Longnose Batfish?

[ceruleanseaslug]

I've always loved walking batfish, they're one of my dream fish. I noticed liveaquaria currently has them in stock. I've read up on care for them, but my only problem is the tank I'm setting up seems too small. It's a 40b with a lot of open sand space and the tank mates would be a fu manchu and possibly a dwarf fuzzy or an orangebanded scorpionfish. (choridactylus multibarbus) Definitely not putting all of them in there though, the fu manchu is what I'm building the tank around and I can get rid of any of the others. I don't think there would be a lot of competition for food. I'm setting up a tank to keep live ghost shrimp in, so feeding isn't a problem, and I'm willing to try blackworms if that doesn't work. I know about setting up the black backdrop and band, I'm just worried the tank would be too small.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Very cool fish, but from what I've read they require at min a 70 gal tank which would be a 4' tank where the 40b is 3'. Could it work, yeah maybe with not much rock covering the sand, maybe pile it up so a lot of your sandbed is open and put a bunch of rock in the sump to help with the bio filtration.

Since they don't swim very much if at all, it could work in the 40b but like anything else it's a crap shoot. This is one of those situations where the every so skinny 55 gal tank would actually be a totally acceptable size for this fish.

 

[iluvmyfishes]

Take a look at a finger dragonet. They are somewhat similar but smaller.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Actually the finger dragonet gets to a foot long, the longnose batfish only 9" not only that but you will still have the same troubles feeding the finger dragonet as you would any other dragonet, because they only eat pods.

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

I don't actually have a sump on this tank, but the rock is loosely stacked in the back, so there's a bunch of open sandbed space and really the rock doesn't take up a ton of space. I think there's more open sand than there would be in a 55 with this amount of rock.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

You know for the heck of it I figured the sq inches of each 40b and 55 gal and the 40b has more area. 40b - 648 sq in and the 55 gal is 576 sq in.

I say go for it if you want this fish, if i wanted it I would.

For instance Live Aquaria says 55 gal min for a McCosker's wrasse and I put one in my 40b and I have no issues at all.

But once you get it you are obligated to showing pictures of it in your tank :thumbsup: :beer:

 

[Cliving1]

Thats an interesting fish I have never seen before... agreed to the above. If you can make it work, I needs pics! hahaha. Good luck