Anglers Help

[anglers]

ok-I need all the help I can get you experienced fish people-
I want to keep & possibly breed anglers--Help, anyone out there who has kept anglers for a long period of time--let me know-everything--tank size, water systems & variances, do you keep many together? what do you feed them? any & all info. will be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks

 

[Animal Mother]

I have kept a few anglers. The best experience I had was with a Lophiocharon trisignatus that lived 9 months until I moved it to another tank. It died a few days after the move for what reason I don't know. Perhaps just the stess of a new environment. The fish was missing an eye when I got it and had a strange growth in its mouth so I was amazed it lasted as long as it did.
I kept an Antennarius pictus with an Antennarius hispidus. They were of similar size and occasionally the hispidus would try to intimidate the pictus but they never harmed one another. They only lived about 6 weeks, then their skin started sloughing off and turning pink so I believe they had some kind of bacterial infection. They were both bought from the same tank at the same time so quarantine wasn't a concern. They are very sensitive to antibiotics so treatment of ailments could be detrimental.

I've spoken to different people more experienced with them than myself and everyone seems to have mixed results. Some say they can live in captivity for years, and some say they have had similar luck as myself with their fish dying prematurely for undetermined reasons.

They are a hard enough fish to just keep without adding the risk of cannibalism or exposure to disease in my opinion.

Here's a website with some great frogfish ID information. http://www.starfish.ch/frogfish/Genus.html
You never know what kind you'll find. A. pictus is probably my favorite, but A. hispidus is a notoriously good eater and easy to train onto frozen foods.

Good luck.