Breeding Bangi Cardinals

Breeding Bangi Cardinals

Why has it been so long since posts in our blog? Taking care of babies! We were lucky enough to have a breeding pair of Bangi Cardinals and the amount of time it takes to care for the parents and young is quite great. First, our older son noticed a tiny little baby Bangi Cardinal at the bottom of the tank.  He was amazingly tiny, only about 1/8 inch long.  We looked at the parents and noticed that the male had a mouth full of eggs and babies.  After 1 1/2 hours and taking out 150 pound of live rock, we were finally able to catch the elusive male.  At once, we put him in a breeder held on top of the tank with a MagFloat.

Daddy Bangi in breeder

Immediately he spit out most of what he had in his mouth, both eggs and babies.  Quickly we transferred the new babies and eggs to a second breeder right next to the one with the male. After a short while the male spit out a two more babies and he was done brooding. We again, quickly transferred the babies out of the breeder with the male and put them in with the other babies.

Bangis 2 days old

After one day we had seven new little baby Bangi Cardinals.  They look like adults, only way smaller.  Now they are a shade smaller than 1/4 of an inch.  However, what did we feed them? Our local fish store does not carry food for babies, but fortunately we had ordered  Rotifers from  Reef Nutrition as we thought we were going to get Ocellaris Clown Fish babies. Those eggs did not hatch, (another story), but now we had food for the baby Bangi Cardianals.

Feeding Rotifers in a mesh breeder to tiny

Rotifers

new fish is something that must be done on faith. Yes, we could see dots in the water that must be Rotifers, and yes we could see the babies moving like they were eating, but could we see the fish actually eating? Now way!  Everything was too small and we were looking through a net! Here is the container where we keep and breed the Rotifers.  We got our live order via overnight delivery and put it in an old salt bucket with an air stone and air pump.  We add enough Rotifer Diet to keep the water green. The green is algae which the small Rotifers eat. So when the baby fish eat the Rotifers, they get vegtables (algae) and protien (the Rotifers) in a very nutritious combination. Once you have established your Rotifer colony, it will keep going as long as you feed it or don’t have a crash. You should harvest 1/3 of the Rotifers each day after 3 days.  The colony can crash from under feeding, over population, and extreme temperatures.

We also began feeding our fish brine shrimp. The size of the ones at the local

Brine Shrimp

fish store were way too big – almost bigger than the babies.  Thus, again we had to make our own food. This interesting looking contraption is a liter soda bottle upside down with the bottom cut off. We put a regular house light on it with a 60 watt bulb to help heat the water. We used the San Francisco Bay Brand Hatchery and got many good batches of brine shrimp after 36 hours. We would turn off the air pump and wait for the egg shells to float to the top, strain them off, and pour the shrimp through a fine net.  We then dumped the brine shrimp in the baby’s breeder.  This baby Bangis ate this as well. Now at this point we still had seven babies. Bangis can have broods of 20 or more, and after a week there can be a large difference in size and aggression. However, with such a small number of babies, we have not had that problem.

Baby Bangis in breeder

The Bangis like to hang out in groups and since there was no aggression between them, we have let them stay together in the one breeder.  The milky whiteness of the picture you see is the white net mesh . Here they are about one week.

Turbo Cleaning

One thing that you must do is constantly clean the breeder to keep good water flow into the breeder. Here we see a Mexican Turbo Snail making a meal out of the detritus on the breeder. However, once we the Turbo did not come back for seconds, we just changed out the whole breeder by catching the fish and moving them over.

Baby Bangi two weeks

Here are the babys now at two weeks.  We have started feeding them Agrent Cyclop-eeze, a frozen food that we thaw in a cup. Here we again met with success. It seems as these Bangi babies are not picky eaters. We still feed them Rotifers for two reasons. One the babies still like it and two, we have a colony now and must get rid of them some how. Rotifers are interesting. Once you start a colony, you must continue to maintain that colony.  We do this as the Cardinal pair that first bred, have already bred again. We now have them in thier own love nest in the quarantine tank, so we should be ready for the next batch. Who knows, you might be able to buy some young Bangi Cardinal fish that were raised from The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenace Guide demo tank…

Stewart – The Blue Jaw Trigger

Stewart The Blue Jaw Trigger

This is Stewart, the new Blue Jaw Trigger.  As most Blue Jaw Triggers, he was extremely shy when we first introduced him into the quarantine tank. We gave him plenty of pipes from Home Depot to hide in. These pipes were his haven, as he rarely came out, especially in the first few days of his quarantine. Also, for the first few days he was not a great eater, and did not like to be seen while dining.  He was very quirky,as the food would be right next to the opening of the pipe, we would leave the room and then he would eat.

