Breeding Banggai Cardinals

Kjmsmith

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
Fonthill
So being brand new to this forum, I thought I would contribute by sharing my recent experiences breeding banggai cardinals (sorry for the spelling mistake in the thread header). I did post this in another reef forum I was visiting but I think I'll start hanging out here and so thought I would share:

Originally posted July 24, 2016
I didn't start out trying to breed Banngai Cardinals but as luck would have it, the pair I bought a year ago are a match. After the first time I saw the textbook bulldog look of the male with eggs in his mouth, I started reading all I could about these marvellous fish. So I have just had my first somewhat successful birth and wanted to briefly share my experience and hopefully help others. Briefly, my set up is a 90g reef about 5 years old. Along with a mix of corals I have a couple of percula hosting in a large BTA, six line wrasse, yellow tail damsel, Mandarinfish, fox face and of course the 2 Banngai. I don't have a sump (I know, I know) so use an Octopus BH-1000, Fluval FX5 and have 2 48" Marineland Reef LED's. Biweekly water changes of 10g keep my parameters in check.
Now for the fry. I had 2 occasions where the male had eggs but only carried them to about day 15 and either swallowed them or spit them. During this time it gave me an opportunity to consider my options should he carry to term. I knew if he spit them out in the tank they would not survive so I knew I would have to somehow collect the fry or catch the male in advance. I don't have an urchin as is recommended as a natural haven for the fry to go to when born for protection so I made a fake one out of a long narrow spiral shell apx 3" and attached about 20 small nylon zip ties. I was thinking of placing the fake urchin in a plastic breeding container and placing it in the bottom of my tank. The thinking was that if the fry made it to the fake urchin I could lift the whole container out of the tank with the fry inside. My other option was to try to catch the male and keep him in a breeding net until he spit out the fry.
Well on June 18 the male stopped eating again and this time he carried past the 15 day mark. While I was excited the timing couldn't have been worse as we were heading out on a family vacation in the coming week and had a friend house sitting and therefore watching the fish.
As it got closer to both the birth (I figured around Day 23 and our leaving for vacation on what would be Day 25) I decided I would try to catch the male. On Day 20 I successfully caught him and he didn't spit the eggs/fry, whew.
So the other complication I had been thinking about was how to feed the fry the artemia. Obviously with the fish sitter I had to think of something easy. So here's what I did. I found this great contraption which I'm sure most of you have heard of; Tom's Hatch n Feed. I bought one of these and I cut a small hole in the breeding net just big enough to slip the end of the Htach n Feed where the brine shrimp swim out into the area where the fry would be once released. I started making artemia on Day 20 after I had caught the male to make sure everything was working as planned.
With this figured out, on Day 23 the male still had not spit the fry and on the morning of Day 24 still no babies. Stressing about leaving on vacation for 9 days and maybe stressing the male out too much I decide to "induce" labor. I had seen this done in an online post; basically I just lifted the breeding net out of the water very briefly ie less than 1 sec and then as I put the net back the water out came 8 fry!
To make a long story short (I'm trying), I think the male still had more in his mouth but for fear of stressing him out I let him go back into the main tank. The 8 fry were very young looking and within an hour 2 had died. Six survived a few hours but by night we could only find 5 alive. I had put my fake urchin in the breeding net and they all took to it immediately and schooled together but perhaps one or two went into the shell and died in there. Five survived the first night and with instructions given to our fish sitter on how to add eggs to the a Hatch n Feed every 12 hours, off we went on vacation. On Day 2 of the fry being released our fish sitter reported only being able to see 3 of them. I assured her not to stress and that likely they would all die through no fault of hers, just bad timing.
Well, here we are home from 9 days away and on Day 11 of their life the 3 remaining look healthy and strong. Obviously the Hatch n Feed idea is working well. The net needed to be cleaned so I was able to catch the 3 fry and move them to another breeding container while I cleaned the net. So, fingers crossed they live on and guess I will have to prepare for another clutch soon as the pair seem to be very active breeders. I will raise them as best I can and hope to get them to my LFS or any local peeps who might want some tank raised Banggai's.
Hopefully this post will help someone else. I'm quite proud of the Hatch n Feed setup as this eliminates the need for all the pop bottles etc. I'll see if I can post some pics to this thread to show you the setup.
Happy reefing!

