Breeding information about Banggai Cardinals

Funny you should revive this post. I just got 10 banggai cardinals today. At what size would you say they are sexually mature. I'm going to be building your banggai breeder next week some time, will post full build pics.
Did you post pics of the build and did you manage to sex the Banggais
 
7 banggais

i got 7 banggais in my quarantine tank now..almost 17 days already n acclimate already ..what a info from lucky..im trying to identify the sex of those fish..yeah really hard to see..it was too small...as now i just put the together.no sign of pairing appeared in my tank.
Q 1:
should i separate them and make the " house " or let them get paired by themselves
n then build the " house ".( wondering if they r the kind of ready to mate anytime )
 
You need to sex them first, they will start to fight once the first pair is sorted out. Have you got several tanks? You will need to separate the pair from the rest, if you have several tanks you may be lucky to get several pairs.
 
You need to sex them first, they will start to fight once the first pair is sorted out. Have you got several tanks? You will need to separate the pair from the rest, if you have several tanks you may be lucky to get several pairs.


Hi..take 30 mins to get look over the double torn under the belly..from my observation, i saw 3 male and 4 female.A pair had already form, they seems to be pairing and stay around the liverock.the rest seems to be in one group.
For the breeding purpose do i need to put a liverock in the tank or just a partition as suggested
 
You will need to separate the pair that has formed from the other five before the pair start killing them. Your options are now to allow the remaining five to continue forming pairs and then keep separating until you have enough pairs formed or make the banggai partition set up as Luckyfish described and then separating the pairs in the partitions or changing the males around with the females occasionally for genetic diversity.
 
just make the partition this evening.will update soon.thanx for the info.will try my best.
 
Have got my Banggai pair to spawn. Have 34 fry which are now 2 weeks old and have doubled their size since being released. First 2 days they were fed daphnia and since then have been fed with newly hatched brine shrimp. Brine shrimp is not HUFA enriched even though I have a culture of phytoplankton. Am I just lucky as I switch lights on and off without any casualties.

I am new to the marine setup and have only kept a marine tank for about 11 months. First started cutting colts and have since done sarcophyton and sinularia and have now also started with zooanthids. Needed to add fish to the corals to provide a bit of extra "food", hence the Banggais. First spawn were 6 fry which decided to settle in amongst some anemones :) and became good food :(. After that lesson, I decided next batch would be taken out. Male was carrying eggs within 4 days and this was the result.

However, he was carrying eggs again 24 hours later. The coral tank that he is in 2440 x 500 x 300mm (height) gets plenty of brine shrimp and daphnia and I'm sure, just like Malawis, he is able to eat fine food even while carrying eggs. If my assumption is incorrect, I'm going to have a very starved male :(. Unfortunately only time will tell whether I am doing things right.

The 2 little triangle things that you mention in your sexing article, is that the ovipositor you are talking about? My females ovipositor seems to be a lot bigger than the males
 
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Your babies will be able to eat other foods such as fish eggs, various small frozen meatyfoods and even flake. I would advise you to try and start giving it a variety.
If you are using nanno to enrich your brine shrimp it is not much use, rather use Tet and Iso. You could also use other enrichment products such as Dan's Feed with Beta Glucen and the one without.
Without seeing photos it is difficult to tell but your observation about the females ovipositor sounds right, also you can often see a darker 'belly' on the female when she is carrying eggs.
You could make up an artificial urchin with pratleys putty and cableties or plastic toothpicks to attract the babies to.
The male usually does not eat while it is holding eggs, sometimes it is a good idea to try and make it miss a batch to allow it to regain some condition.
Well done and good luck.
 
Thanx for the awsome thread! You said something about a next part last year some time?????

I'm interested in starting with breading aswell. Just want to know:
-what should I feed them, and were can I find the food?
You did mentioned the feeding, but I'm not sure if the petshops will supply
the mentioned food??
 
If you are referring to feeding the adults then any meaty foods work well such as various frozen foods like mysids, krill, chopped clam as well as chopped fish and seafood like shrimp, prawn, etc. The CB ones also take pellets and flake. They will eat most suitably sized live foods like mysids and shrimp.
For the babies I would suggest enriched baby brine shrimp, cyclopeeze, various pods, fish eggs, mysids, flake food and pellets. Variety is quite important.
 
Lazy male

Hi Guys,

Looking for help with getting the male to hold if possible!!

Mine has had eggs every month for the last 6, and not held any, the male is hard to feed so i find it hard to fill him up, i have only just seperated him from the female, and understand this could be a long process, as the female will probably have more eggs in about three weeks which i will have to skip. so, just hoping if any one is doing anything to help the male along when i let him get back!

Thanks for any help.


H
 
Are you feeding them meaty foods such as mysids, chopped fish, krill, etc. They need to be healthy to enable the male to go through the long period where he cannot eat.
If the female is not allowing the male to get into good condition between giving him eggs then trying to stop them breeding for one cycle by either separation or getting him to spit might give the male a better chance of getting into good condition for the next batch. so I think you are doing the right thing. If the pair is young then the first few batches are often unsuccessful, but having been attempting to breed for 6 months he should have learned by now.
Is he smaller than the female?
Is he spitting early after receiving the eggs or towards the end, and do the eggs look fertilised?
Have you tried live foods to encourage the male to eat if he is not that happy with dead foods.
 
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Male has been losing early, swallowing i think. Yes, a young pair and the male is same size.
Have only tried live once, and he never came out to feed, but will try again.
Have only just split them today, so it may be the start of something.
Going to get another, mature male soon and see if i can do something with it.

Thanks for the reply Steve, and grateful for any more pointers.


Regards Heath.
 
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Sounds like it is just learning issues, remember you cannot put other banggais in with the pair. If you stay close to the coast look for very small shrimps, amphipods and mysis. They lover suitable live foods and if they were WC they will feed much better and then in the process learn to take frozen foods and pellets, etc.
 
I have a single Bangai cardinal in my tank that layed a clutch of eggs on the side of the wave pump. Ten minutes later the eggs were gone. The Bangai was eagerly guarding the eggs. I have no idea why it is laying eggs as it has no mate. I presume its a female. Before laying the eggs she? was rubbing and "quivering" up against the pump. Then I noticed the clutch of pink eggs. What also baffles me is that the Bangai has a "wide jaw" and like a sack underneath her jaw (as if she was a male). I'm sure she is carrying the eggs. She jawns regularly! Am I wrong?

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Helga, I also had it already that a single kept female dropped a cluster eggs onto the gravel.
The way you explained it, it sounds like you have a hermaphrodite. Not sure if such thing is possible.
I doubt that these eggs are fertile. To proof if she really carries the eggs in her mouth, try if she eats.

It shows me that your water parameter and nutrition is perfect for breeding season.
Try to get a male. Somewhere in this thread you will find how to determine a male.

Keep us posted.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I am really going to try and find a male. Actually finding one is not such a big problem, but finding a specimen big enough to be very sure its a male is the challenge. I defenitely want to pursue this further. Will keep you posted!
 
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