Re: Cardinalfish

JEFF PFOHL (pfohl at nucalf.physics.fsu.edu)
Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:22:30 -0500

From: "Frank C. Marini" <mxmisl at brokersys.com>
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria.marine.reefs
Subject: Banggai Cardinals breed update#3 19 OCT
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 13:04:47 +0000

To all interested
Well I have been experimenting with conditions and I beleive that i
have found three keys to raising these little critters. Now this may
hold true for all fish breeding, but this is my first time with fish.
1-keep the fry seperate from each other(or groups of two maximum). It
has been three weeks for the new fry and when kept seperate they grow
at trememdous rates. The second batch of babies(3 weeks old) are the
size of the first batch at 2 months. Amazing. Also there was no
sybling aggression which i noted when keeing the first group
together.This seperation has allowed me to try a few different
conditions in each breeder net, so I have ways of comparing the
groups(i.e. observing growth rates) 2- feeding small portions, but
very frequent.-I know this sounds normal, but I used to try to feed
everyone by releasing a massive dose of baby brine or rotifers into
the breeding net, what would then happen is a few fish would start
wolfing down the food, then twitch and float to the bottom of the net,
where they would either die or remain there for 10 mins at which point
they would swim away. I had initially noticed this when I would feed
the fish babies adult brine shrimp. I'm finally on the steep part of
the learning curve.3-keep the parents away after breeding.
I still don't know what has caused the breeding (i.e.water changes
ph changes, sunlight on the tank etc.). I will be getting this
breeding data plus the others off to you soon. Thanks for the rotifer
info. However in my independent feeding experiements I have found that
baby brine shrimp fed with selecon and microfood has allowed the fry
to grow far bigger than rotifers and baby brine,so I feed all the
babies babybrine only. But I'll be honest i don't know if the growth
rates are a cause of good nutrition or being seperate. Also my male is
holding again-they breed about every 15 days after he spits out the
babies.I have found that during the 15 day break I have to feed the
male ghost shrimp and live brine(using alternating) 2X daily. Or I
have noticed him getting skinny during this break. I have recently
swapped 4 of the first fry to to local pet store for 4 new cardinals,
and will try to get lucky with this new group. I'll keep you up to
date. Thanks again
frank

-- 

JEFF PFOHL E-MAIL: PFOHL at NUCALF.PHYSICS.FSU.EDU PHONE : (904) 644-1598 work (904) 224-0707 home (904) 644-9848 fax http://nucalf.physics.fsu.edu/pfohl

"I will shoulder more than my share of the task, whatever it may be. 100% and then some!"