Banggai cardinalfish

Care at a glance

The Banggai cardinalfish is a graphic little picture: silver with black bars and white spots, and long, fanning fins with which it hangs almost motionless in the water. It hardly swims about and likes to stay near a fixed anchor point, such as a sea urchin, a coral branch or a rocky outcrop.

It is one of the few marine fish that genuinely breeds in home aquaria: the male broods the eggs in his mouth and releases fully developed young. Choose captive-bred stock deliberately, as the wild population is under heavy pressure. Keep a single fish or a bonded pair; among themselves they can turn unexpectedly fierce, and their slow way of feeding means fast tankmates will out-compete them.

Related species

• Firefish gobyNemateleotris magnifica
• Mandarin dragonetSynchiropus splendidus
• Six-line wrassePseudocheilinus hexataenia
• Spotted mandarinSynchiropus picturatus
• Coral beauty angelfishCentropyge bispinosa
• Royal grammaGramma loreto