Sick cardinal or brooding?

[fandaga]

I got a pair of Banggai cardinals from Biota about 6 months ago. I had no idea if they would turn out to be male and female. If same sex, I planned to move one to my frag tank. One fish is clearly female with one prominent bump showing. The other fish is hard to tell, but “he” stopped eating a few days ago. Otherwise he looks pretty healthy. I’ve noticed that he’s opening his mouth occasionally, but I can’t see eggs yet. Could they be very small?

Female:

Presumed male:

 

[_chiefxr33f]

It looks to me like the "male" has distention in the lower jaw, where the "female" does not. I think you have your sexes backwards.

 

[Psychotic Madman]

Male looks to be holding eggs, good luck.

 

[Kmst80]

Looks to me like you got a male and female like you pictured, males jaw much bigger.
Watch the male, if he holds eggs he will frequently open the mouth and move the jaw, he is tumbling the eggs.
Start writing a diary, note days of when he stopped eating, when he releases fry and so on.
I have breed banggai successfully, the male will release the fry around day 28 to 34, each day a few.
Next time when they both eat watch the female getting fat and starting to dance around the male when it's time for the next cycle. Mine left the male around 14 days before she got itchy again.

 

[Lasse]

Picture 2 looks like a male carrying eggs

Sincerely Lasse

 

[_chiefxr33f]

So I did not realize that the male cardinals hold the eggs and the females guard the territory after mating. Most of my breeding experience is with african cichlids- and that is far less common with them.

I love learning.

 

[fandaga]

Looks to me like you got a male and female like you pictured, males jaw much bigger.
Watch the male, if he holds eggs he will frequently open the mouth and move the jaw, he is tumbling the eggs.
Start writing a diary, note days of when he stopped eating, when he releases fry and so on.
I have breed banggai successfully, the male will release the fry around day 28 to 34, each day a few.
Next time when they both eat watch the female getting fat and starting to dance around the male when it's time for the next cycle. Mine left the male around 14 days before she got itchy again.

Thanks for the tips! I’ve been reading up about raising Banggai cardinal fry. I’ll give it a try.

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Will they eat the fry when the male releases them?

 

[fandaga]

I’m sure my other fish will. I’ll need to move the cardinal to another tank and pick up a sponge filter. But yeah I wonder if the male cardinal will eat the fry too.

 

[Kmst80]

I’m sure my other fish will. I’ll need to move the cardinal to another tank and pick up a sponge filter. But yeah I wonder if the male cardinal will eat the fry too.

Yes, the parents will eat their own fry.
I will write a bit more tonight when I am home from work. I got a good link to an old fish breeding forum on the laptop at home too.

 

[Kmst80]

Here is that old discontinued breeding forum, if you scroll down to the journals there is some nice information in some of them.
https://www.mbisite.org/Search.aspx?Species=14

 

[Kmst80]

It is quite possible that your male could spit out the brood prematurely if he is still young.
If he is still not eating around day 28 i start looking around in the tank for eyes with a yolksack.
They usually release the young either around dawn or dusk.
if you got a longspine urchin even better coz that is where they are hiding in in their natural habitat. You could build one out of zipties but when i tried the frie would never go there. They hang in the sandbed, near the bubbletip nems and in the middle of a tube nem....of course.
I fished mine out each morning and put them in a little hatchery in the main tank, later i worked out you can strip the eggs of the male on day 24 and put them in a egg tumbler with a great survival rate.
I start feedeing them 3 times a day with baby brine shrimp, in week 3 i would reduce that to 2 feedings a day.
I have 2 baby brine shrimp hatcheries going at that time alternating to have a constant supply of baby brine.
Eventually after 4 or so weeks i start introducing mini pellets and frozen food and ween them of the baby brine shrimp. To get them to eat the pellets and frozen i have oister eggs mixed in too, that is like chocolate for fish.
After 3 month my LFS takes them for store credit.
After the male released all the fry he only got about 10 to 14 days before the female wants to go again, depending on what quality food you give the parents.
Hope that helps a bit.
Here are some pics

 

[fandaga]

It is quite possible that your male could spit out the brood prematurely if he is still young.
If he is still not eating around day 28 i start looking around in the tank for eyes with a yolksack.
They usually release the young either around dawn or dusk.
if you got a longspine urchin even better coz that is where they are hiding in in their natural habitat. You could build one out of zipties but when i tried the frie would never go there. They hang in the sandbed, near the bubbletip nems and in the middle of a tube nem....of course.
I fished mine out each morning and put them in a little hatchery in the main tank, later i worked out you can strip the eggs of the male on day 24 and put them in a egg tumbler with a great survival rate.
I start feedeing them 3 times a day with baby brine shrimp, in week 3 i would reduce that to 2 feedings a day.
I have 2 baby brine shrimp hatcheries going at that time alternating to have a constant supply of baby brine.
Eventually after 4 or so weeks i start introducing mini pellets and frozen food and ween them of the baby brine shrimp. To get them to eat the pellets and frozen i have oister eggs mixed in too, that is like chocolate for fish.
After 3 month my LFS takes them for store credit.
After the male released all the fry he only got about 10 to 14 days before the female wants to go again, depending on what quality food you give the parents.
Hope that helps a bit.
Here are some pics

Wow! Thank you for the detailed write up and all the info. This is tremendously helpful!

I had read about the fake urchins but didn’t realize that this was a real behavior with the fry in nature - makes a lot more sense now and very cool!

So far my male cardinal is not eating but still looking good. I’ll post updates every couple days.

 

[Kmst80]

Wow! Thank you for the detailed write up and all the info. This is tremendously helpful!

I had read about the fake urchins but didn’t realize that this was a real behavior with the fry in nature - makes a lot more sense now and very cool!

So far my male cardinal is not eating but still looking good. I’ll post updates every couple days.

One thing I forgot to mention is disease. There is the so called sudden fright death, appears to happen to only very young fry, they just drop dead from being frightened. To the extend that when I fished out the newly hatched with the net they would die. That's when I started transferring them in a glass jar. If one drops dead don't give up straight away, sometimes they come back.
The other is a problem with the swim bladder.Fry seem to swim constantly upwards to hold their spot. These will eventually succumb to this condition.
It's all a numbers game. They can have 60 or more fry at the time, most I had was 34 and 27 survived.

 

[fandaga]

Yeah I read about the dropping dead from sudden fright - pretty crazy!

I want to transfer the male to a 20 gallon tank with a sponge filter prior to the fry being released. Do you think that would be too risky? Would he eat the babies or eggs during the transfer? I would use a plastic specimen container rather than net, but still that may be too stressful.

 

[Kmst80]

Yeah I read about the dropping dead from sudden fright - pretty crazy!

I want to transfer the male to a 20 gallon tank with a sponge filter prior to the fry being released. Do you think that would be too risky? Would he eat the babies or eggs during the transfer? I would use a plastic specimen container rather than net, but still that may be too stressful.

Use a container as you said. There is a possibility of him swallowing the eggs. If you take him out of the water he will spit the eggs out, so definitely keep him in water at all time.