Bangaii Cardinalfish

[firebirdbandit]

A few days ago my pair of Bangaii Cardinalfish bred. The Male now has a huge mouth full of eggs. Now I'm wondering what to do. I've bred and raised clownfish before so I know the basics. From what I've read these guys are bigger and can eat live baby brine when they are born. I also have rotifers so I plan a mix of both for when they are born. Are these guys able to hunt for their food or do I still need to flood the tank with food. Also if I try to move the male around the time they are due will that stress him out and cause him to release the eggs early?

 

[FMarini]

Please start by reading here.....


http://www.breedersregistry.org/Articles/v4_i4_marini/marini.htm
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/f_marini_020799.html
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/f_marini.html

 

[firebirdbandit]

Thanks, That is just what I needed.

 

[papagimp]

If you have successfully raised clownfish, these should be a walk in the park for ya. Very easy, (albeit, does take a little trial and error, as with many aspects of this hobby). Any pics of the new expecting parents? Rotifers are a tad tiny for em, but they are effective hunters from the day there released, you just have to have enough food for them to hunt down, better to target feed em at first and get them onto prepared foods though. Trying to catch him may cause him to either abort or release early, mine never had, but I hear others doing it this way intentionally to collect the babies. Heres a good link I started with after my first spawning occured: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/seagrant/communication/pdf/Banggai Cardinalfish-Final.pdf

 

[sjfishguy]

If you don't mind Firebird, I am going to ask a few questions on here too, as it seems you and I are in similar situations. I setup a 10g for banggais and now my male has eggs. This tank only has 1 male banggai, 1 female banggai, a large long spine urchin, a star, and a snail. My question now is once the fry are released, do I HAVE TO remove the adult fish? Not out of concern for bioload, but I am wondering will the fish eat the fry? Has anyone raised the fry with the adults? Has anyone actually seen an adult eat the fry? I am sure I will have more questions, but we'll start with this. Thanks.

 

[firebirdbandit]

From what I've heard you should removed the adults but I'd like others to comment here. Today my male released 6 babies and they are so cool. I put some microalgae in the tank and a some brine shrimp eggs a few days ago. I also added some rotifers. The babies bellys are all real fat and I'm not sure if they were released that way or they have been pigging out on the food. Tomorrow I will be adding some copepods from my refugium. I'm really excited about this and these guys are so cool looking. I tried to take pics but they didn't come out good at all. I'll try again and see if I can post them here.

 

[firebirdbandit]

Baby Bangers

Baby Bangers

Ok I promised some pictures so here you go. These are 1 day old, released from males mouth.

 

[papagimp]

Awesome photo's!!! Thanks for sharing. If interested, in my photo album here on RC I have several Bangaii shots, some nice ones from various reefers here as well as many of my own. Take a peek if ya like.

And to answer the last question, remove the adults or remove the babies to a grow out tank, they WILL eat the fry. My very first spawning and release ended with me catching about 7 babies out of 20, the rest were lunch by the time I could get any out of the tank. (this is why I moved the parents to a seperate tank all of their own, it's no fun trying to catch babies in a display tank) Best advice I can give for this is a DIY urchin or real diadema setosum, they make great baby cover and go to the dollar store and get a larger turkey baster, awesome for catching the buggers when entangled up in an urchin.

 

[mypurpletang]

Nice job!!

 

[MimicTang]

may wanna put a small fake urchine in the cardinal tank. I read in the wild they live around urchins and the babies bee line it for the safety of the urchin because dad may eat them. I believe I've heard of 20+ hatches before.

 

[firebirdbandit]

Thanks guys for your advice. I have the 22 babies in a 10 gallon tank by themselves. its got a large sponge filter with lots of aeration and a heater. I have some grass like plants I got at petco that are pretty stiff and to me sort of resemble a long spined urchin except the spikes are green. All of the babies stay in the plant. They are doing very well at 5 days now and seem to have grown quite a bit. They are eating a mixture of baby brine shirimp, rotifers, and copepods. So far (knock on wood) this is really a walk in the park compared to my clownfish breeding. We will see though.

 

[sjfishguy]

Glad to hear yours made it. My male ate the eggs after about 1 week. Hopefully I will have better luck next time.

 

[papagimp]

Bangaii's naturall live in a seagrass bed area along with the diadema urchins, so plants or urchins should work well. Mimic Tang, I've heard the same thing, yet it's always my female I catch eating the babies. The male never even seems to take notice after he releaes. Goes back to his corner and waits for me to feed him. I've heard of 50+ releases before. .

fwiw, I've used fake urchins before and I may have just made it wrong or they didn't like it for whatever reason, but my real urchin does a far better job attracting the babies quickly.