Blue stripe pipefish

[H.reidi.MN]

Eventually in would like to have a small harem of these in my 120. If I order 2-3 and get more than 1 male will I be OK?

 

[AdamSabina]

I have no clue but that would be cool to see.


Guess but the might destroy copepod population. Not sure though. How much live rock for Copepods to hide in?

 

[H.reidi.MN]

Copepods won't be an issue when the time comes. They will be qt and trained to eat prepared food before hitting the DT. Tons of lr BTW.

 

[rssjsb]

Eventually in would like to have a small harem of these in my 120. If I order 2-3 and get more than 1 male will I be OK?

No - males will not tolerate each other. Like one-will-kill-the-other kind of not tolerating each other. Also, they may or may not take prepared food, even frozen mysis, in the DT. The good news is that IME that they seem to get by just fine on what they can hunt, even in a smaller setup, as long as it's a well established system with a fuge. So you should be fine as long as your tank has been set up for awhile.

 

[Paul B]

That is true, the males kill each other. I have had quite a few of them and they have been spawning in my reef for years. They only live about 3 years.
They do hunt pods and you may not be successful getting them to eat prepared foods as they are built like a mandarin and really need to eat constantly. Mine find plenty to eat but I have a large, old tank. They also love new born brine shrimp and I supplement their diet (and the mandarins) with this live baby brine feeder.





You can see one here eating at the feeder in this video.

 

[H.reidi.MN]

Looks like I'll order 1 or 3 and hope for at least m/f or m/f/f and if I get all males I'll l have separate tanks and trade 2 into the lfs

 

[tjdouglas]

mine do eat frozen mysis twice a day..although they also pick through the live rock all day. I have two females who mostly get along, but they do occasionally have brief squabbles.

 

[Deahttub]

Very cool fish......

 

[DanU]

FWIW, we found that captive bred males didn't seem to fight like the wild caught counterparts. We kept a mix of about 20 or so in a 15 tall tank. We didn't see any aggression.

Dan

 

[H.reidi.MN]

Where can I score captive bred ones?

 

[DanU]

I don't know at present. They were available a year or so ago. I know there are efforts to make them available again but don't have a timeline.

Dan

 

[H.reidi.MN]

Hmm I would love/ be up to the challenge of breeding them if I could get a m/f or m/f/f trio.

 

[Paul B]

Mine spawn all the time but I can't even see the fry. Those suckers are tiny

 

[H.reidi.MN]

Ya it would be a challenge but aquaculture has always been a passion of mine. When my local pet supplies plus switched over from acrylic to glass display tanks I bought all the old ones of them and I probably have 20-30 15-20 gallon acrylic tanks in storage waiting to start some breeding projects. when I was in high school dan sent me a few seahorses for my breeding project and I had pretty good success with reidi and erectus . blue stripes would be a fun challenge with a market demand

 

[DanU]

These guys are very doable! You will need a way to collect the fry either by having them in a dedicated tank or having a fry collector. The other thing is that copepod cultures will be needed as the first food. Small tanks are fine for the project but really good filtration is a must.

Dan

 

[Paul B]

when I was in high school dan sent me a few seahorses for my breeding project and I had pretty good success with reidi and erectus . blue stripes would be a fun challenge with a market demand

I have also collected and bred quite a lot of seahorses. But I never tried to raise pipefish. Maybe some day.
Here are some seahorses I collected transferring eggs to the male. This was in my reef tank but I did raise the babies

 

[H.reidi.MN]

These guys are very doable! You will need a way to collect the fry either by having them in a dedicated tank or having a fry collector. The other thing is that copepod cultures will be needed as the first food. Small tanks are fine for the project but really good filtration is a must.

Dan

Thanks dan. Right now I want some in my mixed reef. Currently I live in a 2 bed apartment which is why all my tanks are being stored. My 120 and my quarantine are probably it for now. I could set up 2 small tanks but then with fry food and all the extra stuff I'll never hear the end of it from the boss of the house. Ideally though with these 15 or 20 gal acrylic tanks I could set them up in systems or stands of 3 each with a 40b sump as filtration, large skimmer, refugium etc... And keep small harems to each tank, making to fry capture easier like you said.

 

[rssjsb]

That is true, the males kill each other. I have had quite a few of them and they have been spawning in my reef for years. They only live about 3 years.

I hope this isn't a distraction, but where have you sourced these fish over the years? It sounds like you've had spawning pairs for a long time. I love these fish, but have not had much luck finding them anywhere that would guarantee the gender of the fish. DD used to have pairs or even trios from time to time, but it's been awhile. I also never had any luck trying to pair them. Either the fish I bought as females were actually young males or the females were not tolerant of each other in the tank I had back then (20 gallon).

The last one I had lived (alone) in my 40 gallon for nearly exactly three years.

 

[Paul B]

I doubt anyone would guarantee the sex of them so if I see them in a store I pick the sex I want. Or I tell the store to order them and I tell them if it is a male, or female, (whatever I need) I will buy it. It is hard to find a pair together in a store. It may take me a year to get both a male and female as I don't order fish online and need to see it in a store. Whenever I see them, I buy them as they are not a very common fish. I have been trying to get a Janns pipefish for over a year.

 

[rssjsb]

I've never seen Janssi pipes locally. I ordered two from Liveaquaria about six months ago. One was smaller than the other and they seemed to get along ok in QT for a week or so. They swam intertwined all the time. Then the larger one killed the smaller one. He's in my display now. They're really easy to wean onto frozen and he seems to do fine. He is really cryptic, though.