Banggai Cardinal Spawning Log

[DaJMasta]

I've had this pair of cardinals for a few months (the second was added two months ago) and hoping for the magic to happen, on Thursday the 22nd they were pretty obviously doing the dance (though the male was not as into it), and on Friday at about 7:15pm, they spawned.  Didn't see it, but saw the wiggling before and then a full mouth later.  Today the male didn't go after food, and while dark in there, I think I can make out a bit of red/orange in his mouth when he opens it to aerate the eggs.

 

From my understanding of the baby's development, I should be expecting the fry to start coming from the father's mouth in around 20 days, so I figure around the 8th or 9th of August I'll try catching the male in a trap and transferring him to a small tank to get as many fry as I can.  I've been hoping to get into raising some fish and shrimp, and had seen them hanging around together for a while, so I'm at least somewhat prepared.  I've got a couple of small tanks with some ceramic media and now a CUC for raising fry as well as a newly started phytoplankton, rotifer, and artemia culture, plus a couple of useful extras (breeder box made of net, vossen larva trap, some smaller size TDO).

While I know the first few spawns probably have fewer fry than they eventually will have, and I'm pretty new to all of this, I'm hoping I can find some success with these easier to raise fry and then move on to whatever spawns next in the tank!  The plan for now is to make a log here of notable events as things progress, so while the next week may be quiet as the eggs develop, I hope to have more news and maybe some pics I can snag as it comes closer to hatch.

[howaboutme]

Great to hear! There was/is a member 5/6 years ago that bred cardinals and sold them to wamas members. I had one of them. I think her name was Laura Sharkey or something. Keep us informed!

[DaJMasta]

Unfortunately, today the male returned to eating, so I believe the first clutch is lost.  If I had to put a cause on it, well that would be easy, after a treatment for cyano in the tank seemed to go terribly wrong, there was a while where I believe the dissolved oxygen level was very low, and I assume this would kill virtually any eggs in the tank at the time.  He held onto them at least a day later, but for now we go back to waiting for another spawn.

 

Since the fish that kept them in the front corner most of the time was lost, the environment may be more amenable for their spawning now, but I can't find information on how long the next one could take - just that it varies with diet and environment.

[DaJMasta]

 

Spawning is imminent!  I observed their courtship behavior around 6:30pm today (25 days from the previous spawn, about an hour earlier), and it has continued at least 3 hours afterwards without any egg transfer yet.  Will have to see if the male takes food tomorrow or if perhaps they spawn tomorrow or in coming days.

Very short turnaround, and short of a full lunar cycle (not that my lights were running a lunar cycle for the duration either), and they weren't too shy.  I noticed the behavior only a couple minutes after taking my hands out of the tank to pull out some hair algae.

[MaeganWink]

That video is so amazing, thank you so much for sharing! Also I love reading about this process, so I look forward to further updates!

[Steve G]

Tagging along. I had 6 banggais in a 240. Within a couple months they formed 3 pairs, but then only one pair survived, likely having bullied the other two pairs to death.

 

The surviving pair have spawned a couple of times, with one showing the big mouth and not eating from the water column, but I was never around to see release of eggs. I'm curious if there is a time of day or condition under which they will release the fry. I would love to try to rear the fry but not sure I have the skill/patience.

[DaJMasta]

 

They spawned this afternoon while I was out, somewhere between 1:30pm and 4pm, making it just under 26 days from the last spawn.  That would predict somewhere around Tuesday the 7th they could be released from the male's mouth, while they will probably have hatched a week or more before then.

 

I will aim to try and gently catch him (a fish trap) that weekend before and transfer him into a smaller tank for the fry to come out in - at least that's the plan.  I've got a vossen larval trap if needed though they may be too big/strong swimmers for it to really be right, so I'll have my eyes out and I will try to get some pics of them inside his mouth in the time leading up to it.

It's my understanding that since they develop for a time in the male's mouth, they are generally somewhat easier to rear than a lot of fish because they are large enough to eat bigger, and even prepared foods, but they do need to be away from predators (omnivores with a big enough mouth) and in lower flow areas, and they do need lots of food available.  My zooplankton cultures are starting to really come online now, so the hope is to have both parvocalanus and apocyclops available in some quantity daily, but I've got some sizes of TDO to try out as well, and the tank I'm planning on moving them too has a basic setup already going and a biofilter established - I'm going to use a different approach than most breeders seem to of basically using a normal tank but with no real other livestock except for a basic CUC and with very low flow, but I will see how successful that actually is.  The idea is that the established filtration and pod population mean that feeding them and dealing with the residual isn't as difficult in a small tank, since I really don't have the space for anything of a decent size.

