Cardinal?

[Breef]

Well I noticed that my male B.Cardinal has eggs in his mouth,started at least Sunday the third. This will be my first salt water fish,spawned. I will be ordering some rotifers and I already started my first batch of brineshrimp hatch. This is also the very first time for this pair to spawn so who knows?

[Guy]

I'd hold off on the Rotifers. Banggers (Frank's term for Banggai fry) are born very big (for a SW fish), possible too big to be interested in Rotifers. I'd also hold off on the BBS (baby brine shrimp) for a few weeks unless you have the means to culture them. BBS are most nutritious immediately after hatching and after a couple days they are devoid of nutrition unless you are feeding them. Enriching BBS with Selcon is an excellent way to go.

Check out Frank's articles at EPARC they are very, very informative and helpful.

[Laura D]

I made myself a brine hatching station out of two 2 liter coke bottles, and an air pump. I counted down the days, and about five days before I thought he would release, say day 22 of holding, I started hatching baby brine. GUY is right on, they are most nutritious richt after hatching, but I wanted to make sure I had a good "system" set up, so I experimeted with a few batches. I wanted to have the hang of it when the babies came, so that I would have plenty of baby brine on hand at the right time.

[Breef]

Well I am pretty up on the hatching of the B.S. as I did it for cichlids and other freshwater fish many times over the last ten or fifteen years. Thanks for the up on the size of the babies,I figured that I wouldn't need the rotifers,actually what I had plans for was to order some of the motile algae that are suppose to be one of the better feeds to raise up the brine with. Just a pre thought on the rotifers,but thanks! I still have some time to go on the hatch if it is to go through,cann't ever be sure with new parents. I'll let you know if it looks like the male is going to keep them on this first time. Sure would be nice. Although there are a lot of things that can make a new spawn go wrong,such as the parents getting the techniques of the spawn down right so the eggs all get firtilized good,then there's the chance one of them,mostly the male may not be ready,and virile yet,so they wouldn't have gotten firtilized that way. In any event if he keeps them they are most likely good,although I have seen a fish keep eggs and the whole batch turn bad in the mouth and still not be good,this actually killed the fish in question with mouth fungus,which I doubt would happen to a saltwater fish.

[Wild Card-inal]

Wait until you know they're hatched. If the male releases them, it should be between then and about another week.

[Breef]

There's no way that I will leave the male in the original tank to let them out. There is too many other fish in there. I will use the light technique to net him and put him in my 55gal until he has released them all. Then let him eat for a day or two and put him back in the 300.