Just bought a pair of Orange Spotted Filefish on DD. Now what?!?

To be honest, I think one of the biggest problems is getting the fish before they're close to being starved to death. Think of how long it takes before they actually end up in somebody's home aquarium, and you know full well the collectors don't try to feed them, nor do the wholesalers, then the LFS don't work with them, so the fish are severely emaciated before we even get a chance to try.

Granted, this fish isn't for everyone, but i bet we'd see/hear of a lot more of them making the transition to prepared foods if folks could simply get them before they're on death's doorstep.

JMHO...
 
Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake

Thanks for your thoughts, Greg, and I bet you are right.

I want to add a little tidbit to this feeding discussion in the form of a scientific theory as put forth by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake. His theory is called "Morphic Resonance" and it has many ramifications.

The part of it that is relevant here has to do with animal behavior. The idea is that there are hierarchical fields of information associated with species and certain behaviors. And the more times a given species repeats a behavior, the stronger the field gets and the more likely it is to repeat the behavior or for another member of the species to repeat it. This would mean that the more orange spots we get eating prepared foods, the more likely it becomes that more will do so.

If you're interested in his theory, I strongly recommend his books but you can get a taste of it at his website.

http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

Best, small the alien
 
small alien said:
Thanks for your thoughts, Greg, and I bet you are right.

I want to add a little tidbit to this feeding discussion in the form of a scientific theory as put forth by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake. His theory is called "Morphic Resonance" and it has many ramifications.

The part of it that is relevant here has to do with animal behavior. The idea is that there are hierarchical fields of information associated with species and certain behaviors. And the more times a given species repeats a behavior, the stronger the field gets and the more likely it is to repeat the behavior or for another member of the species to repeat it. This would mean that the more orange spots we get eating prepared foods, the more likely it becomes that more will do so.

If you're interested in his theory, I strongly recommend his books but you can get a taste of it at his website.

http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

Best, small the alien
Click to expand...

Um, yeah. I looked at it and no offense but I'll stick to science. Much much much more likely that someone simply got the feeding habits of these things wrong for some reason, such as the fish being of poor health to begin with.
 
small alien - awesome video!

IMO - they look very much like specialized feeders. Everything about their form to me screams "specialized feeder." Form follows function. I don't think people were wrong about them. We are just lucky that they are able to adapt to eating food from the water column in our tanks.

As far as flake food, I use formula 2.
 
Thanks, Uhuru. I still feel a debt of gratitude to you for the soaking the pellets idea. That was huge.

Idle Moor, you're welcome to your opinion. I would posit that Sheldrake's theory is scientific and based on observable phenomena. And I would also say that "new" science always seems a little far out to people who subscribe to the old paradigm. I would encourage you not to be so quickly dismissive about something you don't necessarily understand. For science to work, we need to have open minds about explanations for things, otherwise, we'll just always be fitting observable data into conventional categories and never move forward.

Cheers!
 
small alien said:
Thanks, Uhuru. I still feel a debt of gratitude to you for the soaking the pellets idea. That was huge.

Idle Moor, you're welcome to your opinion. I would posit that Sheldrake's theory is scientific and based on observable phenomena. And I would also say that "new" science always seems a little far out to people who subscribe to the old paradigm. I would encourage you not to be so quickly dismissive about something you don't necessarily understand. For science to work, we need to have open minds about explanations for things, otherwise, we'll just always be fitting observable data into conventional categories and never move forward.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Some good points no doubt, and I don't want to drag us off topic, but without questioning the possibility of his theory it still seems a whole lot simpler and more likely that someone just came to the wrong conclusion about these guys eating habits. It's called Occam's razor - Google that if you don't know it. Not as fun and exciting as new force fields bonding us all Avatar-like together, but much (much) more likely.
 
Hi Idle Moor. It's okay to drag "off topic". I brought it up.

I agree with your basic premise about the simplest explanation. And your assessment of the feeding habits of these fish is very possibly correct. But I question your assessment that it is "much much more likely." I feel there is a little bias there. How do you know it is much much more likely?