How did Stewart get his name? He was a great re arranger of the quarantine

Stewart the Blue Jaw

tank.  Look at the sand in the pipes. When we put the pipes in the quarantine tank, there was no sand in them. However, look at all the home decorating Stewart did. Hence, he gets his name from Martha Stewart. To call him Martha would have been a mistake, as Stewart is a male. You can tell by the blue on his jaw. The females do not have the blue on their jaw.

We quarantined Stewart, along with a Red Firefish,  a Midas Blenny, and an Orangespot Diamond Goby for four weeks. We got the shipment from Vivid Aquariums out in Canoga Park, California. Everything about the shipment was excellent, from the packing, the phone call the night before, express delivery before 10 AM and the high quality of product.

pipes in Demo tank

When we transferred the fish over to The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide Demo tank, Stewart was extremely easy. We just lifted out the pipe and put him, along with the other fish, in our acclimation bucket (an old salt bucket). After an hour, we just put him in to the Demo tank, pipe and all. No netting and minimal stress. We left the pipes in for two days to allow Stewart to get acllimated.

Stewart the Blue Jaw

However, he did not need the pipes at all. He went exploring right away and found a nice hide out in the live rock.  In the main tank he is far more active and swims around more than he did in the little 20 gallon quarantine tank.  He is one of the few reef safe triggers. If you have always wanted a trigger but had a reef tank, or did not want to spend several hunded dollars on a Bursa Trigger, this is the fish

Stewart

for you. They get along beautifully with community fish, are fascinating to look at, and have more personality than almost any fish in the tank.

Feeding Time

This is a beautiful Flame Angle. He is a Dwarf Angle that we quarantined for two weeks before we put him in the demo tank. He was always a good eater when he got what he wanted: frozen food. So far after four weeks in the demo tank, he has not eaten when we have given the tank pellets only. However, the other Angle fish in the demo tank, the Regal Angel, is a picky eater too. He eats only pellets.

As we mention in The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide, you can see this Regal Angle is from the Pacific Ocean by his beautiful yellow belly.

So what do we do? We have two beautiful fish that we want to keep alive and healthy. We have tried to train both fish by skipping a few feedings of either all frozen of all pellets, but this has not been successful. Perhaps we could be successful if we challenged the fish harder, or we could end up with a dead fish. These creatures are so magnificent, that we don’t want to chance losing one. So we give in. They are feed twice a day, five or six times a week with both pellets and frozen shrimp or blood worms.

Knowing that all the fish are eating is well worth the minor effort to feed two types of food each feeding. Also, by offering two types of food each feeding, one of the two Angle fish might cross over and begin to eat what they were stubborn about before.

Two weeks later:

Good news, the Flame Angle is eating pellets as well as frozen food. We made sure to introduce the pellets first so he would see his tank mates eat. Fortunately, all the fish in the demo tank eat with a nice sense of urgency. Perhaps the Flame Angle began to realize he was missing out on something good, so he joined in. The pellets we use for our demo tank are New Life Spectrum. We think this is a great food as it is packed with nutrition and helps bring out the colors of the fish.

When The Square leaves the Squareback

Squareback Anthias are a beautiful addition to any reef tank.

Squareback Anthias are a good community fish, and should adapt well to a reef or fish only tank.

The males can become a little territorial, but their bark is worse than their bite. We have found them to chase one another around the tank, but mine has never nipped at fins.

Some will jump, but the male Anthias from the demo tank has stayed put for over a year. Although he has not jumped, his square seems to have left him.

Why?

Our demo tank from The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up And Maintenance Guide is bright, and many Squareback Anthias like lower light. Fortunately, he has stayed in view and let us enjoy his beauty instead of always hiding in the rocks. However, this swimming around in bright light has had an adverse effect on his beautiful square. It is gone! Also, his colors have shifted, from orange to a more orange/ yellow. Amazingly enough his colors are still bright and vibrant. Also, the overall health of the male Squareback Anthias is excellent.

So what can I do?

We could lower the light level in the tank, but we are not going to do this, as this will adversely affect the growth of our corals. For now, we will just keep things as they are and enjoy the beautiful Squareback Anthias, without his square on his back.