Jeremy165
Community Member
8 days ago I bought 2 small aquacultured Banggai cardinals at my LFS. I acclimated them to my QT water, then did the green and blue safety stop, then put them in my QT. My LFS does a 2 week quarantine before selling fish and they dose copper. I do observation-only quarantine for 2 weeks after that.
In QT, both were eating mysis shrimp and looked great. I tried to sex them by looking at vents or a squared-off jaw but they’re pretty small and I really have no idea.
A few days ago, the larger one started being aggressive towards the smaller one. The smaller one started hiding in small spaces like between the heater and glass… This morning it looked really bad, in the corner near the surface gasping for air and a few fins are obviously shorter. It really looked like he wasn’t going to last another day. I debated if it looked like this due to disease or bullying. I decided it was the bullying.
This afternoon I decided to move the larger cardinal into my DT, even though it had only been in QT for 8 days, while I normally quarantine for 2 weeks. Now in my DT the bigger one looks super happy. In my QT the smaller one also seems to be doing much better.
I plan on keeping the smaller cardinal in QT until he gets healthy again but then I don’t know what to do after. My QT is 10 gallons, while my DT is 125 gallons. If I put both cardinals in my DT, do you think the larger cardinal will go back to bullying, or do you think in the much larger tank size it will stop? Otherwise should I give the small one back to my LFS and try a different Banggai cardinal, maybe one a little bigger? I’d rather have between 2 and 5 cardinals as opposed to just 1. But I know there are issues with the most aggressive one killing off the others. Thanks for the advice!
In QT, both were eating mysis shrimp and looked great. I tried to sex them by looking at vents or a squared-off jaw but they’re pretty small and I really have no idea.
A few days ago, the larger one started being aggressive towards the smaller one. The smaller one started hiding in small spaces like between the heater and glass… This morning it looked really bad, in the corner near the surface gasping for air and a few fins are obviously shorter. It really looked like he wasn’t going to last another day. I debated if it looked like this due to disease or bullying. I decided it was the bullying.
This afternoon I decided to move the larger cardinal into my DT, even though it had only been in QT for 8 days, while I normally quarantine for 2 weeks. Now in my DT the bigger one looks super happy. In my QT the smaller one also seems to be doing much better.
I plan on keeping the smaller cardinal in QT until he gets healthy again but then I don’t know what to do after. My QT is 10 gallons, while my DT is 125 gallons. If I put both cardinals in my DT, do you think the larger cardinal will go back to bullying, or do you think in the much larger tank size it will stop? Otherwise should I give the small one back to my LFS and try a different Banggai cardinal, maybe one a little bigger? I’d rather have between 2 and 5 cardinals as opposed to just 1. But I know there are issues with the most aggressive one killing off the others. Thanks for the advice!
