My first experience with breeding the Banggai Cardinalfish in my home tank.

Erick Camargo

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I would like to share with you guys, my first experience in breeding cardinal Banggais in my home tank.

I have had a cardinal banggai (female) for over 4 years and I had never managed to get him a pair. Because it is difficult to identify the sex of those who are younger and here in my city it is not so common to find a cardinal banggai with adult size so that it is possible to identify the sex. I was only able to identify sex clearly after his second year of life. Well, I saw a friend selling a cardinal banggai with about 3 years of life and decided to go to his house to see to try to identify the sex, because he was not able to make good pictures. It really wasn't as visible as I could see it on my fish, but I decided to take a chance.

The female accepted the new colleague very well, but I saw some fighting at night in the aquarium. However, after 1 month together ... I could see the long-awaited, mating dance that the female does.

I was sure it was a couple of banggais.

After 3 months together, eating together and sleeping on top of a Long Tentacles anemone that I had, I realized that the mouth of one of them was much bigger than the other banggai. I decided to take my camera and try to take some photos with higher resolution.

I was very happy with what I saw:

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extra pic ;)
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Then I notice the male eat some food that I offered to the other fishes in the tank after 15 days from these pics that I took.
Sad history, the eggs was eaten by male.

I bought a book just to make sure I have all basic information that I saw on the internet from expert breeders.
51Wr7ZOOMjL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


Yes, I had it.

So, I just wait for another lucky night to see male carrying more eggs.

BINGO!
After 2 weeks (I guess) I could see the same movie again: The eggs on male's mouth!

I started to feed the other fish with less quantity to avoid that the male could feel like eating and ended up eating the roe again.

After 20 days I noticed that the male's colouring was more opaque (lighter) and I was sitting there in front of the aquarium looking at the animals when I noticed that there were 3 baby banggais swimming close to my carpet anemone, (see the video):



I ran to be able to capture them and take them to a safer area, a box of nets to protect them.



So,
I started looking for more survivors ... hahaha
I found another single banggai swimming in the middle of the euphyllias.
And that was it ...
Only 4 babies Banggais were found.

I noticed that there were more chicks in the male's mouth and they were very agitated inside his mouth ... I ran to the fridge to get mullet roe to try to feed them (thanks Michel Deniz for the roe) ... And I already got my kit hatching brine shrimp and put it to work in order to obtain nauplii of brine shrimp as soon as possible.

Brine Shrimp Hatching kit (from AliExpress lol)
GHYAyyg.jpg


I researched some techniques to make the puppies less stressed, after all, they would be in the box without any shelter / hiding place.
I found a really cool post here by colleague @35ppt (thanks pal) he shows his fake sea urchins made of epoxy and zip tie clippings.

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Than I tried to build my own fake sea urchin:
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This is the last update from Banggais babies (today - few minutes ago).


I will get it another alternative of food to them this evening from 3D fish (Brazil) - Phytoplankton to feed the brine shrimps and Rotifers for the babies banggais.

Thanks @MarceloVaz for all support and products you provided.

EVNGbIk.jpg


For now: That's it

So far so good.
Hope get back to this topic with more good news.
I'm really excited to see these little banggais growing.



.
 

Peace River

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Congratulations! I'm cheering for you on this adventure!!!
 
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Erick Camargo

Erick Camargo

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Hey guys,
Unfortunately one banggai died. I have no idea what happened with that, but the bigger one.
The others 4 are eating 3 times per day and just brine shrimp. Already tried to feed using Frenzy Coral 0.5mm food, but they just ignore, just accepting live brine shrimp.

here is a video made before the loss.

Trying to relax, I painted a canvas in neon paint... it’s almost the same one that I saw in the internet, but I changed some details...
 

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Lovelydrew

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Congrats. I will be following. I think this is a pretty good resource so far. Mine just started breeding and I think this will be the 3rd time. I haven't taken the time to catch any of the fry, but I noticed my male's mouth open and him not really eating. I'm thinking about setting up another tank just for them, but I'm not sure if I have the time :(
 
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Erick Camargo

Erick Camargo

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Congrats. I will be following. I think this is a pretty good resource so far. Mine just started breeding and I think this will be the 3rd time. I haven't taken the time to catch any of the fry, but I noticed my male's mouth open and him not really eating. I'm thinking about setting up another tank just for them, but I'm not sure if I have the time :(

I don't think this is really important or necessary thou...
Maybe a fish breeder box like the same one that I have in my tank can help.

