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View Full Version : Banggai Cardinal (BC) not doing well


bheaven
10/02/2007, 10:35 AM
I added 3 BC's 5 days ago. They were all 3 doing fine for the first 2 days. Then one BC showed up as a floater. The second BC has been acting strange for the last 2 days. It just hides on the corner behind some LR near the bottom. It doesn't appear to be eating. I'm feeding frozen brine shrimp. The third BC and clowns are fine. Any suggestions?

papagimp
10/02/2007, 10:42 AM
Yeah, were these wild caught specimens? They usually don't fair as well as captive raised (as the case with most captive raised). The guy hiding in the corner sounds indicative of having two of the same sex bangaii's together. If you have two males or two females that don't like each other, one may stay hidden like so, discolor a bit (appear darker and more drab than typcial) and eventually wither and die. How large are they? May wanna try something a little better than frozen brine shrimp. Hatch some live brine shrimp to see if that'll at least get the one guy eating, I'd also try some cyclopeeze, frozen mysis, frozen reefplankton. Get some garlic enticer and try that out as well, worked well getting my last new babies to start eating cycloppeze for me instead. Make sure the clownfish and the "good" bangaii get plenty of food and then try to specifically target feed the last. Wanna make sure the clown is stuffed first so he's not up in the other guys face when trying to get him to eat. Aside from all that, may just take him a little longer to adjust. Bangaii's are mouthbrooders so when looking at the hidding fella, doesn't appear that he's got a mouthful of eggs does it? It took my first wild caught pair about a week or so and they had spawned for me. Just a shot in the dark.

Cheekymonkey
10/02/2007, 11:04 AM
Sorry to hijack, can banggai and cardinals school together or get along?

bangaii man
10/02/2007, 11:11 AM
Bangaii do fine in a group I usually keep 5 in my display tank. they will of course pair up to breed then the male will hold the eggs in his mouth for about 3 weeks and not eat at all durring that time

bheaven
10/02/2007, 11:12 AM
The BCs have a body size of approx a US quarter not taking the fins into account. I believe that they are wild caught. The were quarantined at a LFS for about a month.

Water params are fine: SG 1.023, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate all 0 ppm.

Doesn't look like it has anything in its mouth.

Thanks.

papagimp
10/02/2007, 11:16 AM
Bangaii's are cardinals. As for schooling, they would require a very large tank to naturally school in a home aquarium. Otherwise should best be left in pairs. Mutliple females can sometimes get along just fine, more often than mutliple males will. You could probably add many specimens to some of the smaller tanks (100g or so) but I doubt you'd see a naturally schooling behavoir, just a bunch of randomly floating fish. (I say floating, since they're not very active swimmers) When they are younger, such as 6 months or younger you can often catch em schooling together, especially in the presence of a diadema setosum (black long spined urchin) but they'll outgrow this as the mature and their territory gets really small in comparison to what they have in nature.

papagimp
10/02/2007, 11:22 AM
bheaven, sounds like it's just stress from one move to another. Did you see them all eating at the LFS? It's always good practice to ask that they feed the fish in front of you prior to purchases. If they won't eat, than probably not a fish you want to buy. I'd just pay really close attention to them, make sure they're not fighting each other and do what you can to get em both eating. Aside from that, if the one doestn' come out in the open more often and looks as though he's not going to make it, may wanna find another home for him, preferably one with either smaller bangaii's or no other bangaii's. May even wanna try observing them at night while the lights are out. They are naturally nocturnal and the one fella may just be waiting until nightfal to start looking for food. The readily adapt to life during the daytime hours but being wild caught and stressed, may not have done so yet. Try feeding them then as well, may make a difference.

Cheekmonkey: multiple species in the same tank may act aggrresivly toward one another. As for bangaii in particluar, if you have anything in the tank they can fit in their mouths, they're at risk of being eaten. Shrimps or small fish. just keep that in mind, some cardinalfish stay relatively small (small enough to be eaten)