I didn't start out trying to breed Banngai Cardinals but as luck would have it, the pair I bought a year ago are a match. After the first time I saw the textbook bulldog look of the male with eggs in his mouth, I started reading all I could about these marvellous fish. So I have just had my first somewhat successful birth and wanted to briefly share my experience and hopefully help others. Briefly, my set up is a 90g reef about 5 years old. Along with a mix of corals I have a couple of percula hosting in a large BTA, six line wrasse, yellow tail damsel, Mandarinfish, fox face and of course the 2 Banngai. I don't have a sump (I know, I know) so use an Octopus BH-1000, Fluval FX5 and have 2 48" Marineland Reef LED's. Biweekly water changes of 10g keep my parameters in check.
Now for the fry. I had 2 occasions where the male had eggs but only carried them to about day 15 and either swallowed them or spit them. During this time it gave me an opportunity to consider my options should he carry to term. I knew if he spit them out in the tank they would not survive so I knew I would have to somehow collect the fry or catch the male in advance. I don't have an urchin as is recommended as a natural haven for the fry to go to when born for protection so I made a fake one out of a long narrow spiral shell apx 3" and attached about 20 small nylon zip ties. I was thinking of placing the fake urchin in a plastic breeding container and placing it in the bottom of my tank. The thinking was that if the fry made it to the fake urchin I could lift the whole container out of the tank with the fry inside. My other option was to try to catch the male and keep him in a breeding net until he spit out the fry.
Well on June 18 the male stopped eating again and this time he carried past the 15 day mark. While I was excited the timing couldn't have been worse as we were heading out on a family vacation in the coming week and had a friend house sitting and therefore watching the fish.
As it got closer to both the birth (I figured around Day 23 and our leaving for vacation on what would be Day 25) I decided I would try to catch the male. On Day 20 I successfully caught him and he didn't spit the eggs/fry, whew.
So the other complication I had been thinking about was how to feed the fry the artemia. Obviously with the fish sitter I had to think of something easy. So here's what I did. I found this great contraption which I'm sure most of you have heard of; Tom's Hatch n Feed. I bought one of these and I cut a small hole in the breeding net just big enough to slip the end of the Htach n Feed where the brine shrimp swim out into the area where the fry would be once released. I started making artemia on Day 20 after I had caught the male to make sure everything was working as planned.
With this figured out, on Day 23 the male still had not spit the fry and on the morning of Day 24 still no babies. Stressing about leaving on vacation for 9 days and maybe stressing the male out too much I decide to "induce" labor. I had seen this done in an online post; basically I just lifted the breeding net out of the water very briefly ie less than 1 sec and then as I put the net back the water out came 8 fry!
To make a long story short (I'm trying), I think the male still had more in his mouth but for fear of stressing him out I let him go back into the main tank. The 8 fry were very young looking and within an hour 2 had died. Six survived a few hours but by night we could only find 5 alive. I had put my fake urchin in the breeding net and they all took to it immediately and schooled together but perhaps one or two went into the shell and died in there. Five survived the first night and with instructions given to our fish sitter on how to add eggs to the a Hatch n Feed every 12 hours, off we went on vacation. On Day 2 of the fry being released our fish sitter reported only being able to see 3 of them. I assured her not to stress and that likely they would all die through no fault of hers, just bad timing.
Well, here we are home from 9 days away and on Day 11 of their life the 3 remaining look healthy and strong. Obviously the Hatch n Feed idea is working well. The net needed to be cleaned so I was able to catch the 3 fry and move them to another breeding container while I cleaned the net. So, fingers crossed they live on and guess I will have to prepare for another clutch soon as the pair seem to be very active breeders. I will raise them as best I can and hope to get them to my LFS or any local peeps who might want some tank raised Banggai's.
Hopefully this post will help someone else. I'm quite proud of the Hatch n Feed setup as this eliminates the need for all the pop bottles etc. I'll see if I can post some pics to this thread to show you the setup.
Happy reefing!
Now for the fry. I had 2 occasions where the male had eggs but only carried them to about day 15 and either swallowed them or spit them. During this time it gave me an opportunity to consider my options should he carry to term. I knew if he spit them out in the tank they would not survive so I knew I would have to somehow collect the fry or catch the male in advance. I don't have an urchin as is recommended as a natural haven for the fry to go to when born for protection so I made a fake one out of a long narrow spiral shell apx 3" and attached about 20 small nylon zip ties. I was thinking of placing the fake urchin in a plastic breeding container and placing it in the bottom of my tank. The thinking was that if the fry made it to the fake urchin I could lift the whole container out of the tank with the fry inside. My other option was to try to catch the male and keep him in a breeding net until he spit out the fry.
Well on June 18 the male stopped eating again and this time he carried past the 15 day mark. While I was excited the timing couldn't have been worse as we were heading out on a family vacation in the coming week and had a friend house sitting and therefore watching the fish.
As it got closer to both the birth (I figured around Day 23 and our leaving for vacation on what would be Day 25) I decided I would try to catch the male. On Day 20 I successfully caught him and he didn't spit the eggs/fry, whew.
So the other complication I had been thinking about was how to feed the fry the artemia. Obviously with the fish sitter I had to think of something easy. So here's what I did. I found this great contraption which I'm sure most of you have heard of; Tom's Hatch n Feed. I bought one of these and I cut a small hole in the breeding net just big enough to slip the end of the Htach n Feed where the brine shrimp swim out into the area where the fry would be once released. I started making artemia on Day 20 after I had caught the male to make sure everything was working as planned.
With this figured out, on Day 23 the male still had not spit the fry and on the morning of Day 24 still no babies. Stressing about leaving on vacation for 9 days and maybe stressing the male out too much I decide to "induce" labor. I had seen this done in an online post; basically I just lifted the breeding net out of the water very briefly ie less than 1 sec and then as I put the net back the water out came 8 fry!
To make a long story short (I'm trying), I think the male still had more in his mouth but for fear of stressing him out I let him go back into the main tank. The 8 fry were very young looking and within an hour 2 had died. Six survived a few hours but by night we could only find 5 alive. I had put my fake urchin in the breeding net and they all took to it immediately and schooled together but perhaps one or two went into the shell and died in there. Five survived the first night and with instructions given to our fish sitter on how to add eggs to the a Hatch n Feed every 12 hours, off we went on vacation. On Day 2 of the fry being released our fish sitter reported only being able to see 3 of them. I assured her not to stress and that likely they would all die through no fault of hers, just bad timing.
Well, here we are home from 9 days away and on Day 11 of their life the 3 remaining look healthy and strong. Obviously the Hatch n Feed idea is working well. The net needed to be cleaned so I was able to catch the 3 fry and move them to another breeding container while I cleaned the net. So, fingers crossed they live on and guess I will have to prepare for another clutch soon as the pair seem to be very active breeders. I will raise them as best I can and hope to get them to my LFS or any local peeps who might want some tank raised Banggai's.
Hopefully this post will help someone else. I'm quite proud of the Hatch n Feed setup as this eliminates the need for all the pop bottles etc. I'll see if I can post some pics to this thread to show you the setup.
Happy reefing!
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