Seven mature pajama cardinals and no eggs or fry.

[therootcause]

I have the tank real estate to breed and rear pajama cardinals. Currently there are seven mature pajama cardinals in my WB180.5 and I have yet to see any carrying eggs or capture any fry in my vossen trap. I have sexed them as best I can by looking at the jaw line and there appear to be both male and female fish. Any breeding advice is appreciated.

My vossen trap runs 24/7 with a small LED light and my pumps shut down after lights out with the exception of my return and a single mp40 with flow turned down.

 

[Tonycass12]

This is something I'm looking into as well. I've seen some folks saying that a stress response can come in the form of breeding. They will "go on vacation" for a long weekend or week and not feed the tank/allow a little bit of neglect. This stresses the fish and they breed in response.

 

[therootcause]

This is something I'm looking into as well. I've seen some folks saying that a stress response can come in the form of breeding. They will "go on vacation" for a long weekend or week and not feed the tank/allow a little bit of neglect. This stresses the fish and they breed in response.

Oh no! I've been pampering them with frozen on a silver platter to fatten them up and get them in the mood.

 

[Acros]

I have 3 pajama cardinals and one male has carried eggs a few times. It always coincided with heavy feeding (when I was trying to up phosphates). I had this happen with frozen mysis as well as reef nutrition pellets.

They take a break everytime I make any changes to the tank.

I was under the impression that their fry are harder to raise compared to bangaii cardinals.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

For trying to encourage breeding behavior, you generally want to feed a lot of high-quality food and maintain good water quality. Some other things that may play a role in spawning include:

Some things that can impact/trigger spawning include light schedule, light spectrum and intensity, temperature changes (both rapid - i.e. temperature shock - and slow), moon phases, tides, water conditions (i.e. calm water, stormy water, etc.), salinity, chemical cues, seasons, dessication, flooding, etc. - if you can figure out which cues are important for this species, that would be a great first step toward rearing them.

Oh no! I've been pampering them with frozen on a silver platter to fatten them up and get them in the mood.

For most fish, being well-fed is helpful for inducing spawning, so I wouldn't stop feeding them well. I would ask these questions though:
-What are you feeding them?
-How much are you feeding them?
-How often are you feeding them?