Been gone a while...getting back into my Banggais!

[RCS]

I've been purposely ignoring the fish breeding forum while I've been building the fish room. Now that it's nearing partial completion and tank setup, I've got some more time to devote to working with the fish and breeding (my focus otherwise has been corals). Starting off with my Banggai cardinals...

I think I may have finally established a good trio of Banggai cardinals. I had been breeding them before moving back to WI and am attempting to get back into it. Once I have a few broods out of the way, I'll be expanding my breeding pair selection and maybe attempting some others as well. Clowns for sure, but who knows after that?

A lot of people ask how to differentiate males from females. The second dorsal on the males tends to be longer, but since long-finned fish have a tendency to come in with blown fins, that's normally not a good indicator until they've been in captivity a few months. Banggai cardinals are paternal mouthbrooders, and the males tend to have a more angular jaw, while the females are more arrow-shaped with less of a squared-off jaw. Here are some pics so you can see. Hopefully in a couple months I'll have some baby Bangers in the works...

First two pics are my females (I'm fairly sure); third pic is the pair together, male on top. You can see the differences in their jawlines. It's not a perfect method, but it is fairly accurate from what I've found.

 

[RCS]

I just want to say, after looking at my pictures, taken in the dark...I LOVE my camera! Anyone who doesn't have a good digicam, go get one, now!

 

[Peter Schmiedel]

Fred,

according the my observations and what I did hear from others the trio situation will not work best. I have 5 fish togehter, two pairs and one single. The females really do protect the eggs carring male and chase other conspecies around. I believe keeping a pair only per tank (or having a big tank) will increase outcome of the pair.

 

[RCS]

Hi Peter,

You're probably right. I'll likely remove the second female once a pair establishes themselves and get her a boyfriend of her own.

 

[papagimp]

bangaii's are not monogomous and in all likely hood you will end up with bickering females over that one male. The more squared off jawline on the males is comletely muscular, there is no skeletal diffence in the sexes so it's kinda inaccurate to go by that. My male looks identical to the female immediatly after releasing babies. When a "pair" is first introduced to each other though the males will sometime "puff" up there jaw for a bit, I'm assuming to impress her with his large baby carrying capacities.
And of course the dorsal fin method isn't very accurate either, my females fins are so much longer than the males. I thought she was the male for a long long time. Only way to be 100% certain is to see who's holding the babies, lol. I can't wait to see your setup when you post pics. I havn't gotten around to building a breeding setup yet, mine just "do it" in the community tank. Best of luck and great pictures!

 

[RCS]

I don't know, that's the way I've always guessed males and females. Could be I've just been lucky so far though. I'll let you know in a few weeks hopefully!

My last trio I picked out based mostly on the jawline and made it out with a 1M/2F trio like I had planned. These guys are in a community tank right now, but eventually they'll get their own tanks so I don't need to worry about them too much.

I'm anxious to get home tonight and see how they're faring. The last one I added they did not take kindly to and it only lasted a couple of days. The new one is bigger than the current two and I added him after lights-out last night.