I'm rooting for them!

[DaJMasta]

 

He's made it a week with no food, and while his back half looks a bit thinner, he seems to be in good shape and his mouth is still full.  I sort of expected the eggs to be gradually expanding, but I haven't noticed more puffed cheeks, if anything they look very slightly smaller and he's readjusting the eggs less frequently (snapping open is mouth randomly).

Not a lot to report but behavior, the pair are spending a good bit of time around together, somewhat more than usual, but then they also have their time apart.  The male in particular seems to be just trying to stay low and out of the way (presumably to conserve energy), and the female does seem to be keeping watch somewhat, but I can't say it's all that distinctively different.  What I have seen is the slightest hint of aggression towards other fish - the firefish have been bickering and every so often I see one of the cardinals sort of snap in their direction if they suddenly swim close, and I actually saw the male swim up to a mandarin and push his side into the mandarin to try to tell it to get going (actually a behavior I saw in the flame angel when it was the boss of the tank).  Of course the mandarin just kept doing its thing, and the next few times it came around forraging the cardinals didn't seem to care, but it does seem like there's some effort to keep other things away from the male while he's carrying the eggs.

Another week and there may be some more notable changes.

[DaJMasta]

Two weeks from spawning, it doesn't look like any of the eggs have hatched yet, but he's still carrying them and looks pretty good for not eating for two weeks.  The pair still stick around a good bit of the time, I occasionally see her pursuing him a little, but they are more or less acting normal and relaxed, minus the dash to eat from the male when it's food time.

I think the two need a name but nothing has come to mind yet, any suggestions?

 

Oh and I've been reading that snails shouldn't be too hard to raise with live phyto, so I think I'm going to try to harvest that string of cerith eggs in back and give it a shot with some extra phyto.

Edited September 1, 2021 by DaJMasta

[DaJMasta]

Not quite yet, 18 days in, but over the last two days his mouth has inflated further.  He's having more trouble keeping his mouth closed most of the time (it's easier to see in), the little pouch under his chin is no longer moving in and out (just out), and today when he breathes, you can see the area on the lower back of the jaw actually shift down (a little like an accordion opening), whereas before it just sort of puffed out like the rest.  The eggs are getting bigger, and I can occasionally get a glimpse of their reddish orange color.  Soon!

 

[DaJMasta]

Hatch!

 

 

It's not frequent, but you can see some movement in there, and with the flashlight going, you can see the reflection in the fry's eyes just a bit.  Now I need to submerge a trap and hope he volunteers to jump in, because he's not going to be chasing any bait until they're out and he can eat again.

[DaJMasta]

Last night I dropped in a clear acrylic fish trap and hoped for the best, despite the crude deployment and lack of bait, I caught the female Banggai in about two hours in this:

 

I put the stuff on top to add some shade and make it look like a hiding place, but then I realized they usually are out in the open water anyways.  It seems like this method works just because the fish don't recognize that the sides are a barrier, so they swim in, and then you can just close the door.

To that effect, I caught the male today!  In pulling him out of the tank (as gently as I thought I could), and there was one fry along with him in the bucket!!  I did a short temperature acclimation with the tank I had setup (was about a degree C off) and then poured them in.  Despite a fairly low flow return pump (and that's the only circulation), the fry had gone over the overflow in the first 10 minutes... Luckily, I had designed a 3d printed overflow strainer that had a holder for a piece of screen, so while the fry is more towards the bottom than the top now (it's tired, I think) I shouldn't have any getting into the rear chamber.

Once they were in I added a bit more phytoplankton (I've read with some larvae - not necessarily fry, having some phytoplankton as a background/light blocker can help feeding), then harvested a chunk of the apocyclops cultures and dropped them in the tank too.  The phyto should be food for the pods, at least.

Given the very round look of the fry and the fact that it left the male's mouth less than 24 hours after hatch, I think it's still underdeveloped and probably is still using its yolk sack as a food source.  That means feeding today is probably unnecessary, but the pods should stick around and do their thing, so they will be available when required (not like the dad is going to eat anything).

 

 

 

It was a rough first 20 minutes outside his dad's mouth for this guy, so I am hoping for the best, but his brothers and sisters are still in their dad's mouth and he seems to be calm in the new environment.

[TrueTricia]

So cool!!!!

