Ambon Wasp
- Thread starter WTyson
- Start date
Ambon wasp = scorpion is my guess?
Try this website to sort our what species you actually have. http://www.starfish.ch/collection/rhinopias.html#Tetrarogidae Then finding more information on it's care will be easier I'm sure.
Live ghost shrimps are the way to go for now. Target feed, and have patience. It may take it a while to decide to eat. If no feeding response during with lights on, try when it is dark.
If it eats well don't over feed it. Just feed it enough to give it a visually slightly full belly every other day. If you give one all it will eat it will eat TOO much.
And transition it to frozen foods as it will accept them. Patience and persistence is often required to shift to a fully frozen diet.
Try this website to sort our what species you actually have. http://www.starfish.ch/collection/rhinopias.html#Tetrarogidae Then finding more information on it's care will be easier I'm sure.
Live ghost shrimps are the way to go for now. Target feed, and have patience. It may take it a while to decide to eat. If no feeding response during with lights on, try when it is dark.
If it eats well don't over feed it. Just feed it enough to give it a visually slightly full belly every other day. If you give one all it will eat it will eat TOO much.
And transition it to frozen foods as it will accept them. Patience and persistence is often required to shift to a fully frozen diet.
Last edited:
namxas
Things With Stings R Us!
Yeppers...Pteroidicthys amboinensis (AKA ambon scorpionfish), which isn't a waspfish, BTW.
Very cool little fish, but as mentioned, they can be tuff to wean off of live ghosties and guppies. Fortunately, like leaf scorps, they do tend to train to eat from a small net.
Now for the not-so-good news...for whatever reason, these fish don't do very well in captivity, and nobody I know of has kept one even for a year (the best we've done is 10 months out of 4 specimens, shortest was about 2 weeks). Fish that seem to be doing well and eating are often simply found dead for no apparent reason.
I do have an idea or two for our next try with these fish, one of them being keeping them a bit cooler, low 70's (74*F max.) for starters, and vitamins C and B6 plus beta glucan to boost the immune system.
If you're new to scorps, give THIS ARTICLE a read. There's a brief section discussing this species.
Also, you might want to give Tools of the Trade: Equipment & Techniques to Convert your Fish onto Frozen a read as well.
Here are a couple of photos:
This fish is actively shedding its cuticle:
The big yawn:
Yellow ambon:
Feed me first!
HTH
Very cool little fish, but as mentioned, they can be tuff to wean off of live ghosties and guppies. Fortunately, like leaf scorps, they do tend to train to eat from a small net.
Now for the not-so-good news...for whatever reason, these fish don't do very well in captivity, and nobody I know of has kept one even for a year (the best we've done is 10 months out of 4 specimens, shortest was about 2 weeks). Fish that seem to be doing well and eating are often simply found dead for no apparent reason.
I do have an idea or two for our next try with these fish, one of them being keeping them a bit cooler, low 70's (74*F max.) for starters, and vitamins C and B6 plus beta glucan to boost the immune system.
If you're new to scorps, give THIS ARTICLE a read. There's a brief section discussing this species.
Also, you might want to give Tools of the Trade: Equipment & Techniques to Convert your Fish onto Frozen a read as well.
Here are a couple of photos:
This fish is actively shedding its cuticle:
The big yawn:
Yellow ambon:
Feed me first!
HTH
WTyson
New member
thats him (2nd to last pic). He ate a ghost shrimp yesterday, so i will try to feed him tmro.
Also im moving to houston (from Austin) on saturday, so like he is in my buddies 20h with some of my coral, and will stay there until my tank (34 gal) is stable. the new tank will have a chiller, so the temp issue will hopefully not be an issue. his other future tank mates will be a small zebra lion, and a yellow wrasse (my remove)
Also im moving to houston (from Austin) on saturday, so like he is in my buddies 20h with some of my coral, and will stay there until my tank (34 gal) is stable. the new tank will have a chiller, so the temp issue will hopefully not be an issue. his other future tank mates will be a small zebra lion, and a yellow wrasse (my remove)
namxas
Things With Stings R Us!
My wife (seahorsedreams here on RC) used to live in Corpus and waded out into the grass beds with her gear to collect the local "grass shrimp" for her SH. As long as they're the right size, they are an excellent food.
Other than that, a varied diet is the best if you can get the fish weaned. However, since there seems to be a disconnect of some sort with this species, I wonder if having a steady supply of live SW shrimp might be a good thing to try. You can gutload them with beta glucan, good-quality marine flake food, spirulina, etc. I would try a regular dose of Vitamin C as well.
Who knows? Maybe you'll be "the one" to crack the code on these fish.
Other than that, a varied diet is the best if you can get the fish weaned. However, since there seems to be a disconnect of some sort with this species, I wonder if having a steady supply of live SW shrimp might be a good thing to try. You can gutload them with beta glucan, good-quality marine flake food, spirulina, etc. I would try a regular dose of Vitamin C as well.
Who knows? Maybe you'll be "the one" to crack the code on these fish.
Since your moving to Houston- please visit City pets on beechnut and buy lots of saltwater ghost shrimp(grass shrimp), this is probably the best food you can get for these fish.
AS Greg mentions they are cool little "rhinopias"-like fish, but dont have long-term survival track records in captivity.
My guess about lower temperature-- reduced bacterial infections which are thought to be one of these reasons these fish drop off suddenly
AS Greg mentions they are cool little "rhinopias"-like fish, but dont have long-term survival track records in captivity.
My guess about lower temperature-- reduced bacterial infections which are thought to be one of these reasons these fish drop off suddenly
namxas
Things With Stings R Us!
Yeppers...Frank is reading our minds. We've been wondering if reduced temps might be a better fit for these fish in captive systems. Renee and I kept seeing bacterial issues in our bluefin lionfish (which was already being kept cool, like 71*F) and each time, we dropped the temp a couple of degrees until we finally hit on 63*F, and we saw no more bacterial issues. It's just a thought tho...
