Banggai baby #1!

[rlpardue]

Hi everyone! This is my first attempt at raising Banggais. Two nights ago, after lights-out, I captured my male Banggai (with a bulging mouth) and put him in the return-pump section of my sump. His mouth started bulging on September 20th, so it's been about 24 days. This morning I checked and saw a tiny and unduly cute baby Banggai puttering around in there! The male's mouth is still bulging so I think the one baby must have come out in a burp or something. :eek1:

Last night I bought a few packages of brine shrimp eggs; they have been "incubating" in their container for about 18 hours. I still haven't seen any BBSs swimming around...are they visible to the naked eye? I need to rapidly learn how to raise, enrich, and correctly feed them in the next 12 hours lol. (This is the second time my Banggais have bred FYI).

I also have a pair of H. Barbouri seahorses that seem to have bred recently. The male's pouch is bulging.

Anyway, my questions are:
1- How do I enrich the BBS? I bought a bottle of Selcon; is this an adequate product for my needs?
2- How do I separate the BBS from their eggs?
3- How do I make sure that hydroids do not get into the system?

My setup is as follows: I drilled a bucket, put in a bulkhead, and will be using an Aqualifter pump to slowly move water between the bucket and my sump (which is directly below my bucket). I made a little "urchin" from PVC and zip-ties. My seahorses are in a separate system, where the water is kept colder, but I've read that baby seahorses fare better in warm water than adults do (sounds speculative though). I was planning on just putting both Barbouri and Banggai fry in the same bucket, since they'll be about the same size and eat BBS from birth. My main concern right now is to ramp up appropriate food production. Any tips?

Thanks! :bounce2:
Lee

[ernieq]

1. Harvest the baby brine and put in new water and put some selcon and enrich for 24 to 48 hours. Baby brine needs to be around 18 hours post hatch before they begin to feed.

2. turn off airflow. Empty shells float to the top, put a flashlight on the bottom and let the babies go to the light for a couple of minutes and siphon out the babies. I usually just get decapsulated brine shrimp eggs.

3. If you are plumbed, you can put some sort of sieve in the return to filter out undesirables. Personally I prefer to use a stand alone larval tank and not plumbed into main tank. Sponge filter and a quell or a guard to control ammonia while sponge filter cycles.