I am not a biologist but it is my understanding that things like instinctive behaviors, regeneration of lost body parts, and the source of the forms (morphogenesis) of creatures in nature are still pretty up in the air science-wise and a lot of assumptions are being made.

Take our genes for example. It is generally accepted that our genes contain the information for the form of our bodies. But we don't really know that. Sheldrake suggests that genes simply code for proteins, the building blocks of our bodies, but that it is these fields of information associated with the species that actually contain the blueprint for our bodies.

He sites the example of a radio. If you gave a radio to a primitive person who had no idea what it was or how it worked and you turned it on and they heard a voice coming out of it, they would likely think the radio itself was producing the voice. But it is not. The voice is produced elsewhere and travels in radio frequencies through the air and is picked up and amplified by the radio.

We assume genes contain the information. Maybe they just allow the organism to tap into it, a la the radio.

I will add that physics has changed radically with the idea of quantum mechanics and chaos theory. They've essentially proved that matter doesn't really exist as such but is made of energy. That is very radical. This idea is no more radical than that to my mind. And I believe it is very pertinent to us fish keepers who study behavior every day when we look at our tanks.

I'd encourage you to give the theory a second chance and maybe pick up one of his books.

Thanks for the discussion.

Best, small
 
Diver's Den...it's a division of Live Aquaria. It's a different facility where they "pre-condition" fish prior to selling them.
 
I see that now having read their info. I might actually consider ponying up for the shipping for something special someday. I like to support my LFS(s) - I know they are hurting mightily in this economy - but they usually don't have what I want anyway, and if they do it is usually disease-infested.
 
What a great thread! Not just for the success, but for the thinking around the success. We should have more of these, and fewer stocking list threads (sorry, I have been guilty as well).
 
small alien said:
Just saw another pair of our filefish friends are likely coming up today on DD. Anyone? Anyone?
Click to expand...

I'll actually pick up another pair, after I move, for a community tank. My original plan was to put these with a few very benign fish, but I chickened out. I worked too hard on these and not many people had them to learn from at the time. A pair already eating frozen from DD I can risk. :-)

I can't wait to put my community tank together....
 
small alien said:
Just saw another pair of our filefish friends are likely coming up today on DD. Anyone? Anyone?
Click to expand...

Hey all,

I picked up the pair that was listed today. Will recieve them Wed and then will move them into QT to make sure they get settled in, eating, and comfortable.

I will post some pics and updates then.

Bobby
 
seahorsedreams said:
I'll actually pick up another pair, after I move, for a community tank. My original plan was to put these with a few very benign fish, but I chickened out. I worked too hard on these and not many people had them to learn from at the time. A pair already eating frozen from DD I can risk. :-)

I can't wait to put my community tank together....
Click to expand...

That tank as I've seen you describe it in that thread will be beyond amazing. Good luck!!!

The decision of where to put these fish is now looming large for me though I feel like I can keep them in the 10 for some time if need be.

I have my 75 gallon reef and the empty 33 gallon cube. I'd really rather have them in the reef. Can you imagine watching a leopard wrasse or pipefish swim past the filefish!?!? :bounce3: OOooo.....:eek1: How amazing would that be. And with the backdrop of colorful corals. oh man. So that's what I'd really like. But I don't want them to munch on my lps. That's the main thing. I'm rather attached to my fungiid collection if I'm using that term properly. Seahorsedreams, do you have any corals at all in with yours?

Or a species tank with a bunch of macro algae would also be cool if a bit sterile. I could maybe sneak an ORA mandarin in there with them if I manage to get one.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

P.S. They both took Ocean Nutrition's Prime Reef Flakes last night and this morning!!! Whee! I'll try to post a little video later today. They seem to love it once they figured out what it was. No soaking or roe juice involved. Cool.

Cheers, the small one :wave:
 
Here's a video of them eating the mighty flake.

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