarini]

Laura:
thanks for the question...i can tell you a few things.
ONE...
I left my male in a breeders net w/ his fry...he ate them.
TWO...
people have left the fry alone in a tank full of live rock and the parent have left them alone(minus a few).

So you mention you have an urchin....what kind? like a diadema urchin?(black long spine type). This information will help you decide if you want to leave parents in w/ the fry.
I try to tell everyone that you'll have a higher success rate w/ the fry in a seperate smaller tank, where you can have higher food concentration (like a grow-out tank or a breeders net arrangement-as per my articles).
One problem you will face w/ a large tank is getting sufficent quantities of food to the banggers, but assuming you can keep enuf food in there(or have a really rich sand bed) the fry will live and hide amoung the LR and urchin spines..away from the parents.
Now all bets are off if you have any other fish in this tank...banggers are tankfood
I would also put a piece of sponge over the water intake on the pwerfilter as this might be sufficently strong enuf to suck a few in
good luck
frank

[Laura D]

The type of urchin that I have is what is commonly called a "rock boring " urchin. Echinometra is the genus name. I don't have my books on me now so that may be misspelled. I know that these are the wrong type of urchin, but I thought that the Bangers might like them anyway. I have seen a picture of bangers in this type of urchin though.

There are no other fish or even hemits in the tank.

I think that I may try raising the babies, should I be so fortunate to have some, in this tank. It has a good sandbed, lots of tiny bugs, and the hang on filter acts like a 'fuge. There are tons of little critters in there, and I am sure that they periodically wash into the tank. I think that the life in this tank combined with hatched baby brine, just might work.

If it doesn't I guess I'll try the breeder net method. From my readings it seems that once a pair starts spawning, they spawn pretty regularly from then on. Hence the need to separate mom and dad.