Banggai Cardinals - what foods?

[Neal Flomenberg]

Added 3 banggai cardinals to a tank with a foxface, yellow tang, purple firefish, blue hippo tang, and a pair of ocellaris clowns. All fish seem happy and healthy, but the cardinals have yet to eat anything (that I've seen). The other fish eat (flakes and/or seaweed) pretty aggressively. Can anyone advise what their preferred diet is and what is likely to tempt them?

Thanks in advance.
Neal

 

[FMarini]

neal-
meaty foods tempt them. They normally won't eat flake or powered food. Try PE mysis or chunks of gulf shrimp.
This article might help
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/f_marini_020799.html

 

[Triggerman1964]

Raw shrimp chopped up very small.

 

[catdoc]

Mine started out on frozen homemade blender mush but within just a few days were taking flake. I may have gotten lucky or they just were watching all the other fish eat the flake and gave it a try. I wasn't expecting them to take the flake though, I'd heard they could be picky eaters. Now they're the first ones to the food!

Mine are captive-bred, that probably makes a big difference. Are yours CB or wild-caught?

 

[Wolverine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8285549#post8285549 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by catdoc
Mine are captive-bred, that probably makes a big difference. Are yours CB or wild-caught?

That makes a big difference. For whatever reason, new WC banggai cardinals are just not nearly as hardy as they used to be. IMO, there's no good reason to buy WC. They're so easy to raise, and there are plenty of people doing it in just about every city, so it should be easy to get them locally.

There might be problems with three of them in the tank, unless they're all the same sex. If you have two females, they might kill each other, and if you have two males they might kill each other.

Dave

 

[Triggerfish]

yes,,agree with Dave's comments above.
it may take a couple of years, but eventually from what i have seen, anything not paired will get tormented to death.

the one i had would not take flakes,,only meat.

 

[eskymick]

I've read that Banggai's feed most actively at dusk. You might want to feed them after the main lights go out .. with only ambient room lighting or actinics iluminating the tank.

 

[adtravels]

I have pj cardinals and really love em they love shrimp squid in a blender and mine whallop flake too
great fish cardinals