General information - This species is restricted to the Banggai Islands of Indonesia.

This species has an extremely limited geographic range and small total population size.

The Banggai cardinal fish Common around the jetty, in silty sand bottoms with seagrass.

 It has a distinctive contrasting pattern of black and light bars with

white spots on its silver body.        

Common name- Banggai cardinal fish.      

Scientific Name - Pterapogon kauderni

Family – Apogonidae.  

Origin - Western Central Pacific, Banggai Island, Indonesia. 

Size – 8cm (3.1 inches). 

First discovered - Koumans, 1933. 

Nutrition – carnivore, in nature the Banggai cardinal fish feeds on meaty food such as

crustaceans, zoobenthos, small fish and invertebrates.

In home tank they will accept flake, pellet and meaty frozen food. Some fish keepers use to

feed their Banggai cardinal fish with small freshwater fish. 

Behavior – peaceful but known to be territorial and aggressive with other cardinalfish.  

Maintenance and care – minimum tank requirement is 30 gallon with peaceful fish as tank partners,

well filtered water are essential, consider to be easy fish to keep after it acclimate to the tank.   

Water Parameters – PH: 8.1-8.4, temperature: 72F-79F (23C-27C), salinity: 1.020-1.026. 

Breeding – Banggai cardinals are one of the easier saltwater species to breed.

This fish known to be mouthbrooders with the males generally doing the incubating. T

he eggs are large about 2.5 mm in diameter, with the young remaining within the mouth

cavity for undetermined period after hatching. Newly hatched larvae have no planktonic period.

Photo by: Reuven moskovich