have lately noticed a treand toward small schooling fish, such as redspot cardinal, mini darts, and what not. thought it may be usefull to combine our thoughts and experience's in one thread. i have not personally kept these fish, but love the idea of keeping something comprable to neon tetra's in a saltwater tank.



redspots


minidarts




links on red spot cardinals
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1739827


links on minidarts
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=230857


schooling and shoaling
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...29465&st=20

I've heard that the red spot cardinals prefer colder water, but I can tell you from experience that they don't ship well at all. We get about 30-40% losses on them at work and then they're usually fine, I'm guessing the LFS get 30-40% losses when we ship to them as well. The ones that make it through shipping tend to do better when fed cyclopeeze daily, but I haven't kept any long term so I can't say for sure how they do afterwards.

There is a similar thread going on at RC. Some folks have had a difficult time keeping these. However, just recently LiveAquaria just had a group of 5 red spots for sale. Kevin, with LA, said that they were feeding theirs 5-6 times a day with enriched cyclopeeze to start.

Here's a link to that thread if anyone is interested:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1739827

i read somewhere that they do better in tanks with a bunch of flow

and DD has on average one or 2 groups of these for sale everyday they just sell within minutes of being put on the site

great thread, thanks for the input.

Also want to note that they're known to be jumpers... these fish are beautiful though.

How much do they go for on DD, out of curiosity?

$12.50 each on avg. for the ones on DD. Not too bad considering the amount of time they quarantine them plus their DOA and DAA guarantees.

They fly off the site at that price. I've been trying to get some myself, but no luck yet.

you have to be fast in order to get them. they will be posting up 2 groups of them this afternoon if your looking to buy some. they usually post up new arrivals around 6:30PM eastern time so at around 6PM go to the DD fish section and just start refreshing until u see the new arrivals posted then find them FAST and buy them FAST. it is also useful to join the email list taht way you know what fish may be coming up on DD that afternoon so you can be ready

I've been on the DD email list for awhile. I even had a batch in the cart at one point and was going through the checkout process (paypal) when they were purchased by someone else. I saw the sneak peek email this morning, so I'll be trying again later today.

I hope that if I end up with something, that it doesn't freeze to death in shipment. Won a 4 pack a short while back and the fish died from the cold during shipment (freezing cold water to the touch; 1 small heat pack, 4 8"x12" bag, 6 ply per fish, 1 fish per bag).

dang that really sucks. i really wanna see what the nano red blenny is that is on the sneak peek today it sounds like a really cool fish

so were you able to snag one of the groups posted up today?

both groups using my phone at the barber!

lmao very nice so what tank setup are you putting them in?

they look like tetras.

so far im aware of three type's of small schooling fish that would be good replacments for the tetra.
red spot glass cardinal. (Apogon parvulus)
mini dart goby. (Aiolops Megastigma)
masked goby. (Coryphopterus personatus )

they're going into the ada 24x18x18 tank with tons of flow. i threw up a tank journal that i need to add more beef to later; it's in the members' aquarium section.

those mini dart gobies look pretty darn cool. the masked gobies on the other hand don't really schoal. they're very loosely associated with each other.

sounds like a nice tank and im betting they would love an SPS dominated tank because of all the alternating flow in SPS tanks

For the cardinals, I heard high flow increases survival rate.

That's what I heard as well. I don't think it's the high oxygen content that they require, but rather the fact that with high flow the food stays in suspension.

thats what ive heard aswell.

some resent threads about shoaling fish.
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...229465&st=0
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=228952

i wish we knew more about mantaining some of these fish.

The high flow is not important IMO. Feeding them very frequently and getting individuals that have been handled well are far more important.

Talk to Maeda about these fish and listen very carefully to what Wombat has to say. In my own research and from talking to John (Maeda) they need *FREQUENT* feeding, are very picky about what they eat, are very picky about how they eat, and generally do not make it for very long. They are suspension feeders as I recall and food has to practically float past their faces before they will eat it.

in the link to the rc thread dr. f & s were feeding them like 6 times a day. but also recomended high flow.

Mini Dart Gobies are awesome, I really want a school for the 125G. They would fit well with my heavy SPS and smaller fish theme.

