Fish Survey: Panther Grouper

[aLittletank]

i would post a pic of my grouper but i fall . butt it is in my gallery

here ya go

Allen

 

[EMG]

I don't own one but I bought one for my friend for his birthday last month.

He was about 2 inches when I bought him. I paid $15 for him at the LFS. He is one of 2 fish in a 55 gallon tank, the other being a 7 inch long Columbian Shark. They get along just fine although I thought the shark was going to eat him the fist 2 days.

We thought something was wrong with him when we threw him in the tank because he swims along the bottom with his head down and tail way up in the air? Anybody else's do this? He had a small piece of his right gill broken off but it wasn't that bad and hardly noticeable? Do gill cover grow back?, I never had that problem before.

He will eat anything but he is mostly fed frozen Mysis shrimp and blood worms. He eats until his belly is so full it looks like it will pop.

I hope he doesn't outgrow that 55 gallon tank to quickly because my friend doesn't really have the money to get a bigger one for a while.

 

[ReefWaters]

EMG, your a good friend.

As far as I know, these fish are much less hardy when that small. However, as a whole, they are very hardy fish. The fish that I had supposedly spent a few hours in a fresh water tank and in the process, all his fins rotted off and he developed tons of soars. The LFS owner was able to get him back in time and treat him. He came back better than new and was happy as a clam when I had him.

The swimming face down thing does not sound bad. Mine, though much larger, would hide behind the rocks face down, would swim face down a good bit, and would even lay on his side in the corner occasionally. Nothing was ever wrong with him. I just think they are smarter than most people realize.

He will definitely outgrow the 55. How soon is another question.

I would say this is the biggest problem with these fish. Most people (including myself) get these fish and are not prepared for how large they will get and how long they will live. Its almost like a dog. I plan on setting up a grouper tank again but I will not do so until I can set up a 300 gallon or larger tank and plan on leaving it with just the groupers for many, many, many years.

I'm sure you've read above, but just to reiterate, make sure your friend feeds a wide variety of foods and at a minimum skims the water heavily. I also ran a UV sterilizer to prevent parasites which I did have a problem with at one point.

Good luck with the little guy and I promise he will be one of your favorite fish from now on.

 

[unleashed13]

I purchased a panther grouper a few days ago.however I did not qt him b4 placing him into the main tank always add melafix to the tank when acclimating any new fish into my tank he and the other tank mates have shown no signs of stress or illness .I purchase all of my fish and LR from one LSF only and have never had a problem with any of them as far as ich or paresite problems or illness.
125 gal hes about 7-8 inches
he ate very well the first day placed into the tank that evening
I fed him krill and shrimp chunks
hes is housed with
vilotan lion
silverscat
magnifcant foxface
snowflake eel
2 damsels 3-4 striped
and a black brittle starfish
crushed coral substrate
with LR
he gets along well with everyone
for now the damsels wont fit in his mouth they will be moved to my 55 gal as he grows
hes very outgoing as with all of my others fish.he has learned very fast that I am his feeder.I do hand feed my fish to a point.I stick feed my eel but i hand drop bit at a time for the rest of the tank they all come right to me for feeding
as he grows larger i will have to get a larger tank for him min 180 gal.but he shows promise for some personality the other fish like to lay on his back including the lion he just kinda sits back and enjoys the hug

 

[unleashed13]

oh yeh almost forgot 1 engeneer goby 11 inches

 

[ReefWaters]

unleashed13, sounds like your providing him a nice home.
Good luck with him. I think you'll really enjoy the fish.

Your making me want another fish only again.

 

[unleashed13]

thanx Im going to do my best hes a cool fish I like the fact that hes not shy and already is hand feeding and seems to recognize me as his caretaker

 

[SHOW ANGELS]

panther groupers are nice and tasty fish. Ill take mine steamed.

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

show angels, your hilarious bro! we're not talking sushi,seafood,calamari or jumbo prawns here.....by the way some extra crispy lemon chicken sounds hella good right now:thumbsup: :lolspin:

 

[SHOW ANGELS]

HA HA HA HA , bro your laughs. DUDE your reef is phat!!! Dude where did you get that pimp avatar???