Here is a pic of my original setup:
IMG_0158.JPG


Update originally posted Aug 10, 2016:

Not sure if anyone is actively following this thread or not but I am on Day 29 and all 3 of the babies are doing very well. The Hatch n Feed has been a great set up and I haven't had to gut load the bbs at all since they swim out as soon as they are born. The fry look to have full stomachs and look healthy. I am now starting the challenge of switching to frozen food. I am trying frozen bbs and some frozen cyclops fed with a small dropper to control how much I give them. I take off the cap with the small holes in it on the end of the hatchery that the bbs swim out of and replace it with the cap off a small water bottle which fits nicely. This stops the bbs from swimming out and the fry get a little hungry. I am on day 3 of this attempt to convert and while I am making the fish develop a bit of an appetite so far they are not eating it. I am eventually taking the cap off of the hatchery for an hour or two after attempting to feed so that they do actually eat something and not starve or over stress but I'll increase the length without live food in the coming days. Hopefully they will convert soon as the male has another mouthful of eggs, on Day 4 with this clutch so I'll need to be making room. Any tips on converting the fry, happy to hear your input.

Update originally posted Sept 6,2016:

So I haven't updated this in a while as I was waiting for a milestone to comment on and unfortunately it happened in the last 24 hours. Yes, I say unfortunately but let me start with the good news. The 3 fry who were the subject of this original post are all doing well and are 8 weeks old today. I recently set up a 10 gallon nursery tank which circulates with my DT using an overflow box as my tank isn't drilled. I moved the fry into this tank and they now have lots of room to swim. They are off the live BBS and will take a mix of frozen BBS, cyclops and mysis but not as aggressively as they did with the live food. I'm feeding 3 times a day and I'm hoping they are getting enough as they sometimes ignore it or take a hunk of mysis but spit it out again. I'm watching them closely.

Now for the bad news. In my last post I mentioned the male was holding eggs again. At Day 20 I caught him and moved him to the in-tank breeding net just like I did the first time. Not going away on any vacations this time I wanted him to release the fish on his own accord. On Day 22 I found a small undeveloped fry in the bottom of the net. The males mouth was still full. On Day 27 the first baby emerged and was healthy and swimming but no more babies emerged until Day 29 when another one was released. The males mouth was still full and on Day 30 (yesterday) he released 2 more in the morning and by mid afternoon another 3 were released for a total of 7. The males mouth was still enlarged and I suspected he would release the rest overnight so the lights went out and I went to bed. Well, he must have released the rest but then he ate them all! When I checked on them first thing this morning at 6:30 the male was all by himself in the net and his mouth was back to normal but not a fry in sight! There are no holes in the net except for where the Hatchery inserts and so there is no way they escaped.

I knew that 31 days was a long time for him to be holding and maybe with it being his first batch he released naturally he was overcome with hunger but nonetheless it was all for not. To add insult to injury, yesterday afternoon my wrasse managed to jump between a small opening in my canopy screen which I had propped open so I could peer in on the babies. I didn't find him until after a couple of hours of being out of the tank. So definitely not the best 24 hours of my reef keeping life, actually pretty **** depressing and I feel horrible for letting these 2 incidents happen. If I'm fortunate enough to have the pair breed again, I think I'll do the same but I will catch and relocate the fry as they are born while he finishes releasing the rest and if by day 28 all the fry haven't been released I'll induce the release.

I hope others might take away something from my experience with this just as I have learned a whole bunch from a network of great people on forums like this.
Happy reef keeping everyone...time to go buy a new six line....
 
