so me and my significant other have moved everything from our 90 gallon into a larger tank and now we are wanting to turn it into a reef with softies and stock it with nothing but bangaiis if possible, so is it possible and if so how many should i buy to get the natural schooling behavior without them picking there way down the chain until only two are left. if i do it i would probably start at around 35 and see where that gets me.
how many bangaii cardinal fish in a 90 gallon
- Thread starter ARGYGANG
- Start date
One
Why is the question. Like are you experienced enough to manage a tank of that size with zero algae and pest eating fish? I just don’t see the purpose I guess. Good luck.
Why is the question. Like are you experienced enough to manage a tank of that size with zero algae and pest eating fish? I just don’t see the purpose I guess. Good luck.
Honestly, this is a bad idea;
Pterapogon kaudernii only school as juveniles and hide in a Longspine Urchin. This is due to there being a much better chance of survival. Then when they mature they all split off into pairs and often times in captivity we see this and the form they do this in is through killing eachother off one at a time until left with a singular specimen or a pair. This always occurs even with huge numbers of Kaudernii.
If you want to have a Cardinal only tank then your better bet would be having a mix of the two Sphaeramia species as these guys seem to be true schoolers and in the long term tend to stay together.
Thanks for the good info, I’m only a year into saltwater but I’m pretty far along keeping fresh water and with cichlids you keep more to get rid of that behavior of them beating up on one and then the next and then the next figures the same would apply here.
I’ve actually got a issue where I can’t get any aptasia or bristle worms and my tank will not grow hair algae for the life of me I even tried adding hair algae for my tangs and it just doesn’t grow can’t grow chaeto or any macros either….all my fish are perfectly fine though.
It’s surprising how the hobby really varies depending on what side you go into.
Freshwater is always the more the better but saltwater is generally you only keep one specimen of each species. And honestly the main reason for that is we can’t tell males from females or what natural hierarchies are for certain fish.
It’s like tangs, many people keep the same species but it’s always you’ll get the weakest killed off until theres one or two left. We just don’t know their natural situations other than they graze in groups. How those groups are actually formed we have no idea because they all look identical.
Do you know if stoplight cardinal fish are aggressive like bangaiis? I’m not as much interested in the cardinal only tank as I am just in having a nice school of small/medium sized fish. Wasn’t really meaning to be ignorant by asking this like everyone but yourself was implying but more so asking as asking here with very experienced reefers is part of my research before I take any actions myself I always ask “hey guys is this possible, any experience doing this, what should I do in x situation etc” I was reading cardinals are school and peaceful but that bangaiis can get aggressive so that’s what sparked this question to begin with.
Stoplights are a much better species to keep in groups
They can be harder to keep but overall when you get through establishing them in captivity it’s much easier and much more rewarding.
Awesome I will get some in qt as soon as I can get my hands on them, I’ve seen some pretty big ones also so looking forward to that.Stoplights are a much better species to keep in groups
They can be harder to keep but overall when you get through establishing them in captivity it’s much easier and much more rewarding.
Have you thought about acclimating mollies to saltwater?
Pyjama Cardinals generally group better than Kauderni do so I’m not really surprised you have 3 getting along nicely.
All I know is I watched a stoplight cardinal come out of a cave and fold a wheeler's shrimp goby in half.
Never again.
That’s actually a really good idea, would you need to qt ones from the pet store that are in freshwater if I acclimate them over to salt over a few days? They wouldn’t hold marine disease in freshwater and the fresh water disease would die in saltwater right?
Wait, you've seen your stoplight cardinal out with the lights on? So jealous, I think I have seen mine 6 times in a little over a year.
I quarantine all fish all the time, but perhaps one of the expert fish keepers could chime in. If they are the first fish in the tank, though, no need to quarantine.
I’ve heard that there is a mortality rate when acclimating mollies to salt, but the ones that survive do fairly well.
cool, my 90 is barebottom with 60 lbs of bio rings in the sump so if they do possibly bring anything in ill just dose the entire tank with coppersafe and pull the rocks out. i did it for my qt slip up in my 90 (still fairly new to qt so mess ups are bound to happen with learning) and it worked like a charm and i had a 5 inch hippo and dog face in there which are disease MAGNETS ime and they are still crystal clear, which honestly i like to brag a bit about my hippo hes crazy peaceful and has next to no hlle he is blueberry. i built one of those rubbermade stock tank ponds made a stand and everything for it even used the 150 gallon rubbermade as a sump for my dog face and hippo and that tank is going great also. thanks for your recommendation we are going to pick up 10 sailfin mollies tomorrow and hoping atleast 6 survive the acclimation we are going to do it over two days replacing 6 metric cups every 4 hours with saltwater in a 10 gallon tank.
Good luck! Take pics!
Similar threads
