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Spawning cardinals.

willjones

Member
Joined
18 May 2008
Messages
47
Have been watching the pH in my aquarium very slowly dropping day by and trying to figure out why and whether I should be doing anything about it until I came home late last night having accidentally left the light on and found my cardinals rushing around laying eggs!
My tapwater is quite soft KH = 2, pH 7.4. I add CO2 during the day at a rate of 10 bubbles per min (for a 240L tank) and the carbonates appear to be slowly used up all the time. The kH in the tank is currently 1, and pH first thing in the morning is 6. I was thinking of adding some crushed coral to try and stabilise conditions abit, but I'm not so sure now seeing as the cardinals seem to like the conditions.
They looked like they were having a great time anyway, spawning the eggs and then immediately devouring them.
Would love to try and collect and hatch the eggs, but having only one aquarium I suspect this is currently impossible. Anyone else have experience of cardinals spawning in a community tank?
 
I've spawned and raised cardinals but in a seperate tank. They were actually in quarantine when they spawned in a load of java moss! I removed the parents and fry appeared. My tanks are all at 0dKH and 3-4dGH and they seem to like this! ;) You don't need a higher KH if you keep on top of maintenance.

The babies aren't easy to raise and need infusoria to start with followed by quality powdered food, Baby brine shrimp and other fry foods. I'd set up a seperate tank with water from your community tank and lots of moss for cover and then add the shaol and see what happens! Good luck!
 
Its brilliant when seeing shoaling species spawn. Remember when my cardinals spawned when I used RO water for my discus, was a beautiful sight... think my discus liked it better though. :rolleyes:

Would love to give it a proper go one day.
 
Yeah, makes you have a think about trying it, but realistically don't have time / resources at the moment.
They looked very beautiful whilst spawning. At first I just noticed that they were racing around the tank in an unusual way, and then I realised that they were actually spawning. One female would shoot up to the surface and several males would swim along side presumably fertilising the eggs and then immediately turned around and ate the eggs they had just fertilised! Makes you wonder how these fish reproduce successfully in the wild!
Interesting to watch, someday I'll try setting up a tank for them to breed in properly!
 
I seem to remember reading that cardinals and neon fry are light sensitive and they have to be kept dark. Not sure if this is true though.
 
beeky said:
I seem to remember reading that cardinals and neon fry are light sensitive and they have to be kept dark. Not sure if this is true though.

I don't think they like bright ligths, but I kept mine in normal lighting conditions and they did fine. They did have a pile of Java moss to hide in if they wanted to though.
 
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