Cardinalfish breeding

[Surfzone]

At what size do they begin to breed. I’ve had mine for a year and a half and they look like they paired off

The reason they are not spawning for you maybe due to a few reasons. You may have an infertile pair, two females, or not being fed enough. The pair I jave are two females so now I'm on the lookout for two males to pair up with them.

 

[Acrokiller]

The reason they are not spawning for you maybe due to a few reasons. You may have an infertile pair, two females, or not being fed enough. The pair I jave are two females so now I'm on the lookout for two males to pair up with them.

Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that. I have 3 and 2 seem bonded which I assumed indicated a pair. I’ll have to look a little more closely to determine sex. Any tips?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Lots of great info and yes, the urchin method is very successful and safe.
They only have 30-40 eggs to make a brood. A nursery tank is a Must !!

 

[tmscott89]

Yeah I was super excited to breed the possible fry until someone told me for the first month or so they need to be fed every 3 hours or so. Job doesn’t exactly cooperate with that. So anytime it happens unfortunately I’m just gonna have to let nature take its course

 

[Surfzone]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sexing-banggai-cardinalfish.358183/ this os a good thread on sexing them.

 

[jhflemm]

Yeah I was super excited to breed the possible fry until someone told me for the first month or so they need to be fed every 3 hours or so. Job doesn’t exactly cooperate with that. So anytime it happens unfortunately I’m just gonna have to let nature take its course

Here is what I do to get around the work gets in the way problem. Fry are housed in a 10 gal tank. I do a daily BBS hatch and feed to baby fish. Supplement rotifers and 20 drops of RG Complete daily to the tank also. I’m my experience any BBS that are not immediately eaten end up living in the breeding tank but lose nutrition and get eaten later. But since it might be several hours or a day later the old BBS have no nutrition and the cardinal babies starve with a full belly (lost three broods to this). By supplementing the rotifers and RG Complete, any uneaten BBS can remain nutritious by the following: RG complete (fatty acid source) is eaten by rotifers (eaten by fry) which are eaten by any remaining BBS (also eaten by fry). Whole process take 5-10 min at night.

Currently on day 70 with my latest brood.

Next step....get them on frozen food or pellet. Having a hard time with this right now. But hopeful...