Bangaii Cardinals Breeding - Behaviors a bit long, sorry..

[Clyde]

Allrite, Got tank raised - paired up cardinals

placed in tank 1.5 inches each - now in the last month and half it has grown another 1/2 inch and its at a nice size about 2 inches each (one is a bit larger than the other)

A bit of info on my tank

58 Gallon Oceanic
2 x 400 W 6500 MH
2 x NO Actnics
SPS's and Clams
3.5 inch DSB - Oolite sand

Lights on
Actnics 8:00 AM to 11 PM
MH 1 PM - 10 PM (increasing till I hit 9 AM as I put up these lights on the 18th of September)
20L Sump
CPR CY192 Skimmer/Sump combo dropped in the 20L
Mag 5 Return - upgrading to larger return soon..

4 Peppermint shrimps, approx 35-40 lbs of rock (not sure if I will add more)

3 fish

2 Bangaii, 1 Yellow Corsis (4 inches or so)


allright, now I feed 2x a day, sometimes 3x due to wrasse's eating habits and it being a pig..

My bangaii is very plump, not obsese

I am noticing one of the cardinals is coming out, the other is staying in its 'cave' all day, wrasse will swim by, and the cardinal will shiver and sorta look like its trying to shoo it away.

When both cardinals are together - it appears they sorta of stay together a bit close, but overall they do not hang together during day, both are at one end of the tank by themselves.

At night, lights out - 2 3 hours later both will come out and look around etc:

the one that does not eat, does not swim as much as it used to do, will fall to substrate then swim back up - then sorta drift with the current, whereas the other one thats eating, etc will go around the tank, shooing a lot of stuff away.

Tank tests comes out good, yes I know I hate that term, but all tets come out at zero, cept nitrates at about 2 to 3, I never can have ZERO nitrates and Iw onder how some people do..

anyway - now I wonder if the 'male' has eggs in mouth how do I go forth and find out ?

What should I go and get to hold these babies ?

I was thinking getting like those breeders that you hang on the tank, drill holes on the side fill it up with culpera and they can go there, go out get an urchin

what kind of urchin should I get ? or should I just make one of those false ones ?

anyway - I know I found a lot of articles on the web, still have some questions

where do i get baby brine shrimp, live, and all those stuff ?

[FMarini]

Hi:
or should i say WOW...thats a lot of questions.
First off I do recommnd you reread all those articles you mentioned, every Q? you asked is right there, especially about getting live food for the baby banggais, growing baby brine shrimp(you buy the eggs from a LFS), should i use a breeder net or a seperate tank, and they go into detail on which ones and whys.same deal w/ real or fake urchins(you don't need either of these things)
http://www.eparc.com/banggai/banggai.shtml
Okay...it does read like you have a pair, althou it could also be two immature females or males. They should be hanging out together almost all the time if paired up and this hiding, other end of the tank stuff suggests to me that you"might" have 2 females, but since you feel one is not eating, this is an indication of either sickness or a gravid male.
Did you notice a change in shape of the jaw on the fish which doesn't eat?
this will be the key point
banggais drift in the water coulmn so this doesn't distrub me, but the dropping to the bottom then swinning up does (again unless your description is that of drifting to the bottom then moving up into the water column).
I guess if i were you i'd wait until i see a large jaw line on the banggai anbd then i would jump into action.
As far as catching the male out of the reef....good luck
I have friends who just leave the animals in the tank, and when the babies are rleased(at night) scopp em up, or if you want the darwinnian approach you can leave them in the tank, and lastly, if you do attempt to catch the male do so later in carrying (around day 18-21). If after you read those articles and have more q? feel free to email
good luck w/ your banggais
frank

[Clyde]

okay, to clarify a few points, I didnt really think what I was typing, I just was kinda throwing it all in..



I doubt its males, as its pretty large in size and both are different.

'change in shape of the jaw'

hmm this is kinda strange, I never really LOOKED

but 1 of em has a HUGE bulldog face type of look and very long jaw compared to the other one.

it dosnt really drop, it swims and drifts in current i have some current that will push stuff downwards to substrate

I am thinking of the darwinnian approach for the time beaing, I dont there is a way that Ic ould catch bangaii cardinals in my rockwork, too many nooks and crannies, net will get stuck too easy, and sps would break and fall.. too much work :)

but at night, both come out together tho, hang around eating stuff from the substrate and around the lower current areas, I dont know why.. it just started.

Thanks for the link - I will go read em over when Ig et home..

