What to feed Banggai Cardinals

[mrbacony]

I have a pair of Banggai Cardinals in my tank for nearly 2 weeks and I rarely see them eat. I have tried frozen mysis shrimp, Hikari Marine S, Elos pellet and even flake. They don't seem to be interested in any of it. One has eaten some mysis, but then spits it back out. I have seen them picking copepods off the glass, but I don't have a large enough copepod population to make that sustainable. I have a brine shrimp incubator and eggs on their way since they seem to like very small, live food, but that will be several more days before that is possible.
Any other suggestions instead of the live brine? I was hoping to find a food I didn't have to hatch out all the time to keep them fed.

 

[brmreefer]

I have two Bangaii Cardinals (BC) myself and have had them for a long time now. They even breed routinely. The only thing that comes to mind that might help is trying soaking a few different types of food either in Garlic additive designed for finnicky eaters, or a tiny amount of Selcon. I have not had a need to use any of the additives for a long time, other than for experimentation. Hope a resolution is found and good luck with it all.

 

[Spare time]

Maybe frozen baby brine or calanus?

 

[kichimark]

I have two cardinals and one is like yours where it will spit out mysis. It does however, engulf PE mysis or krill. I occasionally give them live black worms (some places call them bloodworms but they are true black worms).

 

[mrbacony]

I have tried the garlic route and that did not appear to make it anymore appealing. Most of the food (except for the mysis), they won't even try. They run the other way when the food is introduced. I am just afraid they are going to starve themselves if they don't start eating something.
Thanks for the suggestions. I will try some different varieties while waiting on the brine hatchery.

 

[gray808]

I feed mine the same the rest of the tank gets: I alternate between 3 frozen foods (mysis, a seafood mix w/ brine shrimp, and a mix with bloodworms), and occasionally supplement with some flake, and TDO pellets.

For a while the Cardinal kinda behaved as you describe. Eventually, he start retaining more when he'd suck some up, and now, he goes for the larger bits of shrimp that the rest of the tank ignore. He is more shy about going for food, unless it passes close to him, in an place he feels safe (there is a small area between 2 rocks he likes to hang; anything that drops in there gets slurped up PDQ).

I like the TDO sinking pellets. I can toss a few in at one end of the tank, and keep the rest of the fish busy, while the cardinal can come to the other end of the tank and leisurely grab his fill, without being spooked by the others.

--Gray

 

[CanuckReefer]

I have two cardinals and one is like yours where it will spit out mysis. It does however, engulf PE mysis or krill. I occasionally give them live black worms (some places call them bloodworms but they are true black worms).

Agree here. Had one for 6 years, he would pick occasionally at the frozen mix but I would also supplement him with frozen krill every other day. Voracious appetite for it, so much that he would slurp up a frozen chunk in his gaping jaw and defend it to the death lol.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mine eats very well but only frozen, meaty foods

 

[mrbacony]

One other question. When i hatch live brine, will they take refuge in the tank like copepods, or do they just float around until all dead or eaten?

 

[PatW]

One other question. When i hatch live brine, will they take refuge in the tank like copepods, or do they just float around until all dead or eaten?

I used to hatch and feed baby brine shrimp to my fish ... many years ago. I never observed them evidencing any avoidance behaviors. Remember, they are denizens of very high salinity habits devoid of predators like fish.

 

[ApoIsland]

I have a pair of Banggai Cardinals in my tank for nearly 2 weeks and I rarely see them eat. I have tried frozen mysis shrimp, Hikari Marine S, Elos pellet and even flake. They don't seem to be interested in any of it. One has eaten some mysis, but then spits it back out. I have seen them picking copepods off the glass, but I don't have a large enough copepod population to make that sustainable. I have a brine shrimp incubator and eggs on their way since they seem to like very small, live food, but that will be several more days before that is possible.
Any other suggestions instead of the live brine? I was hoping to find a food I didn't have to hatch out all the time to keep them fed.

Mine would not eat for a week. Same behavior of tasting and spitting the mysis. I then tried PE Mysis and that worked very well the first time. After a couple weeks of PE Mysis I was able to get him onto regular Mysis.

 

[Hayjay]

Ours like to chase its food so we feed it Mysis with the current still going.

 

[infinite0180]

Mine are newish and sort of picky. They like PE mysis and calanis though.

 

[346700984]

Ours would eat Hikari frozen spirulina/brine shrimp. We’d defrost the frozen pod by letting the container float in warm water and then pour the defrosted food in and the cardinals + all the other fish scarfed it down. They would never touch the flake.