Breeding Bangaii Cardinals
- Thread starter psychorugby
- Start date
Telling the difference between males and females is quite difficult.
I have a LFS owner here who claims he can tell the difference by checking the vent area, he has shown me how he does it but I cannot tell the difference.
Often the males banner fin is longer than on the females, but in the breeding pair I had for many years, the female had a much longer banner fin, so that theory doesn't work very well.
I have found the best method it to put three together, and when you see two hanging out and one loner, scoop the loner out.
Pretty much anything would love to eat bangai fry. But, if you have a lot of hidey spots like a thick mass of caulerpa, occasionally one can escape predation.
Also, if you have an urchin in your tank, the newly released fry will hide in the spines, and it is very easy to suck them out with a turkey baster and put them in a rearing tank.
I think a 20 is appropriate for a breeding pair of banggai. I have tried them in a ten before and they never spawned, I don't know if it was the tank size or another factor.
I have a LFS owner here who claims he can tell the difference by checking the vent area, he has shown me how he does it but I cannot tell the difference.
Often the males banner fin is longer than on the females, but in the breeding pair I had for many years, the female had a much longer banner fin, so that theory doesn't work very well.
I have found the best method it to put three together, and when you see two hanging out and one loner, scoop the loner out.
Pretty much anything would love to eat bangai fry. But, if you have a lot of hidey spots like a thick mass of caulerpa, occasionally one can escape predation.
Also, if you have an urchin in your tank, the newly released fry will hide in the spines, and it is very easy to suck them out with a turkey baster and put them in a rearing tank.
I think a 20 is appropriate for a breeding pair of banggai. I have tried them in a ten before and they never spawned, I don't know if it was the tank size or another factor.
I look at their jaws when I try to sex them. I find it easier when they are sexually mature and there are a bunch in the tank. A jaw which looks pretty flat like this / and that's a female. One that puffs out a little bit more and that's a male. Males carry the eggs and the fry for a while so they need extra room in the pie hole.
Hasn't failed me yet through countless pairs.
HTH
Hasn't failed me yet through countless pairs.
HTH
GratefulDiver":3ng8sznn said:
It is more expensive to feed baby bangai than other commonly bred fish. You can get clownfish started on flake food pretty early in their lives, but banggai need fresh hatched brine then some kind of frozen food, so feeding them is more expensive and labor intensive. I have never been able to get my cardinals to eat flake, no matter how early I try, I know some folks who have accomplished this with adult fish, but not babies.
Add to that the fact that they have much smaller clutches of babies. You can get 25 fry from a batch if you are lucky, clownfish have AT LEAST a hundred babies in one batch. So you would need to be maintaining many more breeding pairs to get a decent amount of fish to sell. And you have to "rest" the dad between every few batches, or he will become exhausted from lack of food.
I only get $8 per fish when I sell my cardinals to the fish store, not much of a return when you factore in all the time spent hatching baby brine, all the water changes needed from heavy feeding, and all the time it takes for them to reach a marketable size.
They are however, a joy to raise, and I will continue to raise a batch now and then. For these reasons I tink they are more suited to the hobbyist who is raising them for fun, although I would LOVE to see them commercially captive raised of course.
We have had two batches of fry since July. Well, we first noticed the male with eggs on July 2, he let them out in Aug and then got another batch of eggs the next day. Only 4 fry made it the first batch. This batch we had 11 and 10 of them are still ok. We noticed that 2 days after we scooped the fry out the female was doing her mating dance again. If you have never seen it she gets really close to the male and starts to shiver. I think it's her way of trying to "grunt" the eggs out. Anyway, we saw the male in the corner with a mouth full again. Since he was in the corner I had a chance to scoop him out and place him in the 20 gal tank that I have the fry in. He lost the eggs when I scooped him out, I know because he is eating mysis, which he would never do with eggs in his mouth. My question is, how long of should I leave him in there before putting him back in the main tank? Will the female produce eggs right away again, or wait the 30 days she normally does?
Thanks,
Mike
Thanks,
Mike
The female will likely try again sooner than later. Just feed him for a couple of days and send him back in. That'll boost his nutritional status (feeding multiple times per day) and shouldn't disrupt their bond.
As for recovering fry... the best way I have seen so far is to create a fake urchin out of a rubber ball and some wooden spikes (like bamboo skewers). The babies will zoom right into the safety of the spines. Then, once most of them are in the spines, you put a cup in the tank, place (carefully) the fake urchin in the cup underwater, then remove the whole thing to a rearing tank.
Wade
As for recovering fry... the best way I have seen so far is to create a fake urchin out of a rubber ball and some wooden spikes (like bamboo skewers). The babies will zoom right into the safety of the spines. Then, once most of them are in the spines, you put a cup in the tank, place (carefully) the fake urchin in the cup underwater, then remove the whole thing to a rearing tank.
Wade
corro":3o1vm8ay said:Laura D":3o1vm8ay said:
I have raised 4 or 5 of the fry from my mated pair and have never used live brine. I just start them out directly w/ frozen baby brine and cyclopesse.
I love the idea of making a fake urchin for them to "run" to.
Sweet! I had not had any cyclopeeze on hand until after I stopped rearing babies. I shall try this, thanks for the tip.
There is a couple of great articles about sexing and breeding Bangai cardinals out there. I will try to find the links and post them here for you later today.
IIRC the jaw and the rear dorsal fin are hit and miss indicators of sex (squar jaw, long hind dorsal=male). The author I am thinking of actualy relied on the aggresiveness of the males toward each-other to sex them accurately. Anyway, like I said, I will get you the link.
IIRC the jaw and the rear dorsal fin are hit and miss indicators of sex (squar jaw, long hind dorsal=male). The author I am thinking of actualy relied on the aggresiveness of the males toward each-other to sex them accurately. Anyway, like I said, I will get you the link.
Bangai Cardinalfish Breeding Stuff
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/f_marini_020799.html
http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/Articles/v4_i4_marini/marini.htm
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/f_marini_020799.html
http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/Articles/v4_i4_marini/marini.htm
clownfishking
Clownfish breeder
- Location
- Westchester/ Mt Vernon
Hey fellas do the males eat at all when they are carrying eggs?
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