[FMarini]

Hi:
yup the bulldog face is the giveaway. Did you see keith clarkes talk at http://www.reefs.org ? His website has all kinds of pictures which identifies males/females, and a carryinbg male.It appears that your male is carrying and hence the change in the shape of the jawline?
so start counting from the first day he refuses food, and 21 days later your a dad. The darwin approach is usually adpoted by those people which extensive reefs, and its really, really hard to extract said fish, but if you read Keith Clarkes articles you'll read he waits til after the fish are released (middle of the nite)then goes baby banggai hunting w/ a net. Seems the babies are quite easy to catch for a few hrs after releases, as they are confused on whats happening, and their surrounding, and acccording to keith, hang out near the glass, away from the rockwork. Now after a day the babies are skilled at the art of hiding, and near impossible to catch
What articles did you read on this subject before you posted...
congrats
frank
PS regardlesss of size, shape of jawline, etc, you'll never be able to sex banggais accurately..so its hard to tell males from females, EXCEPT when the male is carrying

[gas4544]

It is possible to catch an expectant male. I rather easily netted mine out of my 75 gallon reef tank to transfer him and his mouthful to a 10-gallon nursery tank. I had a friend with one net and me with another. We caught him in five minutes about an hour after the lights went out.
If you've gone through the effort of getting a mated pair, and they are indeed expecting, try to move the male to a separate tank at about day 18-21. It will be worth your effort. And I know someone who may be interested in buying your babies.

[Clyde]

Okie - a smallish update.


Male still not eating - but behavior has changed will 'chase' food and stop at last moment and not eat.

Male/Female more closer together - but not like next to each other, but close.

Smallish cave - Male inside in middle - female is outside of the cave - wrasse swims by, the female will sorta shake and sometimes bump the wrasse out, but the wrasse dont care, and goes in the large cave area - male will shiver and try to distract the wrasse.

Starting yesterday the male is huffing more often, the mouth open and closes quickly - but I cannot see inside or the eggs to see if its REALLY carrying eggs. the huffs dont open that big. I havent seen it yawn.

Now, I want to make the brine shrimp how long do they take, I dont want to make and wait wait wait and the Brine Shrimp go bad etc.

yeah, I m doing it 'darwnism' I dont want to stress the fish by chasing it down and transfer it.

I'm hitting the LFS today to get some stuff (food etc)

maybe make a false urchin to place in tank ready - and make a larger refiugum as the one I have currently is too small.

looking forward to the day the cardinal eats :)

sucks seeing it not eat for over 2 weeks now.

[Lstrongheart]

well guys,looks like i may have finally managed to get
a breeding pair of cardinals,i presentl have 3 cardinals
of which two have paired off, and been staying together
while the third stayed off by itself. well yesterday I
caught out of the corner of my eye,the male injest a white,mass expelled by what im now sure is a female.she
suddenly appeared to be much thinner in the body, and hes
now,showing the classic bulldog look to the face,with the
mouth distended open ,and has stopped eating, the two now
appear to be unsepreable.ill keep you posted as they progress .

[Clyde]

the saga is over

10 babies in total 48 hours has passed - all alive.

saw the bangaii's mating again last night *shakes head*

i wonder when its past the 'hope for the best' stage will be a week ? 48 hours 72 hours ?

[Wolverine]

gas4544, the possibility of catching a male bangaii depends a lot on the setup of the tank, and where his favorite places are. With our tank, there's no way we can catch the male without completely tearing apart the aquascape, which is something I'm not willing to do.

Clyde, the first time our bangaii released fry, we took the approach of catching the fry and trying to raise them. With our schedules, we realized that we couldn't really give them the care they needed. Since then we've decided to take the Darwinian approach. For the next several batches, we would see the fry for a day or two (never more than 48 hours), then there would be no sign. But then about a month ago some large fry suddenly appeared in our tank. The ones we have are clearly several months old, and they were able to survive on their own without being noticed for all that time, and now they're out in the open with all the others. The last batch we saw some for about a week. Hopefully some of these will show up in a few months.

Frank (and others),
Here are something I'm curious about. For the last batch of fry, our bangaii released them in the middle of the day. We know this because my wife and I were watching the tank before we went to lunch, and the male had a mouthful of fry. When we came back from lunch (around 2), his mouth was empty, and the fry were all over the tank. How common is this (since I've always heard of them releasing at night)?

Just curious,
Dave

[FMarini]

Wolverine:
i have never had fish release during the day, but it wouldn't surprise me. I would suggest it all depends on how safe the male feels in releaseing the fry. In most peoples tank there is alot of activity durin the day w/ all the fish foraging, swimming and as such -the males wait until its or they feel safe -Under the cover of darkness so to speak. I see no real advantage of doing this is the fish feel safe in your tank. So while this is probably a unique thing, it doesn't sound too werid. The alternative of course is that something scared the snot out of him, and he released the fry as he tried to escape.