Husbandry of these guys is pretty straightforward. You don't need to keep them in a high flow tank for them to do well. I would actually suggest a lower flow tank to help them conserve energy in between feedings. They spend all their time swimming actively in the water column. The most important aspects are frequent feeding (4x per day minimum) and starting with healthy fish that have been collected and handled appropriately.

This is in the RC thread too, but I have 16 of them in a 24" cube at work with soft corals and mushrooms. They are fed 4x per day automatically with small New Life Spectrum Pellets from an Eheim autofeeder and I feed them 1-2x per day on top of that with cyclops, small fish eggs, and Hikari mysis. The water flow is composed of a straight return turning over the tank ~6x per hour, and a Vortech MP20 set at about 50% on long pulse mode. I run a small ER skimmer without a collection cup (just for aeration of the water) and a bit of activated carbon in a reactor. We started with 16 about 6 months ago.

Hope this helps.

Do you have pics of your tank at work? It sounds incredible!!!

Is this tank at the aquarium you work at?

Please forgive the camera phone quality. This is an older picture but you get the idea.

now thats what were talkin bout. bleepin awesome.

would you consider running any form of dinitrafing reactor to help with the feeding schedule.

Nah. Waste of time and space on a tank this small IMO. I do a 20% water change weekly. Nitrate is usually between 5-10ppm. I ran the skimmer full on for the first year but once the corals get stocked and start really growing they will consume a lot of nitrate, and of course the live rock does too. I considered doing a refugium but have never really seen a need for it.

Keep in mind they are fed very frequently but in very small amounts. Each feeding is probably only 30 small pellets or so and it is all consumed immediately. I think sometimes folks tend to try and compensate for infrequent feeding by adding a lot of food all at once--I know it says it in every book and can of fish food, but most fish will really do a lot better if they get small amounts of food more frequently. This is definitely the case with these small cardinals.

is this also applicable to banggais?

Incredible. Simply amazing!

What is that other fish?

The other fish with them are a Redtail Flasher Wrasse, Paracheilinus rubricaudalis, and a Bank Butterflyfish, Prognathodes aya.

The butterfly is awesome!

So does the aquarium let you pick out certain LS for certain tanks?

Do you get any of their frags every little while?

Matt, I thought banks butterfly fish were temperate?

Also, cardinals up on divers den for everyone

You know Matt... There are days when I just shouldn't log into NR because of you and your excellent looking tanks...

So you are happy with the Eheim feeder then? I ask because (I know I know sucker me) I put another Anthias in my tank and am now back on a 3x feeding schedule which really bites. I looked into what we talked about before regarding a refrigerated live feed system and it was just too much but an Eheim and Salifert Pellets I could do... Oh and for reference how big are the pellets you are feeding compared to the Salifert's?

Yes, and no.

Does your aquarium have a good website? I would love to check it out!

No, they are from deep water in the tropical Caribbean. I keep the tank at 76, which is probably a bit on the warm side for it, but it seems to be doing fine.




www.calacademy.org



Hey Urchin,

Yes, we're very happy with the Eheims. They are simple and easy to load and program and so far we haven't had any problems with them sticking or otherwise malfunctioning. I think in total we have something like 6 or 8 of them in use on different tanks.

I think I'm using the 3mm size pellets...I'll post again after checking. EDIT: Nevermind that, I'm actually using a 1mm pellet. I also catch them in a funnel that disperses the pellets underwater. Otherwise a lot of them float and go over the overflow.

Oh ok. I just know you can find them in the Atlantic, where it is a little cooler.

I am hoping to work at an aquarium this summer, just thought I would share

This place looks incredible!!!!

This place looks INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!
The aquarium and rainforest... :jawdropsopen:

Next time I come to Cali, I'll have to get tickets there. I wanted to last summer, but we never made it.

Cheers mate. I think the Sali's are about 1mm so that should work fine. So those cardinal's are cold(er) water fish then?

dave & wombat talking about mini dart gobies
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=230857

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/03/23/dwarf-d...ops-megastigma/

Man, the internet is quick. We just sent that to Jake like an hour ago and I came here to post it.

The video is down! get it back up!

-Dave

Works for me as of 6PM PST...

Oh man.....

I cant wait!

-Dave