Banggai Cardinals

Upper banggai is the male, as of 24Dec09 holding eggs.  I've had these two for about a year - thought one of them wasn't looking so good yesterday and noticed the full mouth this evening.  One other banggai in the tank I assume to be female...should be able to find out for sure now...

 

This is the first time I have had eggs - I have been waiting for them to pair off (I have a couple of wild caught males in other tanks). The male will release the free swimming fry in a few of weeks (around 21 days), from what I have read. I don't plan to move the male now, but may change my mind as the time gets closer - too much risk of him spitting the eggs out and I still need to set up one of my other tanks. The Royal Gramma, among others, will likely get to them before I do - I do plan on breeding these and possibly setting up another pair with the extra fish, but plan to get another tank or two stable before I do.
With the GPH ratings on the pumps, I have around 16x the tank volume in flow - two seperate rock piles that the pair tend to hang around between or in front of (most of the flow is in the back of the tank, but all coral does have flow).   My cardinals do seem to prefer the lower flow areas...
Regarding the sex of the fish, it seems darn near impossible to tell these two apart...other than the fact that the male is holding...

 

The three in this tank are from Hung also (he had a pair of clowns and the pair of banggai in the tank) - I don't expect I will see much while the parents are in my reef tank tank, but my plan always has been to set up a tank specific for them when they paired off.

 

Oops...forgot to say anything with the picture, so far I have found 5 (don't think there are any more either) - found three on Wednesday and 2 last night...the male just started eating on Wednesday, so they are newly released and got pretty big before being released. Just the five - I tried to move the male out, but he was extremely elusive in the reef rock piles (generally I catch them easily at feeding time).

The babies were all living under my gbta in the gsm clown's nest. The female clown appeared to be guarding them and keeping the other fish away (most likely just protecting her anemone...and the babies conveniently hid out of her view). These are second generation tank raised - the other tank raised female is in with one of my wild-caught males (waiting for them to decide it is time).

 

Kinda surprised...they have been eating frozen rotifers/baby brine shrimp/cyclops readily. Also feeding live bbs, but they don't seem to prefer one over the other. Also have a "fake" urchin in the tank, but they can care less about it...