Last edited:

nathan

Super Active Member
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Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Location
sarnia
So being brand new to this forum, I thought I would contribute by sharing my recent experiences breeding benggai cardinals. I did post this in another reef forum I was visiting but I think I'll start hanging out here and so thought I would share:

Originally posted July 24, 2016
I didn't start out trying to breed Banngai Cardinals but as luck would have it, the pair I bought a year ago are a match. After the first time I saw the textbook bulldog look of the male with eggs in his mouth, I started reading all I could about these marvellous fish. So I have just had my first somewhat successful birth and wanted to briefly share my experience and hopefully help others. Briefly, my set up is a 90g reef about 5 years old. Along with a mix of corals I have a couple of percula hosting in a large BTA, six line wrasse, yellow tail damsel, Mandarinfish, fox face and of course the 2 Banngai. I don't have a sump (I know, I know) so use an Octopus BH-1000, Fluval FX5 and have 2 48" Marineland Reef LED's. Biweekly water changes of 10g keep my parameters in check.
Now for the fry. I had 2 occasions where the male had eggs but only carried them to about day 15 and either swallowed them or spit them. During this time it gave me an opportunity to consider my options should he carry to term. I knew if he spit them out in the tank they would not survive so I knew I would have to somehow collect the fry or catch the male in advance. I don't have an urchin as is recommended as a natural haven for the fry to go to when born for protection so I made a fake one out of a long narrow spiral shell apx 3" and attached about 20 small nylon zip ties. I was thinking of placing the fake urchin in a plastic breeding container and placing it in the bottom of my tank. The thinking was that if the fry made it to the fake urchin I could lift the whole container out of the tank with the fry inside. My other option was to try to catch the male and keep him in a breeding net until he spit out the fry.
Well on June 18 the male stopped eating again and this time he carried past the 15 day mark. While I was excited the timing couldn't have been worse as we were heading out on a family vacation in the coming week and had a friend house sitting and therefore watching the fish.
As it got closer to both the birth (I figured around Day 23 and our leaving for vacation on what would be Day 25) I decided I would try to catch the male. On Day 20 I successfully caught him and he didn't spit the eggs/fry, whew.
So the other complication I had been thinking about was how to feed the fry the artemia. Obviously with the fish sitter I had to think of something easy. So here's what I did. I found this great contraption which I'm sure most of you have heard of; Tom's Hatch n Feed. I bought one of these and I cut a small hole in the breeding net just big enough to slip the end of the Htach n Feed where the brine shrimp swim out into the area where the fry would be once released. I started making artemia on Day 20 after I had caught the male to make sure everything was working as planned.
With this figured out, on Day 23 the male still had not spit the fry and on the morning of Day 24 still no babies. Stressing about leaving on vacation for 9 days and maybe stressing the male out too much I decide to "induce" labor. I had seen this done in an online post; basically I just lifted the breeding net out of the water very briefly ie less than 1 sec and then as I put the net back the water out came 8 fry!
To make a long story short (I'm trying), I think the male still had more in his mouth but for fear of stressing him out I let him go back into the main tank. The 8 fry were very young looking and within an hour 2 had died. Six survived a few hours but by night we could only find 5 alive. I had put my fake urchin in the breeding net and they all took to it immediately and schooled together but perhaps one or two went into the shell and died in there. Five survived the first night and with instructions given to our fish sitter on how to add eggs to the a Hatch n Feed every 12 hours, off we went on vacation. On Day 2 of the fry being released our fish sitter reported only being able to see 3 of them. I assured her not to stress and that likely they would all die through no fault of hers, just bad timing.
Well, here we are home from 9 days away and on Day 11 of their life the 3 remaining look healthy and strong. Obviously the Hatch n Feed idea is working well. The net needed to be cleaned so I was able to catch the 3 fry and move them to another breeding container while I cleaned the net. So, fingers crossed they live on and guess I will have to prepare for another clutch soon as the pair seem to be very active breeders. I will raise them as best I can and hope to get them to my LFS or any local peeps who might want some tank raised Banggai's.
Hopefully this post will help someone else. I'm quite proud of the Hatch n Feed setup as this eliminates the need for all the pop bottles etc. I'll see if I can post some pics to this thread to show you the setup.
Happy reefing!

