Bangaii Cardinal Breeding?

[agf1583]

Hi All!

Relative noob here, I've had my mixed reef setup about 3 months. A few days ago I noticed that one of my 2 banggai cardinals had dropped a small clutch of eggs and had started doing the "shaking" thing trying to attract the male. He ultimately didn't take the bait. I'm guessing he wasn't feeling fat enough to incubate the eggs. This was completely unplanned so I have just been feeding both fish as normal.

So my questions are:
1. Is this common?
2. Will it happen again?
3. Am I correct in my assessment as to why the male didn't take the eggs?
4. What are the other common reasons the male does not take the eggs?
5. Can I now call my cardinals a "bonded pair"? Should I now try to avoid separating them?

Thanks all in advance for any input. Again this was completely unplanned so I have done zero research on the subject, as I otherwise might do.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

1. Pretty common actually.

2. Most likely but not necessarily. Mine spawned twice and then stopped for some reason. Nothing changed in the tank so perhaps I haven't been playing enough jazz lately. :lmao:

3. That's possible or he might just not know what he is supposed to do yet. Most males spit out the first few clutches because they are still learning.

4. Not sure to be honest. What I've read is that most males take them but spit them out before they come to term. I actually haven't seen any posts of people saying the male didn't pick them up at all. Are you sure you don't have two females?

5. You can separate them without issue. Many people do that after the male has carried the clutch to term because the female will keep laying eggs and the male never gets enough to eat and can die. They will remove him from the tank and fatten him back up again before putting him back.