breeding the banggai cardinalfish

[cdcreveling]

okay...so i can hardly believe it. i have read that the banggai cardinalfish may soon be on the endangered species list, and will no longer be available for purchase. i have wanted a pair for my dt for as long as i've had my tank. so much so that i paid the $80 premium for a bonded pair from la. unfortunately, they must have had a falling out during transport because it was a fight to the death after i introduced them to my tank. i still have the one survivor, but no idea what the sex is. anyway, i wanted to be sure to buy some more incase they become unavailable. but rather than pay a premium to la, i purchased them on sale at a lfs for $9.99/ea. i figured i could by 7 for the what it would cost me to buy from la, and that's exactly what i did this past saturday. one has gone mia, presumably fallen victim to my hadonni, and yesterday i found that 4 of them were cowering on one side of the tank while the other two were swimming about freely. so i put a divider in the tank separating the new pair(?) from the remaining 4 fish. today (just 4 days after purchase) i noticed the 4 fish were out and about again, and to my amazement, the pair had spawned, and the male is holding eggs in his mouth. i haven't a clue how to care for the babies, but it's my understanding that i have some time to prepare (about 35 days before the male releases them). any tips and advice are welcome!

one immediate concern i have is that the female seems to be harassing the male a bit, and i don't want him using up his precious energy. she doesn't seem threatening, just nag-nag, nag-nag-nag. do i need to separate them?!?

[DSpate]

Banggai are already an endangered species. But the numbers in the wild are decreasing.

No need to separate them. Being that it's a 'new dad' he may swallow or spit the eggs, so don't be disappointed.

On a side note, the eggs can hatch into fish much faster. Around 25-30 days. And keep in the mind, the female can be ready to spawn again within 2 weeks.. In theory, you could put a new male with that female, and she will spawn again. They aren't ''bonded pairs'' like clownfish.

I have raised banggai fry in a simple $10 breeding box you can buy at most LFS - it's a little mesh square. For the easiest and fastest way to raise them, you can hatch newly hatched baby brine shrimp. But the thing about bbs is that they are only nutritional for the first 12 hours, unless you're feeding them, to gutload them with things like rotigrow products from Reed Mariculture. So technically, you need to be hatching bbs constantly.

Also, please note that the male may never hold the eggs to term. A lot of breeders do have that issue. He will either swallow or spit them out before they are ready to be released.

If you were serious about raising these fish more than once.. I'd suggest you also purchase the banggai rescue book that is now available. There are also a lot of good articles online.

I myself am documenting my findings currently, as my male has swallowed 3 spawns in a row, and I have just successfully brought eggs to 30 days old in an egg tumbler.

[Almondsaz]

I was fortunate to have a breeding pair and the bullying that I witnessed was that the female became territorial when the male was holding the eggs. I found that the babies are easy to raise and your chances of raising a higher percentage of the brood takes place when they are in a separate tank and have the safety of the false long spines urchin to hide in. I purchased reef stew to feed them and they responded very well. I never tried an egg tumbler but certainly wood. I later sold my breeding pair to someone who was genuinely interested in raising broods as a hobby. I really enjoyed their personality and did keep one of the babies that hatched out.

There are a lot of wonderful articles on the web

[cdcreveling]

how will i know when the eggs have hatched? how many days post hatch until the male releases them? can i put the female back with the other 4 banggais to see if she will pair up again? or will she just bully them?

[fltekdiver]

How long will they keep making babies?

I started out with 2 in my 180 tank 6 months ago and they had 3 sets of babies all ready

They just had more recently like every month. I just found 2 more that I know of this past weekend

[Whystler]

I purchased 3 banggai tank bred cardinals about 6 months ago. They have dwindled down to 2 and our obviously a pair. They appear to be very proficient. The male just spit out the second set of babies(That i have seen). The first set me and my wife saw swimming in the rocks over a month ago But all the babies have disappeared except 1 that got about as big as a dime then mom started chasing him in to the rockwork When i noticed dad was carrying again. He would come out at feeding time and eat now he doesn't and has disappeared a few days ago. i assume he is dead.