Here is a pic of my original setup:
View attachment 10430

Update originally posted Aug 10, 2016:

Not sure if anyone is actively following this thread or not but I am on Day 29 and all 3 of the babies are doing very well. The Hatch n Feed has been a great set up and I haven't had to gut load the bbs at all since they swim out as soon as they are born. The fry look to have full stomachs and look healthy. I am now starting the challenge of switching to frozen food. I am trying frozen bbs and some frozen cyclops fed with a small dropper to control how much I give them. I take off the cap with the small holes in it on the end of the hatchery that the bbs swim out of and replace it with the cap off a small water bottle which fits nicely. This stops the bbs from swimming out and the fry get a little hungry. I am on day 3 of this attempt to convert and while I am making the fish develop a bit of an appetite so far they are not eating it. I am eventually taking the cap off of the hatchery for an hour or two after attempting to feed so that they do actually eat something and not starve or over stress but I'll increase the length without live food in the coming days. Hopefully they will convert soon as the male has another mouthful of eggs, on Day 4 with this clutch so I'll need to be making room. Any tips on converting the fry, happy to hear your input.

Update originally posted Sept 6,2016:

So I haven't updated this in a while as I was waiting for a milestone to comment on and unfortunately it happened in the last 24 hours. Yes, I say unfortunately but let me start with the good news. The 3 fry who were the subject of this original post are all doing well and are 8 weeks old today. I recently set up a 10 gallon nursery tank which circulates with my DT using an overflow box as my tank isn't drilled. I moved the fry into this tank and they now have lots of room to swim. They are off the live BBS and will take a mix of frozen BBS, cyclops and mysis but not as aggressively as they did with the live food. I'm feeding 3 times a day and I'm hoping they are getting enough as they sometimes ignore it or take a hunk of mysis but spit it out again. I'm watching them closely.

Now for the bad news. In my last post I mentioned the male was holding eggs again. At Day 20 I caught him and moved him to the in-tank breeding net just like I did the first time. Not going away on any vacations this time I wanted him to release the fish on his own accord. On Day 22 I found a small undeveloped fry in the bottom of the net. The males mouth was still full. On Day 27 the first baby emerged and was healthy and swimming but no more babies emerged until Day 29 when another one was released. The males mouth was still full and on Day 30 (yesterday) he released 2 more in the morning and by mid afternoon another 3 were released for a total of 7. The males mouth was still enlarged and I suspected he would release the rest overnight so the lights went out and I went to bed. Well, he must have released the rest but then he ate them all! When I checked on them first thing this morning at 6:30 the male was all by himself in the net and his mouth was back to normal but not a fry in sight! There are no holes in the net except for where the Hatchery inserts and so there is no way they escaped.

I knew that 31 days was a long time for him to be holding and maybe with it being his first batch he released naturally he was overcome with hunger but nonetheless it was all for not. To add insult to injury, yesterday afternoon my wrasse managed to jump between a small opening in my canopy screen which I had propped open so I could peer in on the babies. I didn't find him until after a couple of hours of being out of the tank. So definitely not the best 24 hours of my reef keeping life, actually pretty **** depressing and I feel horrible for letting these 2 incidents happen. If I'm fortunate enough to have the pair breed again, I think I'll do the same but I will catch and relocate the fry as they are born while he finishes releasing the rest and if by day 28 all the fry haven't been released I'll induce the release.

