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Breeding Cardinals


matthewY

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So I finally got off my seat and decided to do something about trying to bread my cardinals. Spent 30 mins gently fishing them out of the main tank and moving them into a smaller tank (20L or so?) which was fulled with the main tank water.

Cut up a undergravel filter "mesh" into the shape of the tank and placed down the bottom, threw in some plants, boiled coconut shells / shavings and an airstone to help settle the guys down.

Now i've started drip feeding them fresh rain water (ph of the rain water seems to be just under the 6 mark which seemed quite low considering my tap water is about 7.5 mark).

So looking for any advice on how to breed these guys.

a few pictures so far (been following as closely as I can to the "500 cardinals" artical on this site).

oh yeah, and a few questions...

Do cardiunals breed in teh dark? i imagine I need to have a opening for light so they can see each other or do I close it off completely?

Is it possible to leave the adults in there for a week? I have cut out a undergravel filter to protect the eggs from the adults but I dont want to have to keep "checking" on them every day to see if tehre are any eggs, instead I would be happier to just leave the adults in there until I see fry' underneat the filter. Also, moving the adults in / out didnt sound too friendly on the fish.

any thoughts on my setup????

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Found this on google not sure how true it is.

Thefemales usually have a bigger and rounder belly than the male. The blue line will be straighter in males, while the round female body creates the impression of a bent blue line. When she is ready to breed, her body will become very broad since she is filled with eggs.

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I can never tell when it comes to body shapes and find it amazing that people can. Had some guy drop off soem fish afew months ago and he sexed my remaining mountain minnows, very impressive.

ANyway, if you want to try sexing these from photo, I uploaded a few new pictures of them :-)

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~syscon_/fishies/

questions like how bent is a bent line comes to mind and also when it comes to size, what happens if one overate, ie: bullie the other fishies and steals all the food etc... I always end up second guessing myself

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Yeah if these guys dont breed after 2 weeks, I'll have to go pick up some more cardinals and give them another try (in a group). The idea of pulling guys out doesnt sound the best....

IKf its 2 males and 1 female then I do feel bad for the girl ;-)

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I'm setting up a tank next week to have a go at this as well. I'm going to use a larger tank (around 50 odd litres) which I hope will mean its easier to reach and maintain the right conditions for the cardinals

I've got a group of 24 cardinals in my community tank and a good mix of males/females and also ages - I'll start out with a small group... maybe 3-4 females and a couple of males and see what happens..

I'm going to have the tank on a shelf so I'll probably paint the back and sides black and sort out a cover for the front...

other than that I'll be following the breeding 500+ cardinals article as well :D

good luck and keep us updated

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I can never tell when it comes to body shapes and find it amazing that people can. Had some guy drop off soem fish afew months ago and he sexed my remaining mountain minnows, very impressive.

Female minnows are slightly larger with white belly's males don't have the white bellys and are smaller, often darker in appearence :D

I have a male with a deep purple red colouration and longer fins that I'm going to try and breed when I can find the time :P

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I can see several things not quit right with your set up.

You must use 100% rain water, the calcium and magnesium levels in your water must be next to - if not zero.

The tank needs to be completely covered(blacked out) for 2 reasons,

1, cardinals can be flighty and need the darkness to settle down.

2, the eggs which should be laid on the second or third morning are light sensitive, if the tank is not very dark all the time, the eggs will die.

The hight above the fish appears to be to deep, they only need it to be shallow around 150-180mm deep.

The author of that article used a very basic set up,

tanks were 200x600x200mm.

100% rain water similar to yours

Boiled garden peat on the bottom. To help condition the water, calm the adults and to trap the eggs.

Spawning mops or spawning moss were the spawning sites(plants were/are not required).

Once the adults were place in the tank it was completely blacked out until they had spawned (48-72 hours), the adults were removed tank left covered until fry were free swimming(as per article).

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prefect, the information I need. I'll slowly change the water to pure rain water. reason (though maybe not justified) was I thought they would get shock if the ph droped or water chemestry changed too quick. I'll need to wait for the next raining day before collecting a few buckets worth.

Also good to know that it should be totally dark, I'll follow this as soon as I collect the rain water and acustom them to it. I was deciding if they would be able to see each other in the dark but they should be able to sort it out :-)

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hey caserole, do you know what brand garden peat can be used? I went around the warehouse today and I couldnt tell if any of them have added chemicals. Read on google that garden peat could contain bad stuff for fish.... be greatful for any advice.

thanks

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Goodluck guys i'm keen to see the results. I use Hauraki peat have used the water and put it in straight as well as boiled it all good no problems :) yea don't worry about them seeing each other it can be totally pitch black.. they're from blackwater anyway and are obviously very colourful so they've got no worries :)

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it hasnt been raining so havent had any chance to get real water for the guys :-( I've loaded the base with a lot of peat (1L or so) in order to try and softern the water a bit and make them more primed.... went and picked up another 3 cardinals to share the tank with (Tried picking only femaales so hoping I got 2 more femails and 1 male).

They are all still in the same container but I because of teh rain water issue I havent managed to soften the water enough :-(

Fingers crossed for rain (and not just to help with power issues :-) ). I'm thinking at the moment that I'm priming them for breading so that when the time comes... they would be all good to go (when rain comes).

Raises a question... do we fgeed the guys when we have them in teh dark or is that just bad news?

Hows everyone else doing?

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