Tiny widdew bengai babies!

[Xirxes23]

So our pair of bengai cardinals has been breeding in our 90 G reef for some time, and he male seems to constanty have a full mouth, and today i saw that he had full formed babies inside!!!

So upon advice from my coworkers at my LFS, i removed the male (with some difficulty) and was ready to attempt to open the mouth with a paperclip, but as soon as he hit the bowl *POP* out came these thirteen little wonders!

Wasnt attempting to breed them or anything, but there we go! Tossed them into my 40G refugiem with the clouds of mysid shrimps there hoping that they will do well! Keeping my fingers crossed. Any info/advice would be appreciated at this point!

Without further adue HERE THEY ARE!

In this first picture, my finger tip is the large blob in the top left for size reference.





and here is a shot of momma looking proud

[jwedehase]

Super cool! I have a friend who had a similar event, unexpected babies. He eventually raised them to make it into the tank. I'll send him a link to this thread. Maybe he'll chime in.

[Scubadiva7]

Oh how cute!!! They are so little. Good luck with raising those little guys.

[Charlie Davidson]

I have heard, frozen cyclopeze works..
I have been shopping around for some bengii locally, they seem to be very hard to find..

[kuramura]

wow they are tiny

[Xirxes23]

we are lucky enough to have L.A. nearby so my shop gets whatever we need every week, but anyone other than cali or florida i hear is prone to outages in general

[Charlie Davidson]

Your post "made" me order some on-line

[edwing206]

That's awesome! I was deciding if I should put a pair of those in my tank. I think you just made my decision.

[weatherson]

Congrats on the babies. As mentioned by jwedehase, I had a mated pair in my old tank release their babies which apparently made it over the prefilter box falls and into my old sump. This was before I had been using filter socks, luckily. I used to keep macro-algae in this sump and much to my surprise, found the babies swimming amongst this algae one night of flashlight exploration. They basically survived there on residual tank food as I didn't turn off the circulation flow then during feed time. This was about 10 years ago so food was primarily all frozen and with no micro-foods such as phytoplankton, as far as I can recall. If there was micro-food used back then it was probably ESV spray-dried Marine Phytoplankton. These guys survived to adulthood and were then transferred into the main tank to be with their folks. Best of luck with your new additions and again, congrats.

Joseph.

[KUDA]

Awwwww

[skoomamonster]

Congrats! now im thinking of getting a pair but, how do you know which one is male or female? Good luck with rasing them!

[KurtsReef]

Congrats, babies are cool expected or unexpected.

[ihavecrabs]

its actually a proud papa, i always fed mine live baby brine but they would almost always eat the frozen baby brine right away also, make shure to feed them as much as possible

[thor32766]

wow thats really cool

[ade]

I have been told that you need to keep a long spine urchn. I was told that in the wild the babies use the cover of the spine for protection. I have yet to see a pic but I think that would look cool.
I have a mated pair that I bought from a local that was moving. She told me they have had babies many times.
I can,t wait to see. Also Iwas told that the male stops eating, that is when you know that you are expecting.

[Kinetic]

if you stick zip ties into a foam ball or something that'll work too =)

[senatormoe31]

Use Cyclopeze or rotifers to feed them and I would do it about 6 times a day.
Also, soak the food in SELCON or VITA CHEM or both.
and OFF ya go.

GOOD LUCK.

AS they get larger you coulc use "arcti-pods" and daphnia.

[senatormoe31]

It's a little off topic, but "Xirxes" are you TURKISH or just a fan of the great King.
I study GREEK and ROMAN history so i am very familiar with him and his family.
Cool Handle.

[ex82nd]

Very nice.Cool pictures.

Good luck with them and keep us posted.