I hope others might take away something from my experience with this just as I have learned a whole bunch from a network of great people on forums like this.
Happy reef keeping everyone...time to go buy a new six line....
I'm just reading for the first time. .. very interesting story. Thanks for sharing
 

Kjmsmith

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
Fonthill
So as an update to these earlier posts and transition to TheFragTank, I am happy to report that I have had another clutch in which I have 7 fry. Since the original setup I have switched to a 10g nursery tank that is attached to the main tank using an overflow box. This is where the male lets the fry go and I collect them in a breeder box until he finishes letting them all go (so he doesn't eat them like my previous experience) and I release him back into the main tank. I then let the fry into the sectioned off 10g. Of the 3 original fry, I had 2 die at around Day 60. I have no explanation why they died other than they stopped eating. Perhaps there was a dominance issue? I had succesfully transitioned them to frozen mysis so there was food available for them. So I have one left that is now 3.5 months old and he is kept separate from the 7 new fry who are now 13 days old.
I'll update this post and the growth of the fry and any new births if anyone finds it of interest. I will also be looking to sell these to anyone interested in tank-bred banggais.

Here is a pic of my current setup. The Hatch n Feed sits in the 10g and provides continuous supply of artemia. There is a tank divider that keeps the older bangggai separate from the fry. You can see the bigger one in the background.

RenderedContent-4772A180-3374-464E-86C9-20DFB039A094.JPG
 

Dingets

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Joined
Oct 10, 2016
Location
Niagara
Great work! I loved the whole making your own Urchin thing. Best of luck. I will be purchasing a few from you when you're ready.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Kjmsmith

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
Fonthill
This is amazing! It almost makes me want to get on this... How can you tell that they're a mated pair?

For me it was pure luck and not intentional. To be honest I just picked two without even thinking about trying for a mating pair. I knew they were mouth brooders but it wasn't until the first time I noticed one of them not eating and his jaw looking full that my full research began. Since then I have been trying to learn as much as I can about these awesome fish including how to identify their gender. The best info I have found is by looking at the vents on the underside. Here is a great article on it http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/how-to-determine-the-sex-of-banggai-cardinalfish although I can tell you I still find this very difficult even with the pair that I know are male and female.
You can also try to tell by pairing them together to see the reaction. As I understand it, males will be aggressive to each other while females may be indifferent (sounds familiar doesn't it :)). But a male paired with a female will stay very close to each other. Anyway, I am certainly no expert and maybe someone more knowledgable will chime in, this is just my learning and experience with this unintended form of this great hobby!
 

Kjmsmith

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
Fonthill
Well it looks like I need to make more room as the male is holding another clutch of eggs! The 7 fry are all doing very well and I am trying to ween them off the live bbs and onto frozen. The original fish that is now over 4 months old is also doing fine and reluctantly I have decided I have to part with it to make room for the future fry. I have just posted it for sale in the classified section and without sounding too crazy (probably too late for that I know) I am really hoping this fish goes to a good home that can care for it properly. I believe most, if not everyone here at TFT, fits that category so that's why I'm not just taking him to the lfs to trade it in and looking for a responsible reefer here.
Anyway, I'll keep this thread going if there's any interest as to how the 7 young ones progress and anything I learn from this next batch.
 

nathan

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Mar 27, 2016
Location
sarnia
I'm interested in hearing about your experience as it will apply to most fish breeding .
 

Kjmsmith

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
Fonthill
Hi again to anyone following this thread, so back in November in my last post i mentioned the male was holding eggs again. I made it to Day 21 and caught him and put him in the nursry tank and the next day his mouth was back to normal, he was eating and there were no fry to be seen. Ugh, he ate them again.
The other 7 fry that were born in October continued to grow except for one who always looked a little underdeveloped. He swims with a jerking motion and always seeems to need to do this to keep from sinking. Maybe a fish bladder issue? I decided to separate him to make sure he gets food and give him the best chance of survival. i don't t think he will ever be able to be rehoused so I think I am going to keep him in my nursery to see how he makes out. As for the other 6, they were all doing really well and converting to frozen. I think while making them hungry during the ween from live food to frozen food they started picking on one of the weaker ones and I came home one day to find him beat up and he eventually died. So with the 5 remaining, they made the full transition to frozen mysis and are doing well. This has been for 2 weeks now and i think they will be ready to go to new homes in another 2 weeks. I have posted an ad in the Livestock section for anyone interested.
The breeding pair in my dt continue to produce. The male is holding another batch right now and today is Day 19 of him holding them and not eating. I plan to catch him on Day 21 and put him in the breeder, hoping he doesn't swallow/eat them again this time.
I'll be sure to update here what happens.
 

