Advice on semi-agressive Bangai Cardinal

[shamoo]

Hi all

What advise do you have on a semi-agressive bangai cardinal? i've had them for about 8 weeks and they were small when i got the 2 of them. Recently as they have grown, one of them is keeping the other in a corner. he activly chases him untill he is back in the corner. I have a 150g 5' wide DT, so plently of room. I recently added a Royal Gramma who after a day was coming out for a bit then going back into the rocks hiding but was coming out and eating. After another couple of days he doesn't come out, i can see him as he pops out of for half a second then goes back in. I've noticed the BC hanging close to where the RG hides. Could the BG display agression towards the RG as well as the other BG? why would the RG come out swim around for 5mins and eat but now just hides?
Currently in the DT is 4 x Chromis, 2x Clown, 1x shrimp, 1x Royal Grammer and CUC
all other fish are great and happy. I don't want the smaller BG to be stuck in a corner all the time. he does eat and looks healthy and comes out of the corner when the bigger BG is elsewhere.
I have reasearched this and found this is common, but a lot answers are to give the fish back to the LFS. I don't want to give the semi-agressive fish back but instead find a solution.
Could housing the agressive BG in a seperation enclosure inside the DT help and break up the territry or calm him down? alow the smaller one to come out more? also if he is bullying the RG it could encourage him to come out as well.
Has anyone experinced this and over come the problem? any suggestion would be helpfuly

many thanks

 

[norfolkgarden]

You probably have 2 male banggais. They are very difficult to tell sexes apart.

Not much you can do except return the aggresor or return both to seperate holding tanks for a few weeks. Get 3 or 4 more and reintroduce all 5 or 6 at the same time. Hopefully you will end up with at least 1 pair.

I didn't want a whole school. We tried with 3 and got lucky and ended up with a good pair. The 3rd was returned before the new pair killed it.


You can probably safely guess you have 2 males.
Unlike a lot of fish, these fish remain the same sex for life.
Return 1 and get 2 different fish in the hopes of scoring a female.

Then return the 3rd wheel before it is killed by the other 2.

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[norfolkgarden]

How much rock do you have in your 150?
As a rough estimate you should have at least 150 pounds of porous live rock shaped with lots of small to medium caves/sleeping holes.
It's not just recommended for the filtration aspect.

Cat sharks and stingrays and garden eels need a lot of sand area.

Everything else pretty much lives on, in, or right next to, the rocks.
Even the sand gobies build next to the rocks.
And the sand sleeping wrasses spend most of their awake time poking around in the rocks.
You need sufficient rock for individual sleeping holes at night for most fish, a decent pod population, places to mount corals, and the filtration doesn't hurt either.
[emoji4]

FWIW, we kind of went *way* overboard with 200 pounds in a 75 gallon bare bottom tank.
It provides about 3 levels of sleeping holes for all the small fish we crammed into it and a chance to reduce the 'line of sight' potential aggression.
Reducing the empty open water swimming space gave them more territory to explore without bumping into each other.
☺

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[shamoo]

Hi Norfolkgarden

i have about 110 pounds of live rock which is very porous and spans about 3/4 across the tank. lots of caves and hiding places. if i aquired a 3rd BG and managed to get a female, do you think that would calm him down?

 

[shamoo]

Do you think adding 1 or 2 more Cardinals will do anything? Also would a Bangai pair up with a pajama Cardinal?

 

[norfolkgarden]

Hi Norfolkgarden

i have about 110 pounds of live rock which is very porous and spans about 3/4 across the tank. lots of caves and hiding places. if i aquired a 3rd BG and managed to get a female, do you think that would calm him down?

You will most likely end up with a pair in the end. Either by removing the 3rd before it dies or the pair killing the 3rd.
That was why I suggested removing the current second, since it seems to be another male.
Or remove the most dominant, since it also hates the other fish.
And start with 2 newer banggai's in an attempt to create a stable pair.

I have never kept pajamas.
Sorry, I don't think they will pair, but you may be able to keep one of each without them harming each other.


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[norfolkgarden]

If you got an additional 4 or 5 banggai's then they should work as a school and hopefully spread out the aggression.

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[ca1ore]

I've not had much luck keeping a group of banggai. My approach has been to buy five, let two form a breeding pair and rehome the rest.