My Journey with C./P. multifasciata

Ambition

New member
I thought I would start a thread to document my experience with the breathtaking multibar angelfish. As of now there is a pair coming to me from Kevin Kohen at Diver's Den. Kevin, if you are reading this, I owe you a big thank you to obtaining a pair of these beauties for me! They are currently in Minneapolis for shipping and should arrive tomorrow morning. Upon arrival they will be acclimated to a 20g long QT tank where a small pair of Picasso clownfish and a single male orchid dottyback are right now (just transferred from a 10g QT to the 20 this afternoon). I've found that multiple fish help in acclimation of new fish. This was noted with increased curiosity by a C. deborae with the addition of a McCosker's flasher as well as when the lone male orchid became more curious and ate more when I added a pair of clowns with him in QT shortly after getting him. Knowing that multibar angels are shy and cryptic to start I hope the other fish will serve as dithers.

My plans with this pair of fish is to house them in a 65g soft coral reef tank along with the Picasso clown pair and an orchid dottyback pair I have in another QT tank. I'll likely have a couple other fish pairs in this tank after I have all the fish I currently have to the display (months from now). This aquarium will be dedicated to housing breeding pairs of fish that I can try my hand at successfully breeding. Angelfish are my ultimate goal and focus. Though not likely, success with the multibars could lead to prospects of peppermints in the future? I'll leave this as dream until there is physically a pair of those treasures in my care. :)

Anyways, pictures to come tomorrow after I get them acclimated! As a side note, I would like to allow others to share their experiences with C./P. multifasciata in addition to my upcoming journey with them. If you have one or multiples, please share your experience!
 
I never could get mine to eat a thing, that'll be your biggest hurdle IMO. Coming from Kevin Id assume you have a head start in that department though. I wish you best of luck with them, they are some amazing little fish.
 
Good luck with them, I really look forward to following your progress with these guys.
 
I never could get mine to eat a thing, that'll be your biggest hurdle IMO. Coming from Kevin Id assume you have a head start in that department though. I wish you best of luck with them, they are some amazing little fish.

Thank you for sharing. Chris Mueller, whom I called to order the fish from, did state that they are eating mysis and brine shrimp and have been together at the facility for three weeks. This should give me a large step in the right direction to having them eating. I've got a variety of foods at my disposal should they turn their noses up at either of these foods when they arrive.
 
Good luck and keep us updated. I almost grabbed one from a LFS but decided to pass since they said it wasn't eating well.
 
Mine all ate, just not enough to compete with other fish. I tried 5 total. If I were to try them again I would not quarantine with any other fish. I feel that's where I messed up. Even the one that made it through quarantine and into the display with LR eventually had to be removed and eventually died.
 
I Picked up a small pair of them in December of last year. They went straight into my display tank and started picking at the rocks. I tried all kinds of prepared foods but nothing interested them. They lost some weight but didn't go skinny. Then after 2 months they came out to eat live brine. After that they ate all kinds of prepared foods.

They did like to pick at my acros. Not enough to destroy. But every 3-4 days they would pick an acro and just take off 1/4" of some of the tips and then move on. Within a week the acros had healed over but it definitely curtailed the growth on some corals.

At the time I have over 150 acro colonies so they had lots to choose from.

When my tank crashed last month, about 2 weeks after the crash, one of the multi-bars appeared out of the rock work (the larger of the 2 I had). For the past 6 weeks, it is out and about and fat and healthy. My tank only has a few acro starter pieces in it, and my LPS pieces that I managed to save. It's not picking on anything at the moment.

When they are paired up, they make a great sight to see in the tank.

But for getting them acclimated to feeding you definitely should have plenty of healthy and flourishing rock for them to feed of off. Last year when mine weren't eating initially I talked with several people who had similar experiences in them not taking prepared foods for quite a long time.

Dave B
 
IME, the key to success with multibars is PODS... And quite frankly, I have had better success by adding them directly (with acclimation box) to the DT ... I lost a pair of DD multibars in QT ... 1 came in bad (swim bladder?) and both never ate... Tried everything, unfortunately they survived almost 3 weeks, so no help with guarantee!
The 2 I have now were purchased at LFS at separate times, neither was eating there, but once in my tank, they were constantly picking on the rocks
 
I just got home to them floating in their bags since my family was home while I was at school at delivery time. I'm just going to say that DD again has a thumbs up from me as the fish were each in separate huge bags, and there had to be about 8 bags per fish. Very happy on that front. I'm happy to say upon initial inspection both appear to be healthy (as they always are from DD, IME). The larger one of the two (approx. 3") looks to be nice and fat, and the smaller one (2-2.5") looks relatively as fat. The smaller one is eating right out of the bag as it picked at some mysis on the tank bottom from feeding before taking off the black bag portions and lights out. The larger of the two is doing some exploring and his mind is on that instead of picking at food. This is all for today as I do have to work late tonight and I'll let them settle themselves in and update again tomorrow as I throw the buffet at them to see where I need to start on feeding for the big guy.

Here are a couple poor quality pictures:


The smaller of the two:


Big guy (showed up way better when I snapped the photo...)
 
Any updates? I have intentions of owning a pair of venustus and multi bars one day. I'll be following along closely.
 
I'm taking the trip with you! :)

I picked up a pair yesterday after viewing them cohabitating & eating mysis. My observations as o now: they're calm & crusing the tank, pecking & picking. Ive added 3 bottles of tigger pods over the the last 2 weeks & I think they crushed them since yesterday, so I'll replenish them. The pair are not hiders & not shy when I approach them. They are not eating out of the water colum but are picking @ the mysis off the sand.
 
I'm very happy to say that both of the multibar a eat mysis shrimp, which was my first feeding this morning. They took some mysis out of the water column, but ate mostly off the bottom of the tank. They are still a ways off of being aggressive eaters. The good thing is the orchid dottyback and clowns they are with aren't aggressive and don't eat everything right away. They are still a bit unsure about me moving in front of the tank, but I'm sure that will wear off over time. The good thing is they are curious and watch me. I'll get more pictures and hopefully a video of them eating in a few days so that they can settle in.
 
That is good news. My experience is the common one in that they look great in the bag but simply won't feed adequately from anything floating. I have one that is doing good now, but after 3 months of trying I have simply accepted it will never eat floating food and will also need something benthic to pick on
 
More great news! I put in a clam on the half shell and the big guy is going to town on it! The little one isn't quite sure if it is food or not, but has taken a nibble and is curious enough to stare at it until the big one comes back for more. I'm not too concerned about the fish picking food out of the water column yet as I can work with making sure food gets to the bottom of the tank if that is how it must be done. Funny thing is that they pick up on who the feeder is quickly. I put the clam in the tank and took a step back and both angels were looking at the bottom for mysis after only one intentional feeding!

It is early, but I do have high hopes for these fish in that they will make it through QT and eventually spawn for me. :) If it works out I may have a video of them eating as early as tomorrow. :)
 
I had success weaning mine onto pellets.

It took a couple months if I remember correctly.

He went straight into the DT. The local pod population helped keep him alive I believe before I could teach him to eat prepared foods.

What happened was he developed a pattern of picking along the surface of the water along the back of the tank everytime I turned the pumps off to feed. So, I started dropping pellets on top of his face until he started eating some by accident. He eventually figured out the pellets were food.


So... Figure out where they like to graze and put food there !

Put mysis on the clan shell ? Then maybe pellets ?
 
ataller, thank you for the tip! I hope to have them eating pellets at some point, and I was actually thinking I'd likely stuff them in the clam "meat" and see how that works. We'll see they may just eat them on their own too!
 
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