Nonuser

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Mar 17, 2015
Location
Brantford
Hi again to anyone following this thread, so back in November in my last post i mentioned the male was holding eggs again. I made it to Day 21 and caught him and put him in the nursry tank and the next day his mouth was back to normal, he was eating and there were no fry to be seen. Ugh, he ate them again.
The other 7 fry that were born in October continued to grow except for one who always looked a little underdeveloped. He swims with a jerking motion and always seeems to need to do this to keep from sinking. Maybe a fish bladder issue? I decided to separate him to make sure he gets food and give him the best chance of survival. i don't t think he will ever be able to be rehoused so I think I am going to keep him in my nursery to see how he makes out. As for the other 6, they were all doing really well and converting to frozen. I think while making them hungry during the ween from live food to frozen food they started picking on one of the weaker ones and I came home one day to find him beat up and he eventually died. So with the 5 remaining, they made the full transition to frozen mysis and are doing well. This has been for 2 weeks now and i think they will be ready to go to new homes in another 2 weeks. I have posted an ad in the Livestock section for anyone interested.
The breeding pair in my dt continue to produce. The male is holding another batch right now and today is Day 19 of him holding them and not eating. I plan to catch him on Day 21 and put him in the breeder, hoping he doesn't swallow/eat them again this time.
I'll be sure to update here what happens.
Have you tried stripping the male?
With freshwater mouth brooders you catch the male and hold him over or in the fry tank and with a toothpick or your free hand just open his mouth and swish him back and forth gentle he should release the fry and then you return him to the main tank

 

nathan

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Have you tried stripping the male?
With freshwater mouth brooders you catch the male and hold him over or in the fry tank and with a toothpick or your free hand just open his mouth and swish him back and forth gentle he should release the fry and then you return him to the main tank

Thanks for sharing that video... gives all of us a chance to learn something new.... very cool
 

Kjmsmith

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Location
Fonthill
Have you tried stripping the male?
With freshwater mouth brooders you catch the male and hold him over or in the fry tank and with a toothpick or your free hand just open his mouth and swish him back and forth gentle he should release the fry and then you return him to the main tank

Thanks for sharing and yes I am aware of this process. I haven't considered trying this so far as I prefer the natural way, although I have tried the quick dip method (out of water for a brief second then back in) as mentioned in earlier posts with mixed results. Maybe if I was an intentional breeder doing it as a business I would give it a go but for just a hobbiest it just seems very stressful on the fish (and me) with too much at risk to go wrong.
 

Nonuser

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Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Location
Brantford
Thanks for sharing that video... gives all of us a chance to learn something new.... very cool
No problem, freshwater breeding I did this often. The males can feel threatened and eat the fry. If they are released in the community tank, they become a snack. Some people would put the male in the fry tank with something for cover like moss so the released fry can hide. But stripping is easy pisi
 

heath

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Oct 2, 2012
Location
Woodstock, Ontario
Have you tried stripping the male?
With freshwater mouth brooders you catch the male and hold him over or in the fry tank and with a toothpick or your free hand just open his mouth and swish him back and forth gentle he should release the fry and then you return him to the main tank


curious WHY would you do that....
 

Nonuser

Distinguished Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2015
Location
Brantford
curious WHY would you do that....
obtain more fry from male, have fry in separate tank. Some people will strip way to early and then tumble the eggs to get them to hatch. It's not new breeders have been doing it for over 40 years.
 
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