 

[camaro03]

Aggressive fish will eat small fish and harrass fish its own size

 

[gussy]

Panther

Panther

SELECTION
Did you mail order this fish and would you recommend mail order this fish? Are there captive-raised/bred specimen available and where? Selected from a local distributor
Any tips on how you picked a healthy specimen of this species from LFS? What do you think is the ideal size to get? 2"
Are there any noticeable differences in body shape, pattern or color among the same species or between juvenile and adult of this species? no idea
Is there a way to tell the sex of this fish? no idea

ACCLIMATION AND INTRODUCTION
Any special tips about the acclimation and introduction of this fish? same as other fish
Any special needs for this fish or special considerations for young specimen? none
Should this fish be the first or the last to introduce to a tank? depends on what the "other" fishes are

COMPATIBILITY
What tankmates do you have with this fish?Is it a reef or FO tank? Fish and some inverts. Mono, Niger Trigger, Figure 8 Puffer, planning to add eel, scat, and dwarf lionfish later
Have you had more than one of this species in the same tank? If so, is there a certain male/female ratio or group number worked for you (to have a harem or pecking order)? Do they school?I only have one, so no idea on more than one
Have you had other species of the same genus/family in the same tank? no
Whatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s the stocking order (considering the above factors) that worked for you?no idea
Did this fish hurt/eat any of other fish (or vice versa)? No because it is currently the smallest fish in the tank. The next smallest fish is the slightly larger Figure 8 Puffer. All the other fishes are at least 8x the size of the panther.
Did this fish hurt/eat Cnidaria (corals, mushrooms or anemones)?No
Did this fish hurt/eat ornamental crustaceans (shrimps, hermits, crabs)? No
Did this fish hurt/eat Mollusks (snails, clams, oysters, mussels)?No
Did this fish hurt/eat Echinoderms (sea cucumbers, sea stars, urchins)?No
Did this fish hurt/eat Worms (feather dusters, flat worms, etc)?Did not eat anything other than the food that I gave it

FEEDING
How did you get this fish to eat at first? Just frozen cubes
If this fish only accepted live food, how did you wean it over to prepared food? Does it eat dry food (flakes or pallets)? Did not have to do live food.
Whatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s the diet? Nothing special
How much and how often do you feed? One a day and some times skipping a day.
How does this fish eat?(grazers, active or sedentary predators, sand sifters, etc)
Does this fish eat any microalgae or macroalgae in your tank? If so what type of algae? No

GROWTH RATE AND LIFE SPAN
What is the initial size of your fish and maximum size it reached? 2"How fast did it grow (how much growth over a given period of time)?
What size tank did this fish live in? 55G with 5G Sump(or how soon did this fish outgrow what size tank)? What do you think is the minimum tank size required for an adult specimen of this fish? At least 100 Gallons, bigger if there are other fishes in the tank.
If this fish went through body pattern change from juvenile to adult, was the change complete? How long did it take?
How long have you kept this fish? If you no longer have this fish, what was the cause?
What is the longest lifespan and the maximum size of this fish in home aquarium and/or in the wild reported? Check the books.

DISEASE AND TREATMENT
What disease has this fish had? How did you treat it, for how long? What's the effect of the treatment?

BEHAVIOR
Does this fish change body color under any circumstances?
Does this fish dig the substrate often? No
How active is this fish? Is this fish shy?
How territorial or aggressive is this fish? How does this fish interact with tankmates?
Did this fish ever jump out of the tank? No
How does this fish sleep?
Does this fish allow cleaners to clean? If so which cleaner and how often?
How does this fish interact with human?
Did the fish release toxic substance that killed other creatures in the tank? Of course not.
Any other interesting observation of this fish?

REPRODUCTION
If you have a mated pair, how did you get them to pair up?
Any information of spawning in captivity?

SUMMARY
Your overall assessment of this species -
How sensitive is this fish to poor water quality on a scale of 1-5? 3
1 - very tolerant, may survive a cycle in a new tank
2 - quite tolerant, may survive accidental ammonia or nitrite spike
3 - not terribly sensitive to reasonable pH, salinity or temperature changes
4 - sensitive to any significant water chemistry changes, and may show stress during such changes
5 - very sensitive to water quality, may easily get stressed and get sick with any change in water chemistry
Do you think we should not keep this fish (for what reason)?
Would you recommend this fish to beginners? No
Is this fish best kept in mature/established (6 months or older) tank?
Any other recommendations/comments?

REFERENCES
Do you have any links to web sites, online articles or any other source of information about this species that you would recommend?

If you have any picture(s) of this fish you took, please post it here and share with us!

This survey is too long and most of the answers other than personal experiences can be found in all the books.

