CB Bangaii Cardinal Behavior

OracleOCA · #1 10/07/2005, 02:16 PM

These are my first fish in my reef tank since they are less aggressive then ocellaris clowns; I plan on getting two CB clowns in a month or two and that will be all of the fish I get for my 40g.

I purchased three captive-bred Bangaii cardinals from ORA via Petco two days ago. I picked them up as soon as they were dropped off at the store so they only needed to be acclimated into my tank ( I acclimated them for nearly six hours just to be safe using the drip method). They appear to be eating frozen mysis although I really only saw the two of the three eat. It is hard to tell them apart and they are about the size of a nickel. According to ORA, they are approximately six months old. They seem to stay in the botom corner during the day but are all over the place when the lights go off. There are two that are starting to hang out together in a cave and the other and by himself. There is no aggression of any sort between them so I am assuming there is one male and two females??? They also make this thumping/clicking sound between them. What is going on with them? I cannot seem to find any detailed information on these lovely cardinals. If there is a book, please inform me so I can read more about them.

Thank you

Janie

Atticus · #2 10/08/2005, 12:27 PM

Sounds like you have an established pair. Take care and remove the third wheel before things go south. Even if they tolerate each other for years it all could change over night and you could end up with a dead cardinal. Speaking from experiance there. The poping noise is normal and usually heard as a warning to other fish or even to another cardinal.

cwbroden · #3 10/09/2005, 05:20 PM

Good luck with them. Just curious as to which store had them. I am also in MD and been looking for an ORA pair of CB Bangaii Cardinal. (The wild ones just don't live.)

Chris

OracleOCA · #4 10/09/2005, 05:48 PM

Hi Chris,

I went to my local Petco in Gaithersburg and told them I was interested in purchasing captive bred fish from ORA. They can order any fish plus clams from ORA, no corals though. The manager called me the next day and said he had four ORA CB Bangaii cardinals. He kept them in the shipping bag for me until I was able to make it to the store within the hour. One of them looked very bad probably due to the shipping stress. I purchased three ($19.99 each) of them and he gave me the sick one who eventually died during the acclimation. I have had them for five days and they are doing great. In a month, I will be ordering some saddleback clowns from them too.

Two of the cardinals are doing this weird vertical dance in the corner of the tank as soon as they eat and the lights are off. The third cardinal is behind them watching. They are very active after the dusk lights are out. I have not really seen any pairing up yet. The male is probably still deciding who he wants.

cwbroden · #5 10/09/2005, 10:17 PM

Thanks for the info. I'll check the Petco up here near me. Maybe they can order them also. I'd love to get my hands on some to do some breeding.

Chris

dt34 · #6 10/11/2005, 02:07 PM

I have had bad luck keeping wild Bangaii, 0/4 so far. They all lasted about 1.5 weeks in my qt tank. After reading this thread I thought I would go to my local Petco and ask them to call me when they got some in so I could nab them b4 they went in their system. Well it must be my lucky day cause when I got there they had a bag of 4 floating in one of their tanks. I took 3 of the 4, one was in pretty bad shape and looked like it was going to die soon. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for the tip hopefully these will live.

cwbroden · #7 10/11/2005, 07:15 PM

I have had the same with wild caught. Have bought several over the past 2 years, but none live more than a few weeks. All have internal parasites.

Update when you can on the ones you purchased DT34. Hope they make it.

Chris

dt34 · #8 10/12/2005, 03:13 PM

Here are a couple of pics that I took today. 2 have moved to one side of the tank and one is by him/herself at the other end of the tank. My tank is 6' not sure if that is big enough for all of them to get along. If not I will take the oddball out and but him in another tank.

Pair swimming around

Lone wolf =/

Cardinals w/ my clown pair and cleaner shrimp pair

OracleOCA · #9 10/14/2005, 06:41 AM

Hi dt34,

What are you feeding your cardinals and are you just feeding them once a day?

dt34 · #10 10/14/2005, 08:33 AM

I usually feed once a day, sometimes I skip a day here or there. I feed the tank homemade fish food soaked in garlic, formula 1 pellets, flake and sometime some cyclopeez. The cardinals eat everything except the formula 1 pellets. The wild cardinals I have gotten in the past seemed to be much more picky than these ORA cardinals.