Questions on Banggai cardinal breeding

[tecnomage]

Ok, forgive me in advance for some very noob questions. I've done some research on how to breed Banggai cardinals but I still had some questions.

Background:
I've never really bred anything in my life, my wife and I had 1 platy survive our breeding attempts and plenty of guppy fry that didn't due to a lot of factors. My wife has bred freshwater fish in the past, mollies, guppies and betas. But now we'd like to attempt Banggai cardinals. We have a 90 gallon display tank and just setup a 20L tank for a quarantine. The sponge filter is in the sump seeding and we should be ready in the next 2 weeks.

Current:
Our last fish to go in the 90 gallon are going to be a pair of Banggai cardinals, we didn't quarantine our last fish and that led to some issues so now that that's resolved we figured we better do it right and QT our next fish. There is a chance that the pair will spawn while in QT and we'd like to be ready for that.

If they spawn what do I need to have ready? If I see the male holding for longer than 2 weeks I assume I'd need to get brine shrimp ready, what else do I need? If they do spawn I'll need to put in a divider or hook up a 10gallon to my display tank with the babies in there instead of in the QT tank.

I've read to feed 3-5x a day with baby brine shrimp, and enriched brine shimp if it's more than a few hours after hatching. If I can't hook up the 10g how often and how much do I need to do for water changes? I've heard too much can hurt the babies and too little obviously leaves them in their own waste, neither is a good thing. Also how do I enrich the brine shrimp?

Any advice or recommendations? I'd like to be prepared in case the worst (best) happens :-)

[jeff@zina.com]

First, Bangaii's can survive with their parents if they have hiding places. An artificial urchin is commonly used. Your survival rate will be low, but you'll find a few will live.

Beyond that, a 10 gallon is fine, and if you can move the male into the tank early it's even better. Otherwise, use a flashlight to attract the babies and dip them out with a cup (no nets, ever). Brine shrimp enrichment can be found all over this board and the net, but basically you use Selcon or the like. You can't enrich brine that is less than 12 hours old. Change water gradually, using makeup water from the parent's tank.

Jeff

[tecnomage]

Thank you Jeff. I didn't think of using makeup water from the parents tank but that will be a lot easier on them for sure. Also what type of filtration would you recommend on the 10 gallon tank?

I take it I'll need at least 2 brine shrimp hatcheries to keep them happy? (The soda bottle and air tubing type)

[RoscoPColtrane]

If you plan to be successful the best thing I can is advise is read everything you can on the internet. There is too much info to put in a single post.

When my male has eggs I generally pull him out of the display around 19 days and place him in a 10 gallon tank. Flow in the 10 gallon is important for the fry. Too much and they will struggle, too little not enough oxygenation. To overcome this I put my fry in a glass picture inside the 10 gallon tank with a piece of rigid airline hooked up to an air pump. To feed I remove the airline, to change water simply pour 1/2 out add new.

I feed 2x daily for the first few weeks, a mix of newly hatched brine and brine that's a few days old enriched with Selcon. In my exp the fry will not live without some kind of fatty acid enrichment (Selcon).

Hope this helps, good luck and keep reading...

[papagimp]

this seems like an appropriate subject for me to make my comeback to the hobby. :)
It's been awhile but what I remember about breeding my bangaii's that helped the most

1. Definatly look at making a DIY urchin, it saved many of my babies from an overly hungry daddy fish, and the male WILL be hungry when he finally lets those little guys go.

2. I used a sponge filter and hang on back for filtration in my baby tank, but relied heavily on clean water changes. The babies arn't that dirty but the excessive doses of brine shrimp will hurt water quality. Being careful with the brine can help alot though, filter them out of the dirty brine hatchery water, and feed tiny amounts as their being eaten.

3. Rosco and jeff gave great advice, Selcon for sure. I didn't enrich every feeding, but I probably should have. Had very low survival rates that probably could have been avoided if I had enriched the brine more often and properly.

I'd also like to add, I prefered to leave the male in the main display tank while holding and releasing the babies, was a personal preference only though. You can move to a seperate tank as rosco mentioned or strip the eggs from the male and go that route, I personally never tried as it I felt bad man handling the fishies like that. I kept the DIY urchin in the main tank and once I noticed oodles of babies swarming it, grabbed a turkey baster, sucked the little suckers up and put them in their own tank.

be sure to post pictures!!! I miss my bangaii's so I'll have to live vicariously through you and yours for the time being.

[GrindingNemo]

Is there any reason to use fake urchins instead of real ones? I have seen it suggested several places, but I never saw a reason.

[papagimp]

Is there any reason to use fake urchins instead of real ones? I have seen it suggested several places, but I never saw a reason.

I've used both. Heres the pro's and con's I found

A fake urchin doesn't eat, as a real one can decimate any flora and coralline in your tank and on your rocks (can but dont' always if their well fed, mine was well behaved that way most the time) a fake urchin doesn't hurt you when you accidentally put your fist into it's spines. a fake urchin doesn't walk around your tank innocently knocking over your newly placed coral frags :P What I wound up doing eventually was kept the Diadema setosum (long spined black urchin that is a natural hideaway for bangaii's in the wild) in my display tank and the fake urchin in my baby rearing tank. It was for their sense of securtity at that point as they weren't in danger of being eaten in their. i loved my urchin but cleaning up it's broken off spines he left over my tank was a hassle. Granted the best tanks take time and effort to make them so. Both work out great, it's just a matter of weather you want to contend with keeping a live urchin or not. I've not heard of anyone using a species other than the diadema setosum and it's the only one I'd recommend do to the fact that their pretty harmless for the most part. You just gotta know where he's at before putting your hands in the tank lol.

[jeff@zina.com]

One addition to Papagimp's list: You can sterilize a fake urchin with bleach. Live urchins frown upon it.

Jeff

[GrindingNemo]

One addition to Papagimp's list: You can sterilize a fake urchin with bleach. Live urchins frown upon it.

Jeff

I can think of a few times I've been poked and sterilizing long spine urchin with bleach would have been tempting...