But, I would not move banggais from the main tank to the fish breeder box...
If you saw male's mouth with eggs, wait 19 days and try to see (I use a zoom camera) if the fry already hatched. And check every day... then, close to 21 days, wait for lights off and try to get the male and put in breeder box. It's possible the male just spit the fry. And prepare a brine shrimp reactor to feed the fry in the second day.


I will try to make a movie tomorrow feeding my little banggais.. they are growing super fast. I'm really excited with that.

Cya!
 

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Congrats! I am looking forward to seeing your progress on them :). The babies are adorable and I also liked the fake urchin idea!
 
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Erick Camargo

Erick Camargo

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Hey Guys...

Unfortunately 3 of 5 of them gone... But I could save 2 of them and now they are younger.. hahaha
Still eating brine shrimps (my corals said thanks) and already tried some food pallets without success, they catchup and then spit it out in the same time. I'm still looking for a method to banggais kids accept food pallets.

I'll try to take some pictures and post here soon!

cya!
 

Willis19

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Hey Guys...

Unfortunately 3 of 5 of them gone... But I could save 2 of them and now they are younger.. hahaha
Still eating brine shrimps (my corals said thanks) and already tried some food pallets without success, they catchup and then spit it out in the same time. I'm still looking for a method to banggais kids accept food pallets.

I'll try to take some pictures and post here soon!

cya!
have you tried flakes? just make them tiny with your fingers
 

RobB'z Reef

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this is pretty cool.. i have three bangies in my tank. I really should learn how to identify the sexes... they are only about a year old at this point tho.
 
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Erick Camargo

Erick Camargo

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this is pretty cool.. i have three bangies in my tank. I really should learn how to identify the sexes... they are only about a year old at this point tho.
This is the Male (2 vents)
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The female has just one vents.
 

DaJMasta

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I've been raising a few batches of banggais, and one thing I've noticed more recently is that the fry can basically eat as often as you can feed them - 2 or 3 times a day is no problem, they will gobble it up. They are initially most enticed by live food (copepods, brine shrimp), but they will accept some prepared food pretty early too. For small sized pellets, agitating them a little (putting them in some flow) seems to make them more interested, but pellets can be a bit hit or miss. My best success aside from live food has been frozen food - they will eat most things, but the favorite has been LRS reef frenzy nano, which is a relatively finely chopped blend. They will go for bigger chunks than you expect, but seem to reliably go for frozen at least by a couple weeks old.

I second the notion to move the male into a breeder box right around 20 days in - I've been doing it for my last few spawns and it keeps the babies together at no risk to them, plus you can see when he spits out the full egg mass. I give him some shade to hide in to stay out of the way, then when he perks up after spitting all of them out, I just lower the top of the breeder box with the flow off, let him swim off, then keep the fry in it. From there, it's usually a couple of days until the fry are free swimming (their swim bladders develop), and that's around the time they can start eating. Feeding some live food in the breeder box works great because it also keeps the food in with them, so they can eat more of what's offered.

I've then been moving them to another tank for grow out, but feeding live copepods morning and night and then adding in twice daily feedings of frozen and whatever my main tank gets in small parts, I've gotten a number of them to over 1cm long body length in under 2.5 months - so don't be shy about feeding them a little extra, it seems to be very helpful!

And my banggais all spit out larger pellets, but small enough ones they still go for. I've been feeding some TDO B2 to my older fry and those seem to be small enough not to be rejected.
 

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A couple things that helped me to get them off the live BS ...

I freeze the live BS and offer it to them frozen. I find that the sooner I do this the easier it is to switch. It is important for the food to move. The next food I offer to them is frozen cyclops. Once they start eating that you can offer them anything frozen that is small enough to fit in their mouth.
 

Gp!

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How long for them to reach full grown size?
 

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Love this guide. I have a male who is holding eggs right now! In some ways, reminds me of breeding my African cichlids. Though the male is holding instead.
 

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