Well I had a thread about starting a breeder tank for these interesting fish and here I am. I was using this "unfinished" 33g sump for a fresh water shrimp tank. I was thinking about switching it to ither a mandarin or bangaii only tank for a long time and finally put it in action after my fried gave me a few of his artificial deco.
I know this may looks odd by using a half done sump. however, I think it might actrually work for this. What I am doing is going to have a pump in that chamber.

And then connectit to a spray bar
The main point is to create water flow but not too much as I think bangaii prefer less flow rate.
What I will do is to put rubble in the chamber and block off the punp and put macro algea in it to create a in tank refrugium.
As for filtration, I have couple choice, either use te canister filter I had for the shrimp tank( will remove all media and replace with only ceramic and carbon) or I will just go with some HOB skimmer like this red sea one.
I had yet to make up my mind, I just want to use those extra parts I have hanging around to complete this project.
The sand are from my old 120g tank, did washed it like 20 times and it was in the sun for almost a week.
The rubble/LR are about 10lbs currently is in the sump of my display tank. I will us those to seed this breeder and help cycle the tank.
I will follow up when I have the tank fill up and running.
Any suggestion on what kind of clean up crew I should have in here?
I am thinking nothing but snails, or maybe a cleaner shrimp. I am not sure if cleaner shrimp gonna cause problem to those baby cardinals tho.