Advice please on adding 2 Dragonface pipefish

[Canarygirl]

...to my 120 mixed reef. I have a fair amount of flow but these are "hitching" type pipefish, correct? I am thinking about the dragonface pipefish because I've read that they do okay in a reef with a good amount of flow in it, and also that they eat red bugs. (I also think pipefish are awesome so I'm not just wanting them to eat red bugs).

I have a lot of vertical rock work, mostly SPS, a bit of LPS, and a crocea clam. Fish tankmates include Sailfin tang, Foxface Rabbitfish, clarkii clown, pair of true percs, pair of firefish, 3 green chromis. I have no other pod eaters in my tank. I have lots of big pods such as the size of mysis shrimp...do these biggun's eat copepods? I don't know what my copepod population is like now but my amphipod population seems very large lately.

 

[rssjsb]

They don't "hitch," in the sense that some pipes do, with prehensile tails that wrap around plants or rocks. Rather, they kind of slither around and rest in branched corals like leathers. They do eat pods, and love live mysis.

HTH.

 

[GraviT]

If you do get the dragon face pipes, do not use Tropic Marin Calcium or Magnesium suppliments (perhaps any powdered suppliment) without first COMPLETELY dissolving it in water. I lost 3 overnight when they ate the particles of TM Ca floating in the water column. Not realizing why they died, I bought 3 more and lost them about a month later right after dosing TM Mg. Then it clicked..both incidences must be related.

I dosed per the instructions which do not say to dissolve the product first.

 

[Canarygirl]

GravIt, what a shame. This gives me pause, because every 10 days or so, I use kalk paste to kill off pest anemones in my tank. When I turn my pumps back on I have a snow storm of kalk particles in the tank. I guess they would eat those too, huh?

 

[MADtanks]

yea make sure u get rid of all the pest anems first b4 you put them in there, better safe than sorry no? good luck with your pipes

 

[Canarygirl]

I read another post by a person's whose newly-added pipefish was harrased by his tomato clown, and the clown bit off the pipefish's tail fin.

Reminded me that I have a pugnacious Clarkii clown that likes to chase her smaller tank-mates. She doesn't bite she just likes to chase. But I read that pipefish "respond poorly to (agressive tankmates)"

Hmmm....this might not be a good environment for pipefish.

 

[MADtanks]

def not clowns are very aggressive... and pipes are so clam that they will only be able to swim away so far b4 they just give up....

 

[Canarygirl]

OK, so much for that idea. Too bad, I think these fish are so cool.

Can anyone recommend a reef-safe wrasse that

1. would be okay in a tank with only 1.5" of crushed coral substrate (so not a sand-sleeper)...need a rock-hider or a cocoon-spinner such as some of the
2. relatively hardy
3. eats micro-crustaceans (like red bugs)?

 

[pledosophy]

Six line fits the first two.