Well, I was lucky enough to catch pappa and whenever I do I'm amazed at the load of babies he is carrying around. When he releases it is a 3 or 4 night process and I'm lucky to get 15 or 20 babies out of my 415 reef tank. I got 5 babies last night after lights out and was lucky enough to catch him in the corner this morning before the lights came on! (And I have a bigger net now! 
)
I counted 51 babies in 2 separate pics and I know 1 other died because I missed it in the net after pappa puked the babies out. I've come to realize that often baby banggais think they are dead but you just have to let them know they aren't!
When I put them in the specimen container about 15 or 20 sank to the bottom of the box and lay there motionless. I squirted a turkey baster a few times to get them stirred up and low and behold about 75% of them sprang back to life. Then I had to suck 4 of them up into the turkey baster and let them out a few times and after a few stints on the bottom of the box getting their breath back they decided they were alive as well. The only one that didn't make it was the one that was stuck in the net for about a minute - I couldn't bring it back to life.
Oh well, here is a clip of their first dinner - thought it was cool!
http://padens.homestead.com/files/baby_banggais_eating.MOV
It's a quicktime file, that's what my camera records and I don't have the software to convert it. You can download the quicktime player for free at: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
FWIW, Nathan
)I counted 51 babies in 2 separate pics and I know 1 other died because I missed it in the net after pappa puked the babies out. I've come to realize that often baby banggais think they are dead but you just have to let them know they aren't!
When I put them in the specimen container about 15 or 20 sank to the bottom of the box and lay there motionless. I squirted a turkey baster a few times to get them stirred up and low and behold about 75% of them sprang back to life. Then I had to suck 4 of them up into the turkey baster and let them out a few times and after a few stints on the bottom of the box getting their breath back they decided they were alive as well. The only one that didn't make it was the one that was stuck in the net for about a minute - I couldn't bring it back to life.
Oh well, here is a clip of their first dinner - thought it was cool!
http://padens.homestead.com/files/baby_banggais_eating.MOV
It's a quicktime file, that's what my camera records and I don't have the software to convert it. You can download the quicktime player for free at: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
FWIW, Nathan
