24 hours after adding my rabbitfish...

[bureau13]

Mine (in QT) is now looking much better...he's lost his blotchy camo pattern...and he will eat pretty much whatever I feed the tank with now. He frequently seems to twitch his dorsal fin though...it looks a little odd. Is that normal with these guys?

jds

 

[Dejavu]

dictyota problem also. My rabbitfish never ate it, but my Naso ate it all. Nice fish by the way.

 

[afex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9432909#post9432909 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bureau13
Mine (in QT) is now looking much better...he's lost his blotchy camo pattern...and he will eat pretty much whatever I feed the tank with now. He frequently seems to twitch his dorsal fin though...it looks a little odd. Is that normal with these guys?

jds

the twitching is like a "back off" signal. its their way of letting other things know that it has venomous spines and knows how to use them

it may be seeing his reflection in the glass and becoming defensive.

 

[TWallace]

My blue lined rabbitfish has proved useless with bryopsis . He's still in QT with a lawnmower blenny (which also won't touch bryopsis). Both fish are eating whatever I feed them, though. I may just sell both fish locally if I can't convince them to eat bryopsis. I have a small frag of zoanthids in the QT that has bryopsis on it. The rabbit isn't at all interested in munching on the zoanthids. I have seen him a few times peck at the bubble algae, but I don't think he's ever actually eaten any of it.

 

[NWJayhawk]

Added a scribbled rabbit 3 weeks ago for the purpose of munching on hair algae. And he isn't at all interested. Doesn't even browse at all ... but he's a pig when I feed mysid, spectrum pellets, etc. Hoping that nori will induce him to become more of a vegetarian .... Considering a lawnmower blennie in addition to a yellow or sailfin tang.

 

[afex]

one thing i noticed about the rabbitfish was that if the GHA was too long it wouldn't touch it. when i got in there and pruned it by hand, by the next day any bits that were left had been cleaned up.

 

[fishcraze2002]

I ordered a blueline rabbitfish from liveaquaria this past Friday.. So far he didn't show much interest in any algea at all
I properly have to try a naso tang now! Wonder how easy to catch the rabbit fish out.. would he be more agressive in eating later on to jump into a trap?

 

[Peter Eichler]

If any of you guys are buying them in hopes that they will eat Bryopsis I'd suggest not bothering. I bet miost reports of them eating Bryopsis is a result of the algae being misidentified and not being Bryopsis.

Also, like Afex pointed out, many herbovores won't touch older/longer growths of hair algae. But prune it down a bit and by hand and often your herbivores will take care of the rest.