How long from tank set up to spawning fish?

[ThreeMoneyJ]

By my count 6 weeks and 6 days week 7 would be tomorrow!

Week 1: Back on Jan 19 I set up a 40b with a 2nd 40b sump as a frag tank. I used starboard as the bottom and Caribsea dry rock for the bio filter. The dry rock sat in my sump for a week then went into the frag tank with some rubble from my sump as well. Egg crate frag racks also went in. Ghost feedings to keep bacteria going.

Week 2: CUC, pods, macro algae from reefs2go.

Week 3: At this point I had zero cycle. I attribute this to water and rocks from my main tank. I even overfed/let food decay to test it. So tank is steady and I made a bunch of frags and picked up some frags.

I have wanted to breed cardinal fish for a long time, but never had a good area to do it. The frag tank seemed perfect. I was at petco in SR and they had 3 cardinals for cheap. I bought all 3 and threw them in.

Week4-5: tank was running great. Turns out I had bought 2 males and 1 female. 2 formed a pair and started to beat up the 3rd. I had to rescue #3 and he went into my main tank.

Today: I noticed the male not eating in the morning. The female was chasing him a bit and doing a very fast shiver/shimmy next to him. I just came in to feed again an had time to watch them. The male is now holding eggs in his mouth!

Of course he won't let me get a good picture, but I'll keep trying to take a better one.

 

[Dragonvale]

Nice! Can't wait to see some babies!

 

[swk]

Congrats!

 

[ReeferItIs2]

I love it...are you going to try and raise the fry?

 

[ThreeMoneyJ]

I'm going to give raising the fry a shot. Banggai cardinals are said to be some of the easiest fry to raise. They basically come out large enough to accept prepared foods, no need to raise rotifers (although that would definitely help).

My clowns are also spawning regularly, but that will be a lot more work to raise and everyone else is doing them so i'm not that interested.

If the cardinals go well the next fish I want to give a shot at orchid and neon dottybacks.

 

[ReeferItIs2]

Same reason why I don't want to do the clown fish...keep us updated on the progress...i have seen an article in coral.magazine saying that the banggai is almost becoming extinct due to our hobby...it would be great to supply some stores with them if we can...you can try feeding live baby brine shri.p...only takes a day to make

 

[woodnaquanut]

Any updates?

 

[ThreeMoneyJ]

Well the male is still holding the eggs, so that's a good sign. He is starting to look a little skinny though!

What I've read suggests that hatch time is 3-4 weeks, so they have a bit of time still.

 

[ThreeMoneyJ]

Babies!

Babies!

2 babies showed up in the sump today and the male still seems to be holding in his mouth.

 

[Reef Bass]

Very cool. Good job.

Any specific feeding requirements for the youngsters?

 

[swk]

Awesome man! Do you know how to strip fry from mouthbrooders?

 

[ThreeMoneyJ]

I have no idea? I think that would be a better way to do it though. Any ideas?

 

[woodnaquanut]

This seems like good advise:

http://breedmyfish.blogspot.com/p/banggai-cardinals.html

see 'capturing fry'

 

[swk]

I can show you some time if you want. It's very easy and then you can control when they're released and can have a nursery ready, rather than digging them out of your sump.

If their gestation period is anything like fw mouthbrooders, the fry should be free swimming and have little to no egg sack around 21-24 days post spawn. That's the best time to strip, otherwise you may have to setup an egg tumbler. Let me know if you want me to come by and show you how to do it sometime.

 

[ThreeMoneyJ]

Feeding: The nice thing about mouth brooders is that the fry come out well developed and able to eat larger pieces of food. I didn't want to go overboard on this project. I'm feeding a mixture of zooplan, tigger feast, crushed NLS pellets and flakes. All soaked in phyto and acropower. I have zero scientific backing for this, but I'll see what happens. I've fed this mixture several times already and they seem to be chasing the particles.

John: thanks for the link! I caught the male last night and he spit out another 15 fry!

SWK: I would like to take you up on that offer. I've actually been researching into egg tumblers and was thinking that might be a better way to do it if I could get the male to release the eggs.

 

[woodnaquanut]

Feeding sounds like a good guess except the AcroPower. What kind of corals are those fish?

Seems like typical food is live baby brine shrimp. Probably because they will like to chase the live food. I have a setup (ghetto) to hatch the shrimp and BS eggs if you need to go that way. It's easy once you get the pattern.

Also if the parents do well they will have LOTS more babies. If you mess up the first brood there will be others. It's important to rest the male between broods. I wonder if you can swap him with the other male?

Also most fish get better at the process as they get experienced, so maybe next time the dad will kick them all out at once!