 

[fishes2889]

ive had my panther for about 4 months now and hes bout 7 inches long and eats anything that will fit in its mouth. The panther is a fish that should be the last to go in an estblished tank , cuz its very hard to add fish after uve put in the mighty panther. He got his territory quickly and never gave it up very defensive when new fish are added and thiinks that they rare food but then he realizes that he cant fit them in his mouth. The last fish i put in this tank was a scopas tang and at first the panther kept on nipping at him the first day but then i feed the pnether and the scopas(silversides,bloodworms and for the tang sea weed even tho the tang ate the meat too) The panther just gave up and said this isnt food this is going to be a guy livibng with me. the tangf had a few nipped out of his fins but grew most of them back the next day. the panther is fun to watch he always stays over by where i feed him. evry time i enter the room hes over at the rightside of the tank swimming frantically. overal they r very hardy and a good selction to an aggressive but yet big enough community fish for an at least 100 gallon tank. i will eventually get a bigger tank then a 120 , so i will probably buy a 180 soon enough.but for the 120 i bought a uv sterilizer bout a month ago sice i noticed how much watse the grouper was porducing and i read that alot of people insisted on getting it with a grouper since the grouper can be prone to parasites. SO yes what i feed the grouper every day is a cube of copped up mysis shrimp, bloodworms, silversides and some krill. i had a princess parrot fish that i had bought but that didnt work out that well the panther had half of the parrot fish in his mouth but couklnt eat it so i took the parrot out and took it back to the LFS and everything was just peachy. So yea grouper are outstanding fish very intelligent and will live an extremely long life for a fish so be ready .

 

[ReefWaters]

I second the UV for a fish only and especially the groupers. My panther got a nasty parasite that looked like worms growing out of his side. The UV cleared it right up and was a small investment for the benefit IMO.

 

[RickD1]

Mine is great it eat out of my hand.

 

[lost1st manty:(]

my panther is turningitno a real beast

my panther is turningitno a real beast

igot him as a small baby and is in a 150 gallon tank with a huma trigger yellow tang porcupine puffer, green bird wrasse ( he hates him the most) hi fin snapper (him second most)(by the way my bird wrasse hates the hifin snapper, volitan lion they seem to be doing fine so far and have heard of problems developing, have fought over food a fews times but my volitan will grab food then turn upside down pointing his venomous spines at my panther which gets his attention to back off or die!!!! snowflake moray, humbug dasel i cant catch him neither can the grouper or anyone they are trying to eat him , i tore the whole tank apart trying to get him out spent hours until my arms were too tired and aslmost got stung by my volitan while not paying attention to where he was, yellow tang, panther is so far afraid if his razor on his tail fin but is getting more frisky around him especially when crossing territotires, my puffer and him get along th ebest and moray thoughi did see my panther pushing the moray into his lair recently, so essentially i could have a problem on my hand as i have been trying not to feed him as much as often as he is slowly becoming a bigger and bigger terror each day. oh yeah i have a blue velvet damsel about 3 inches and my panther is about 5 now my panther tired to swallow him the other day but spit him out i couldnt believ how big his mouth could open there are scracthes all over the damsel but i cant catch or trap him to get him out and afraid he and domino will be snacks real quick, as far as the huma is he getting nastier and nastier too the panther will not remotelyt mess with him or puffer, hope this helps you some, i have been keeopping fish 6 months:eek2: :eek2:

 

[kmckayak]

I received my panther as an adoption from the local Petco, believe it or not, along with a picasso trigger and a carpet eel blenny. They were all in one tank together and were buddies. They hang out under the same overhang, rub up against each other and get along great. The trigger is the definite pig but the panther now gets more aggressive for food and will sometimes take a chunk from the trigger. The panther's eating frozen shrimp, squid and anchovies but still gets most excited with a live goldfish. All three were big fish when I got them: panther-7 inches, trigger-6 inches, eel-10 inches. They are in a 125 gal tank.
My panther generally likes to hang out under an overhanging rock but will cruise the tank casually, especially when I come by for feeding time. He doesn't eat at night when I've slipped a fish or piece of shrimp in there to see their reaction. I've just put in another smaller picasso trigger and a snowflake eel into the tank and all are getting along fine. The larger trigger initially chased the smaller trigger but they're getting along well now. The panther is pretty unfazed by the other fish. He's a very mellow tankmate.

 

[saltyESQ]

if I bought a 5 inch panther grouper, how long would it take to outgrow m 90g. I was thinking of mixing it with a humu trigger and a stars and stripes puffer.

 

[ReefWaters]

A year...Two Max

 

[gussy]

Seem to grow pretty fast. It's been close to a year and my panther is now 3x it's orginal size. It used to be the smallest fish in the tank but now it's the second largest at 6". In contrast, my Niger Trigger has barely grown...probably 1/2" in a year.