So, let's take a moment to recap on some important notes I have learned up until this point.
It is not hard to get benggai cardinalfish to become 'cozy'
If you have kids, don't tell them about any of this unless you are prepared for the consequences
Making baby brine shrimp is incredibly cheap and easy thanks to the youtube video above explaining how to do it
When it gets close to the 20 day mark, you better be ready (think 40 weeks pregnant) - have your S*$T in order (more on that below)
Putting hatched baby brine shrimp in the DT really seems to trigger the male that it is OK to expel them out of his mouth (hell, there's food, right?!)
If you wait to get the male out of the DT until he starts expelling the fry, you are at the mercy of the fish and the timing of everything, however, leaving him in there did allow him to manage the eggs on his terms without any external interruptions and risks for him abandoning his post
This part of the story is when things really start to get a bit fuzzy for me; it all kind of happened so fast. I see Bubba has a lot of benggai fry in his mouth as it is agape and he sees all of this baby brine shrimp floating in front of him. Keep in mind, he is now on the other side of the tank than where he was earlier in the day when I tried, unsuccessfully, to catch him. Over here, there is much less rock and he is really just sitting in the corner. I seized the moment grabbed by fish net. There is just no way in my mind having the BBS in the DT wasn't a big contributor to him being ready to be done with it all. It was within 2-3 minutes that he was cocked and ready to load and probably would have been seconds before he was letting them go. However, this is where the human intervention starts. I have my net in the water now and go for him, expecting him to do his best 'Barry Sanders' impression and make me look foolish again, but he literally just sat there as the net goes around him. And then it starts....
In the greatest impression ever of "The Excorcist", Bubba projectile vomits every one of the 30 or so benggai fry right into the net. It looked like diarrhea of the mouth with little BC and meanwhile I nearly had diarrhea of the anus watching this whole mess of a situation unfold before my eyes. The good thing, at least, is that they are all in my net and this is probably a best case scenario at this point. However, it starts to unravel at this point.
I am very happy with this current situation, but I have a few things going against me. For one, it is now around 11PM at night and I was not planning for this right now. Secondly, I am basically on my own and I need to get these little things downstairs into the birthing center. It is at this point when I have my first regret. I have saltwater and I have a birthing center, but I do not have saltwater in the birthing center. On top of that, the saltwater I have is about 69F and I have to figure out what to do. So what do I do? Well, I panicked....
Having to get the saltwater from the third floor to the basement and get a heater in it, I need to do something with these fry and Bubba currently just sitting in a 9" net while all the other fish in the tank start ignoring the BBS appetizer and start looking very closely at the main course. There are a lot of "should have" moments that I now realize but at this point, I am dealing with, in my mind, how to get the fry in a safe place in the DT. I come up with a great idea to get a gallon ziplock bag and then I can keep the fry in there for a few hours! I put the net on the side of the tank so the fry are still in the DT and run to the kitchen to get the ziplock bag. I run back and am ready to go!
Two things, first - this is a 9" net and is bigger than most. Second - the ziplock bag is a freezer bag and the seal at the top is very rigid and does not want to stay open in the water. It is also only about 10" long. I am really struggling with getting the net into the bag because it is not staying open and it is actually not big enough to factor in both the depth of the netting and the width of the net. After about 4 minutes of this, I finally get the net in the bag but now I cannot get the fry out of the netting to get the net out of the bag. This is the point at which the gravity of my decisions leading up to this moment are coming to a point. I get the net in the bag and the bag is floating so I can go get the water in the birthing center, but the fry who have just been tossed about like a salad are not moving.
I get the water and heater in the birthing center and run upstairs to check on the fry and start to give them some BBS but the realities become evident; there is a total of ONE fry swimming #***. Bubba is now in the bag with 29 dead fry and one living fry for the next two hours until the water is warm enough for the transfer.
Well, I try to rub the bag and tap and stimulate the bag and a few start waking up! After the two hours in the bag, a total of 4 were awake and swimming. I bring them down to the birthing center and dispense them into the tank and I have no more than 4 actually swimming (and not just being carried around by the slow current). It is now about 3AM, and I just threw some BBS into the tank and resigned myself to the results of my lack of preparation and went to bed.
The next morning, there were only two left now and so I do my best with what I have and I move forward! So the two that made it (Bingo and Bluey) are doing great, eating a lot (had a few extra BBS since they are the only two that made it), growing great, just really doing well. After about day 10, they are getting big enough that I start feeding frozen rotifers and starting to come to the point that they are ready for the next steps. I did a test run with them and put them in a penalty box in the birthing center to see if they can escape (the slits are slightly bigger than they are). Well, after 3 days, Bingo and Bluey are still in the penalty box and so I made the decision that they are ready for the DT in the penalty box, where they would stay for the next few months until they have a new home.
After two days Bingo and Bluey are still in the penalty box, however, one morning I rechecked on them and one was gone out of the tank, ugh...
Two more days go by and I check on it one morning and now the penalty box is empty, double ugh...
So, there is a possibility Bingo and Bluey are in the rocks somewhere (not likely) or they were a good lunch for one of the other fish (likely)
So that is the end of my run with the first batch of benggai fry ever... Not a good ending but good lessons, a good story, and a great experience that I will take and use and build upon.
Oh and one final thing, Bubba accepted more eggs last week....
