My experiences breeding Banggai Cardinalfish...

I was recently lucky enough to buy a breeding bangaii pair. They're in my QT now, but over the last couple of days, one has become noticeably pinker than the other. I've been panicking and looking all over to find out why, but from your info I guess that means shes the female! :)

I'm looking forward to trying my hand at raising the fry one day. Thx for the valiable insights! :D
 
Caesra said:
Something for you to try out MV, they do not require any live food. I was hesitant to give it a try, but my last batch I gave it a whirl, 100% frozen. Lost one out of the batch, they are at 30 days now. I slowly moved up to this, each batch giving less and less live food, always with frozen food. I found better growth rates when the initial offerings were primarily frozen. So I gave it a whirl.

It is all about the flow, and thier perception of the food being live. If they will strike at it and have decent frequency of feeding they will learn to eat it pretty quickly.
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Can you let us know exactly what you gave them? Don't they need really tiny particles of food? Did you try any dried foods?
I'm really uninterested to find out possibilities that don't involve having to rear baby brine shrimp.
 
I currently have 10 banggai fry going. They are about 18 days old and already taking frozen. I am going to try to get them on dry food which will be a chore and may never happen. The transition to frozen from live was pretty easy. Hatching brine shrimp is very very easy.
 
thanx, this is really helpful and is also very interesting. ill look to this as a reference if i try to breed banggais. about how many eggs are laid per batch???
 
While hatching BBS is easy, it's also a major PITA. So much work and prep.

I personally feed pellet as soon as they're released. Chad Vossen wrote a great little article of his findings about feeding pellet in the new Banggai rescue book.

I've modelled my habits after this findings. Built a nursery for the fry, and implement it. I've only ever had 1 banggai adult eat pellet food, until I started raising them on TDO B1 from release.
 
My fry refuses to eat frozen. They are around 1 1/2 month old.. should i stop feeding Live BBS and just feed frozen until they start to eat it??
 
Thank you for the info!! Great write up!

I read this because I have a pair that just started doing the touching/shaking tonight. Now I know what is going on!

I'll try frozen BS.
 
Curious as to your cleaning methods in the fry holding area. After a few days my holding unit bottom is littered with uneaten, dead BBS and I was wondering how people clean it.

Also, the mention of enriching. How is that done and with what?
 
I buy my frozen BBS pre enriched. Basically you feed the baby brine shrimp lots of vitamins etc so that they carry it in their stomach and then the fish get it.

Just syphon the bottom out through a filter sock or similar and the pour the clean water back in.
 
Excellent write up. I hope to do Bangaai's as well. I have 4 in my DT now hoping at least 2 like each other. They are Aquacultured and I hope to provide more to the hobby. They are all new so I don't know how long before they get sexually mature.
 
What about feeding rotifers to the baby cardinals?

I have a culture of rotifers that are fairly large, almost the size of BBS that I use to feed my corals and are fed on live phyto from my cultures (seven different species of phyto)
 
ThreeMoneyJ said:
I've had great success feeding frozen baby brine shrimp from the start.
Click to expand...
Hi. I have a first time a babys off mine Banggai Cardinals . I didnt managed to catch out male out of my main tank. But i managed to catch 19 babys one nights.
They 5 days old , living in a sump . I feed them with frozen cyclopes and live marine copepods . They seems to me very happy.
 
I think that this is the right place to post this, so here goes, please correct me if I'm wrong!
Adult brine shrimp can produce up to 75 nauplii/day/female if under ideal conditions.
Male banggai cardinals won't eat food until after their brood has hatched and left the mouth.
My conclusion: I can add adult brine shrimp to the growout tank before the male cardinalfish, and allow them to begin the reproduction process, and after brood release, begin feeding with more BBS and frozen foods until they finish growing. I'd probably tint the water with live phytoplankton in order to let the brine shrimp get enough to eat as well, and also to control water quality.
How many BBS does a baby Banggai eat/day?
Is this feasible?
 
MVPaquatics, can you use the venting method to determine juvenile males and females? I'm not sure what to look for in fish that have head to tail base length of approximately 1-1.5 inches.
 
Update. Babys 12 days old now. lost 3 at day 6. overnight. been sucked to the skimmer :(. moved the pump since.
How I said earlier they feeding on life copepods as a treat and 5 times a day frozen cyclopes. But today I tried braking down frozen mysis and fed it. They go mad for it. I was shocked how big pieces they can swallow.
Now with a full belly they ready to sleep.
 
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