[howaboutme]

Great journal, keep up the good work! Love that you can just "print" something in 3D when you are presented with a problem. Most mortals have to google something, then go to our favorite online shop, order, then wait an eternity for it to ship, etc. By that time, the problems over. Looking forward to more updates.

[DaJMasta]

Thanks, and yeah the 3d printer has really been great for me since I started with it a few years ago.  Not by any means instant, and there's a learning curve to printing let alone CAD modeling, but now I've gotten past that, I can go from an idea to a physical prototype in a day in many cases.  Took a few iterations and some foresight to get this overflow made up, but managed to get a reasonable seal just clipping over the rear baffle for the filtration chamber, and then when I realized the baby could get sucked over, I just cut a bit of 500 micron screen I had bought for it and dropped it in the slot.

 

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4929845

 

The little fish is still going today, and still looks mostly round (a ball with fins), whereas the images/videos of cardinal babies I've seen generally look like slim versions of their parents, and since the male hasn't spit out any more yet, I suspect there's at least another day of development time before he releases them.  The little one who jumped out early spends most of its time on the bottom, but will occasionally go for a swim in the water column.  I think it probably doesn't yet have a swim bladder, and it may not yet have a mouth (I suspect the mouth comes when the yolk is near used up so it can start feeding), so at least until the male releases the other babies, I'm not going to worry about the premie too much not swimming a lot.

It's been interesting seeing it develop more coordination, though.  When first released, it basically just swam diagonally up, and that's what got it into the overflow.  Then it went to the bottom and would swim but sort of just pushing itself into little ruts in the sand.  Now it seems to be staying more horizontal and its swimming when on the ground is mostly just waggles to reposition or whatnot, and it seems to try to hug the substrate when I push a little water over it with a turkey baster.  From yesterday I got little reactions from it when moving outside the tank, so the eyes seem to be working, and after lights out the baby one went over to be near a rock instead of being just near the glass on the substrate, so I think it's showing normal behaviors despite mostly scooting around on the ground.

 

No new pods added to the tank today - I don't think anything is eating them yet - but I've substantially increased the phyto dosage (around 300mL a day right now to a 3.7G tank) to try and encourage the pod population further and dim the water a little in the event the babies are sensitive to light.



I had a video to put at the end of this but youtube's automated checks are taking forever..... and it's already out of date!  In the last hour the little one has started free swimming continuously!

[DaJMasta]

Youtube cooperates:

 

And this little guy is growing fast:

 

I can see the others starting to peek out of the father's mouth on their own now, I think they'll likely be out within a day!

[DaJMasta]

After lights out last night, a second baby popped out - presumably he was startled at the sudden light shut off and one got away, and both were swimming all day, though in completely separate areas.  One swims in the bottom front corner, one swims in the top rear corner, and the father hangs out mostly on the rear middle.  Haven't seen feeding behavior from either of the babies, just swimming in the current and some avoidance of things, and I think their shape is a tad closer to an adult and the coloration is a tad darker, but not a whole lot of change in the babies yet.  The father also didn't release any today, though his jaw is yet a little more open (and it's not too hard to spot things moving around in his mouth), and in the evening he started getting a little aggressive with his reflection - something that's happened before but which I didn't notice for a few days much, so it could be a sign of something to come.

 

So far at least 80 hours post hatch and 22 days post spawn and the majority of the babies are still in the father's mouth.  Tomorrow maybe?  We'll see!

[TrueTricia]

If you manage to keep them alive, I definitely want one!  I'm so excited and on the edge of my seat to see what happens with these little guys!

[DaJMasta]

I'm up to 4 fry, but there are more still to come!  I sort of expected there just to be a point where the male let go of all of them, and while that may still come, we're 24 days from spawning and there are still a bunch in there, and there's basically been one that was released (escaped?) a day.  This is a picture from yesterday and you can see the shape filling out a little more and the coloration of the fins getting stronger:

 

The fry spend their time swimming near the edges of the tank (corner, walls, top), and up until yesterday they all did their own thing, now I've got two that are sticking together most of the time and two that are still off on their own.  I hadn't really observed any feeding behavior, and since the others haven't been released yet I wasn't really expecting it to be needed, but I've been dumping in some apocyclops pods and trying to keep phytoplankton present in the tank (probably averaging 200-250mL a day in a 3.7G tank and there are times where the water is clear).  At night the babies all head to the bottom of the tank to rest, but  starting from the second one released, they've all been able to control their swimming normally and swim most of the time (presumably the swim bladder has developed about 2 days post hatch).

