I hate when I yap about how neat a guy is.. and he shows up
OF COURSE we want your inputs here Doc... please do poke ALL around Talking Reef and enjoy. We're not going to wrangle you into participating unless you want to, but as I mentioned before I KNOW you like to help out where you can. So, again, if you feel compelled to do so, please share your thoughts.
Again, when are you coming back "home"? Would love to hang out again. I do think some REAL New England fare is in order.
David--thanks for the warm welcome.
This is still a great thread. I listened to a recent podcast and the host fielded a question from a caller about banggai breeding, seems more threads like this will be needed to help more folks out.
I'll be back to beantown in june for a meeting and then time w/ the folks.
We're still neighbors, so we should hook up and enjoy some local fare.
Thanks again
I'll be back to beantown in june for a meeting and then time w/ the folks. We're still neighbors, so we should hook up and enjoy some local fare.
Thanks again
This thread has been great and I look foward to reading more about your work. I was looking through cardinal species on google and was curious if any of the other cardinal species are as "easy" to breed? The orange stripe cardinal is beautiful, as is the Banggai...can they be kept in the same tank (46g bow front).
Not all cardinals are created equal. The fish you are talking about "Apogon cyanosoma" is reef safe (as reported) and pretty docile. They are territorial, so they'd need plenty of "turf" of live rock nooks and crannies to call home. They tend to school, in the open, during the day, and hunt those caverns and crannies at night.
Although they are peaceful, they'd probably be irritated with "like fish" that would want to call their territory home. They'd either be protective of their caves and chase others away, or get skittish, hide in a corner, and suffer from their lack of real estate. They are also happier in "schools" if you have a larger tank (again, keeping territory in mind) They are small, and should be kept with other peaceful tankmates. I have had lots of problems with my cardinals becoming irritated with wrasse, basslets, and other fish that play hide and seek in THEIR rock
They too are mouth breeders; like their cousins the Banggai and PJ Cardinals etc.. However, unlike the Bangers, they and Pajama Cardinals do not carry the fry as long. Banggai carry for as long as it takes for the fry to take off on their own, and survive (like Frank said, 21-24 days in total). Other cardinals release after the fry develop (typically a week or so) where the fish have no choice but to go up, and live in the vast plankton layers of the upper water column.
They have been bred successful in captivity, but for some reason, are listed as medium to hard in keeping by the new aquarist. Personally, other than reading about them (I love all cardinals ) I know little about them and could not speculate as to why they are hard(er) to keep. In any case, since identified and marketed for more experienced keepers, you don't see them that often at the Local Fish Stores.
Again, I've read, and read, and have kept PJs, Banggai, and some wild caught twospot/flame cardinals (Apogon pseudomaculatus) -poor fish found their way via the gulf stream to Buzzards bay, New England- but am lacking in experience with others. If any of you should know more, or see misinformation *pointing at my text above* chime in and let us know.
Photojohn--
If i may, I'll add a bit more to expound upon David's reply.
As I mentioned banggais have whats called direct developement or "eutheryoembryos" , meaning going from eggs to fry (like most freshwater fish). Most other apogons (cardinals) use a planktonic intermediate.
So why are other apogons like you mention difficult, allow me to spell out a comparision;
Banggais lay 40-70 eggs, each huge, other cardinals lay 1000s of each each 0.5mm or smaller. Banggais hatch in 11-14 days (temp dependent), and remain in the males mouth for up to 2 weeks post hatch, and release as a copy of their parent ready to eat larger food items.
Other apogons hatch between 7-12 days, and are released as free swimming planktonic larvae. The plankotnic larvae drift and feed on ultra small food items for up to 1 month (some species shorter) before they "settle". whereas banggais fry feed immediately on brine nauplii. It appears that SS or S rotifers are required for other cardinals, and during this free swimming time the fry are touchy, hence difficult. However once they settle they will feed on std L rotifers, followed by BBS nauplii. But getting to the settlement point has proven tougher, but do-able as ORA sells captive raised pyjama cardinals
So far only 4 cardinal species are known direct fry developers like banggais. All of them are found w/in close proximity to australia and only banggais make their way into the hobby. BTW the other cardinals w/ direct development are ugly and mean
Okay--- back to your regularly schedule program
frank
welcome aboard Dr. Marini !! glad to have you here at Talkingreef !! we would love to see more of you around the forums as your input would be HIGHLY appreciated. i look forward to talking with you sometime, if you have any questions about us ... feel free to ask.
__________________ Bobby
"I FORMERLY glued animals to rocks" NO TANK RIGHT NOW, but you never know when I might throw one together !! I have everything I need but the time!!
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Dr. Marini...wow i am honored to have you on here. It is pretty cool to read your articles, which were my main source of information on Baggai, then to see you on the threads! Your input is most welcome.
It has been a while for me, been busy with the dissertation, but let me give you some updates.