The fry were obviously released yesterday, i found 3 in my sump last night when i was doing maintenance. they are in a nice refuge type area with some live rock. My wife decided to use some of the frozen baby brine shrimp we had for our freshwater fish. She squirted a small amount into the water around them and the immediately started feeding. It was interesting to watch them twitch towards and eat the frozen.

I have a few questions as my wife would like to try and raise the 3 in the refuge area.

How often should she feed them?

She started soaking the frozen BBS in selcon and a vitamin mix. Will this be sufficient?

The refuge area is 4.6 gallons but that is not a true amount as it is packed with live rock rubble and astrea starfish. It does get decent flow but not high flow. Will this work as a nursery?

[ThreeMoneyJ]

I have a few questions as my wife would like to try and raise the 3 in the refuge area.

How often should she feed them?

She started soaking the frozen BBS in selcon and a vitamin mix. Will this be sufficient?

The refuge area is 4.6 gallons but that is not a true amount as it is packed with live rock rubble and astrea starfish. It does get decent flow but not high flow. Will this work as a nursery?

-Feed at least 3x a day. 5x would be better.
-Frozen BBS works great alone. Soaking in selcon and vitamins should help though.
-The small refuge area sounds like just the right size. The food will be concentrated so they can get to it.

I raise mine in the return section of my sump with a bit of LR rubble. It's probably a smaller area than you are working with.

[cdcreveling]

okay, so its day 22, and the male hasn't let go yet. i haven't seen any babies, but from what I've read, the eggs must have hatched in his mouth by now. I'm thinking it might be time to move him to the grow out tank. I'm still unsure of what the set up will be, but i have been seeding a sponge filter for a couple of weeks. also, I'm not sure what i will be feeding the fry. bbs is a safe bet, but i really want to feed only prepared food, preferably pellets, tdo?

btw, the female died while i was on vacation in hawaii :'(
hopefully there is another female in the group. i still have 4 of the original 7 banggais (3 + the male). ideally i'd like to keep 3 males and 1 female.

[cdcreveling]

well the male finally let loose today. 18 baby banggais!

[mbauma]

okay, so its day 22, and the male hasn't let go yet. i haven't seen any babies, but from what I've read, the eggs must have hatched in his mouth by now. I'm thinking it might be time to move him to the grow out tank. I'm still unsure of what the set up will be, but i have been seeding a sponge filter for a couple of weeks. also, I'm not sure what i will be feeding the fry. bbs is a safe bet, but i really want to feed only prepared food, preferably pellets, tdo?

btw, the female died while i was on vacation in hawaii :'(
hopefully there is another female in the group. i still have 4 of the original 7 banggais (3 + the male). ideally i'd like to keep 3 males and 1 female.


How did they do together, DD has them on sale now for 10.00 and I would love to get a group for my 140 gallon. Not sure how 5 or so would do together and not sure if I would get a mixture of male/female from LA.

[cdcreveling]

How did they do together, DD has them on sale now for 10.00 and I would love to get a group for my 140 gallon. Not sure how 5 or so would do together and not sure if I would get a mixture of male/female from LA.

the pair got along well, but they terrorized the others once paired up. 140 gal is a pretty large system for banggai. they might all be able to get along in a 140.

i saw a statistic once that claims if you buy 6-7 fish there is a 98-99% chance that you will get at least one male and one female. obviously there is no guarantee that they will pair up though.

[tannersmith2000]

So this is a pretty ironic post. I bought a "bonded pair" from DD and one fish died. I bought another larger Bangai from my LFS and it was a female. My original DD fish was a male and to my surprise his mouth is full of eggs now. I just discovered this about an hour ago.

What are you feeding the fry? Can you feed them frozen cyclopeeze?

[tannersmith2000]

How long does it take the eggs to hatch?