Cardinal Breeding Diary..

[plymbloke]

Glad I can help - I think these little fish are great and I always happy to pass on any info! I have to go away for one night so the experiment is being put back by 24hours, but thats all - in the mean time fish are continuing to be fed live bloodworm, daphnia and brineshrimp - although they dont seem to feed as heavily on the live bs.

DAY SIX AND SEVEN:Water is topped up completely after yesterday and fish are being fed daphnia and bloodworm today - still healthy but not showing any more signs of egg production - i.e. getting fatter, they seem to have stopped. Will continue feeding three times a day. The previous day 7 will now be on day 8. The fish will be fed bloodworm and brozen brineshrimp tomorow (day 7).

Water:
pH:6.0
Temp: 28C


Next update will be on Friday 15th Feb - the new day 7, where I shall be adding the male!


Thanks for all your comments and support

chris

[pcsb23]

Good luck with the male Chris.

[plymbloke]

Appologies about the delay, been a hectic couple of days BUT things are back on track, male will be going in tonight , then tank will remain covered. Tomorow (monday) night i will check to see if the females are looking slimmer at all, if so remove all fish and keep tank covered or if not leave them for another couple of days.


so this is it ... watch this space

[plymbloke]

The male is in, and the first thing he did was follow one of the fatter females around the tank and into the Java moss - so a VERY encouraging start!

The tanks lights have been switched off, and the whole tank has been covered with a towel - which will keep most light out but let enough ambient light to filter through to simulate moonlight (hopefully)

For those of you who werent sure about how to sex cardinals, i have attached a couple of photos that I hope will show the differences quite well - excuse the lack of photography skills

Firstly, this is one of my females. Notice the kink in the neon stripe and also there isnt as much of a white belly showing, in comparison to a male:


Next I tried to get a photo of both fish together - the bottom fish is the male. Notice here the straighter neon stripe and also there is much more of a white belly showing:



Hope this helps anyone who's interested.

Chris

[phidelt85]

Thanks Chris! By kink, you mean just back behind the gill plate.

[plymbloke]

Well after 24 hours, there seems to be no change at all, so the tank remained covered. They have until wednesday evening to do something then the lights are coming on and other week of intesive feeding is on the cards

At present i have just a towel over the top, i fear this may be letting too LITTLE light in the tank, so if they dont spawn this time I will try hessian or newspaper next.

As for the kink - it is half way along the body, in the next photos I have followed the line of the female on the left and compared it with a line drawn following the stripe of the male, on the right



hope this helps

Chris

[plymbloke]

Well still no signs of any eggs being laid today so its time to seperate the fish again, feed them intensivly again for a week and try once more. This time I will make a few changes:

1/. Cover the tank with hessian or newspaper - this will let a bit of light in as opposed to the total darkness they have had recently

2/. Only keep two females in with the male - I had four on this first attempt

3/. increase temperature during conditioning period to 30c

I will however use the same male, eventually he should get the idea and start to drive the females - hopefully anyway.

Thanks to all those who are watching this thread - I will update again with photos when its time to re-try - in about a weeks time.

Thanks

Chris

[phidelt85]

I see it, Chris, thank you!! I'm definitely still following and linked it over to a buddy locally who is also running a cardinal breeding project.

[Dan S]

Hello Chris,

This is great reading, keep up the good work and best of luck with it.
Now seeing the difference between males and females Im going to go and check mine out.

Dan

[plymbloke]

The females can be a little difficult to spot at first, especially if for whatever reason they havnt been eating lots - the 'kink' deffinately becomes more prominant when they are well fed - also of course the females will start to get very noticably fatter.

Glad people are enjoying the read - hopefully I'll have some fry for you to follow the development of next time!

Chris

[plymbloke]

ok, i need to go away for a few days again so the project is on hold for a very short time. I have recently purchased some aquarium peat to use as a substrate, and i am sorely tempted to set up the tank with this on my next go, keep everythign else the same as stated previously, but use peat instead of sand as the substrate and not just restrict it to the filter. I shall have a think and get back to you all!

The fish are all still happy and eating well. I have left the male in the tank for this conditioning period and i tend to seperate him about 3 days prior to spawning day. One of these days i WILL have cardinal spawn lol

Chris

[Jason]

Hi Chris,

great thread, thank-you!

maybe try conditioning your rain water with some peat moss, helps spawn many rainforrest fishes.

[plymbloke]

Ok, im back, so the project will be back on track within the next few days! Im going to give it one more go without the peat substrate but i will filter the rain water through peat as well as having it in the tanks own filter. the things i will be doing differently this time are:

1/. Cover the tank with hessian or newspaper - this will let a bit of light in as opposed to the total darkness they have had before

2/. Only keep two females in with the male - I had four on the first attempt

3/. increase temperature during conditioning period to 30c

regular diary updates will start again within the next few days, thanks for watching everyone

Chris

[Dan S]

Hello Chris,

Do Cardinals have any courtship displays or signs of breeding? E.g. like Discus who quiver and bow thier heads etc.

Dan

[discusman1]

Hi Chris,

This is my first posting on this forum. I see you are trying to simulate moonlight to stimulate their spawning. Have you tried to use led lighting?

Hooked on this thread!!

Peter