First, i have lost 3 fry
Casualties of a first-timer i suppose. Two were washed over the overflow and were turned into filter feeder food by my return pump. I added a fiberglass window screen around that section of the overflow so no more will go over. The other loss was a fry answering the call to adventure. Our hero found the small door, i guess, on the "wall" and made an escape into the larger tank. I saw him once, then never again. There are a wide variety of various gatekeepers, dragons, demons, and other monsters in the main section of the display. My guess is the little fry hero was lost to his carnivorous parents, eaten in his sleep by the demonic nassarius snails, or simply sucked into a powerhead and churned up.
The others are doing quite well, however, which brings me to my next post:
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
At this point it is helpful to get the fry to eat something other than live foods. Personally, after four weeks of bubbling jars of brine shrimp, i want to move out of the science lab that was once my fish room! This is difficult and painful. It is an exercise of human patience v. fry DNA. They are pre-programed to look for moving prey in the water column; if it is dead and floating, thy ignore it. However, we humans have a major advantage over the fry's DNA: Pavlov.
Anyone who has taken Psychology 101 has probably heard of Pavlov. This psychologist did various studies on dogs, bells, and food (that is, if you consider "meat powder" a food) and formed the basis of what became known as behaviorism. Although defunct when trying to teach people (we don't learn quite like dogs), their research is still quite appropriate for fry weening. It also gives us an excellent strategy to take, so we are not just tossing food in the tank and hoping for the best.
There are a lot of various strategies that have been developed over the years, but for our purposes the "classical" ones work the best. First, let's clarify what exactly we are trying to do. We are trying to pair a response with a stimulus. In the case of our fry, the response is simply eating, and the stimulus is prepared food. I will use two acronyms for this. The response we are looking for is termed the conditioned response (CR). In our case, it is the fry eating the prepared food. The two tools we have to accomplish this are the live baby brine shrimp, which we will call the unconditioned stimulus (US). It is un-conditioned since the fry already know to eat it, we don't have to do anything. Then, there is the prepared food, the conditioned stimulus (CS); we must "condition" or train the fish to eat this.
It is important to note here that the fry are not capable of discriminatory logic, nor are fish for that matter. Thus, anything can become a US when food is on the line. For example, does your tank seem to know when you are about to feed it? Do the fish get all excited when you open the top? They have been conditioned to pair the US (you approaching the tank) with a CS (food). We will do the same thing for the fry here.
Method 1 - Forward conditioning
This is the most typical method used i think. In this case the CS is presented before the US. The prepared food is added before the live napuli. There is a problem with this method, however, as it applies to the fry. Since the prepared food (CS) is always presented first, the fry will likely learn that this means food is coming. This is like Pavlov's study with the dogs, bells, and meat powder. By ringing the bell first, then giving the dog food, the dog learned the bell (CS) meant food is on the way (CR). The dogs did not learn to eat the bell.
Method 2 - Simultaneous Conditioning
In this case, the CS is presented at the same time as the US, and i think this works best for our purposes. Mix the live napuli with the frozen food and give them both to the fry at the same time. Keep doing this for several weeks at least. Eventually, the fry will pair the CS to CR: i.e. they will eat the prepared food. I did this with my fry and successfully weened them off live food without losing any of them to starvation.
Tips
You can have more than one CS. It is rarely just the prepared food. Likely it is also lifting the hood, sticking your hand in the tank, and possibly the smell of garlic (if you use it). This is an advantage for us, since we can easily do the same feeding method all the time. The garlic helps too if you are using Method 2, since you will condition the fry to associate the smell of garlic with food (live food if you feed together).
Be consistent! This is critical to success. If you start messing with the routine, it will take longer for the fish to learn the process. They will essentially forget what you are doing, a process known as extinction.
Test them before making any drastic changes. After several weeks of Method 2, present only the CS (prepared food) with everything else being the same (i.e. the way you feed them) and see if they eat it. If not, stop doing this and immediately go back to simultaneous feeding, otherwise you run a serious risk of extinction.
Do not backward condition. This is presenting the CS after the US: feeding live food then prepared food. Backward conditioning doesn't work and will actually cause the fish to "unlearn" anything you have accomplished through methods 1 or 2 above.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
I was taking to Christi yesterday and i thought of something i should probably add to this discussion. Currently, i am raising the fry in a sectioned off area of the DT. Now, ask yourself what would happen if you suddenly added 30 fish to your tank?
The fry are really messy. If i feed too little, some don't get anything to eat. If i feed just right, most of the food ends up on the bottom. Needless to say, this is a lot of nutrients to be adding to the tank. My hair algae and macro algae is out of control. I do not have a tang, but i think i will get one in the next few days to cut this calipura down some. Even the hermits and nassarius snails can barely keep up with all the food dropping to the bottom of the fry side of the tank.
I think next time i will do this in a system not connected to my main, or only after serious skimming.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
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