 

I say I hadn't observed any feeding behavior because I took a short cell phone video of one today and just when reviewing it, I definitely saw it open its mouth for something!  No real pursuit of particulate in the water, but I'll be feeding some apocyclops again today and will start with my smallest TDO size either tomorrow or Monday.

 

So far the tank seems to be holding up to the bioload, though when I can get the adult out it should be better for a bit.  As the fry grow, since there will probably be a bunch, I will probably split the group into a second tank in time, but they'll probably spend a good bit in this one first.

 

Also a fun observation: they sort of look like tiny bees.  The background of the tank is black and their fins blend in, and their bodies are now roughly bean shaped with black stripes, so when they pulse their swimming towards the glass, they sort of look like little silver bees in the tank.

[DaJMasta]

Today was the day!

 

 

Started the morning with 7 fry released and the fry visibly chasing after food particles (copepods).  I had fed TDO A yesterday but it was so small that it basically just stayed on the surface, but I also think it was too small for the current mouth gape of the fry, so I decided to try TDO B1 today instead.  Somewhere shortly after 8pm today, he went back behind the bit of macroalgae there and that was time, within half an hour there were 20 fry in the tank, by my count, and he's 'coughed' a few times without new ones coming, so I think he'll be back to eating soon.  The orange dust on the top is the TDO B1 - can't tell for certain they're eating it, but there was a flow of water taking them down from the surface that the babies in front were in and they seemed to chase the particles at least a bit.

The father gotten very afraid of me recently - specifically because of my copepod sieve.  I pour the culture into a sieve to get the pods out of the water and then dip the sieve into the tank to pour them out, but it's a longer model so it takes up a good portion of the top of the tank.  After the first day dumping them in with him around, he started hiding behind the rock at night, hiding behind the macroalgae on occasion, and even hiding under the  outlet from the rear chamber sometimes.  Hopefully he'll be eating again by tomorrow so I can transfer him back to the main tank.  The babies do sort of get out of the way of me or what I'm doing, but they don't bother hiding or even getting that far out of the way.

He did great!

[DaJMasta]

A size comparison:

[FishingandReefing]

That’s pretty cool. I missed mine. I found 3 babies in the sump and were able to kept them for about couple of month. I fed them daily and watched them grew. Unfortunately, they vanished for no reason.

7 adults in my display, so far so good. I hope they spawn again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DaJMasta]

That's too bad, but I would expect them to spawn again - while I don't yet know if their spawning is seasonal at all, they seem to be able to spawn again fairly quickly.  The babies definitely have trouble in high flow, and especially the early released ones are bite sized for all but the smallest fish, so I think the way to get a bunch to survive is really some kind of isolation - in my case a second tank, but a breeder box or similar (with holes small enough to keep them in) would probably do just fine.

 

I was going to leave the father in the fry tank until he was eating, but he started acting more normally and I read about the potential for him to snack on his kids, so I pulled him out and put him back in the main tank yesterday night.  I actually haven't seen him eat much yet after more than 12 hours back, but he quickly went over to hang out with his mate and he's acting normally, so I'm sure he'll get back to eating when he's hungry.

Still got 20 babies this morning, and with him out of the tank they're much more dispersed in the water column and not just swimming into the corners.  Feeding some TDO B1 shows a bit of interest, but with the lower flow it doesn't stay in the water column for long, so I'm not sure they all even went for some.  When sort of idling, I see the babies pursue particulate floating around, like the adults do, but often they'll just pursue for a little way and then lose interest.  When I harvest some Apocyclops pods and dump them in, though, the feeding response is markedly different:

 

 

They really go for the pods!  They also get out of the way of the sieve that their father was so afraid of, and it really doesn't take that long for most of the pods to be either settled, in the back chamber, or in the bellies of the fry.  Right now I've got two gallon jugs with Apocyclops growing and I'm harvesting 10-15% of each per day through a sieve (was using 53um, now will use 25um as I could see some very small swimming things in the residual water from the 53um), then refilling the jug with fresh water and 150-200mL of live phytoplankton a day.  It took a few days worth of harvesting for the cultures to spin up from their more resting state of being harvested only every few days, but the phytoplankton color in the jug goes away faster and production has been pretty good this way.

As I don't currently have larger pods or other species growing, I'm trying to mix in that TDO B1 to get them eating at least some prepared foods as they get bigger.  Hopefully Algagen will restock today and I'll be able to start some other cultures shortly.

 

[DaJMasta]

 

11 days post hatch and I've still got 20!  Their coloration is changing a little too with the addition of the white - seems like they start mostly clear and silver, then they develop the black, then they get the white stripes on the leading edges of the fins, then, much later, the white stripes break up into dotted lines (I saw this happen with their parents).

The little guys still go crazy for the live pods, but there's a little response from TDO A, and a bit more from TDO B1, so I'm feeding the apocyclops once a day with some extra phytoplankton to green the water slightly with TDO 2-3 times a day in very, very small quantities (it doesn't stay in the water column long, and they don't feed off the substrate).  Worth mentioning that feeding the dry food just means it stays on the surface of the water, so I mix it with tank water and then pour it in.  About this much (this is TDO A in a 10mL beaker):

I took the footage from the last video and added ones for the two TDO sizes, so there's a side-by-side comparison of feeding response.  The order is, very clearly, apocyclops, TDO B1, TDO A, and since these videos are now a day or two old, I think I'll stop feeding A altogether and try B2 in the next day or two.

 

 

[DaJMasta]

16 days post hatch (9 days after all the fry were released) and I've still got 20!  They are showing some difference in size, some definitely growing slower, but they generally seem to be healthy.  For a few days one of them has been swimming mostly on its side, but it's up in the water column with everyone else and sometimes swims upright, it just seems to always default to one side or another.  Still eating well, best I can tell, so I will see if just growing up corrects that (maybe misaligned swim bladder?)  The more mature ones have the right body shape now, rather than the round, then eventually bean shaped bodies of younger fry, most of them now are more stretched out vertically and less thick relative to how tall their body is, like this guy:

 

Compared to that last picture, this guy has the round underside of his body whereas a few days ago the bigger ones had that flatter underside look.  It's hard to see their growth day to day, but they are definitely getting bigger.  They're eating bigger food, too - I started moving them off of TDO A after the last post, and in the last few days I've been adding TDO B2 as well to the mix.  As of yesterday, I'm not sure all of them can eat B2 yet, but I think they're close at least, so I think tomorrow or Friday will be the last day on TDO B1.  Ideally, I want them to be eating the biggest particles of food they can, since that will be the most nutrition per energy expended and the quickest they can fill themselves up, but the smaller ones will still get some B1 for a couple days and the Apocyclops will continue for a while yet.  As to why they don't eat the larger foods, well the answer is pretty clear under a microscope:

Last week I caught one in a little beaker I was feeding them with, so I took a couple minutes too look at him under the microscope and feed him a bit.  He got scared quickly and I put him back, but for a little while acted calm.  The red flakes on the surface of the water are TDO B1, and the two larger ones are likely about the nominal size for it, and you can clearly see that that's basically the size of his whole mouth.  When younger, and with smaller mouths, they couldn't even fit B1, but I think by now most can fit B2 sized particles.  Mixing it with water and then pouring it in also seems to be getting a good feeding response now, faster chasing of particles and a closer behavior to the Apocyclops feedings.  There's also a food size confirmation you can make just by watching them - for larger foods than they can eat, they will chase the particle until they are a body length or two away, then look away and do something else, whereas if they can eat it and they think it's food, they basically always will at least try.  The feeding schedule is approximately:

TDO before noon

Apocyclops around 1pm

Whatever is fed to the main tank (minus large particles if possible) around 4pm

TDO around 6pm

TDO around 9pm

 

And the quantity of TDO added is maybe 3-4x what was pictured above, since they're definitely eating it.

The babies are swimming a bit more like adults now, too, and their swimming seems better coordinated.  I see more drifting with occasional adjustments than continuous swimming, and they seem to be interested in pursuing food particles over longer distances.  They also chase each other just a bit - it doesn't seem all that aggressive and I haven't seen injuries, but neat to see them behaving like what you'd expect a tank full of them would look like and not just like a cloud of little things figuring their world out.

Interestingly, my Apocyclops cultures are only now getting to maximum production.  I had started daily 10% or so harvesting about when they were hatching, but was replenishing maybe 50mL of phytoplankton to each gallon culture a day.  The last few days I've done 10-15% harvests, have dumped in 400-500mL of phytoplankton to each gallon jug, and the culture has been almost clear the next day!  It's a visible increase in what's captured in the sieve, too, so I know that for trying larvae with smaller mouths that spinning the cultures up to full production should start at least several days before hatch.

Edited September 22, 2021 by DaJMasta