Orange spot filefish with seahorses

[Bongo Shrimp]

Simple question.

Can you keep an orange spot filefish with seahorses?

I have tried keeping a green filefish with them, but they are such "pickers" that it couldn't resist "picking" at the seahorses. Are orange spots as "picky" as green and tastled files?

 

[billsreef]

Orange Spot Filefish only eat Acroporid coral polyps, so keeping them fed is next to impossible.

Any of the filefish that can be successfully kept in aquariums will likely pick on "frills" of the seahorses. Generally it's best to keep seahorses in tanks by themselves. Anything that doesn't pick on them, out competes them for food.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Orange Spot Filefish only eat Acroporid coral polyps

Not true.

But putting two such delicate species together is just compounding your troubles. I wouldn't do it. What happens if you do get a harlequin that won't switch from coral polyps? Then you're going to have to stock the tank with acros. Acros are not really compatible with keeping seahorses. It just seems like you are asking for trouble.

If you want to try a difficult species, pick one. Then start designing a tank just for that fish.

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15695909#post15695909 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by "Umm, fish?"
Not true.

The might much on some Pocilliporids or other small polyped corals, but still they are coralivores. The number of rare specimens that I know of that have adapted to aquarium fare I can count on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over. For a fish that is sadly imported in large numbers and retails dirt cheap, that is very poor odds indeed.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I have heard that ONCE IN A WHILE you can find one that has been weened onto something such as mysis or other frozen items. I would ask to see it fed at the store to see if it eats. Thats the plan.

 

[tmz]

Bill would you keep pipefish with seahorses? I have several seahorses I raised from fry a friend gave me back in March. I'm planning a display for them and would like a little variety but not if competition becomes an issue. Any possibilities.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

Come on tmz, really? Hijacking someone else's thread is not cool.



ANYWAYS

What do you think about the orange spot with the seahorses if it eats frozen?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, Sanjay has five that eat frozen, I have two, Matt Pedersen had at least six at one point (I think he lost one in a recent move), and there are several other people. So, while it is true that they are coralivores (gut content analysis has shown coral polyps in the guts of wild fish), it is not true that they _have_ to have coral. It's not even true that wild fish _only_ eat coral. They also found algae and associated microfauna in that study. Mine haven't seen a live coral since March 1 and still spawn. It's just not true that they only eat coral polyps.

That said, they are very difficult fish to get to eat and they need a lot of upkeep. I've spent way more than their purchase price on water changes alone, not to mention food. And, many of them get to the LFS in truly horrible shape and quite possibly beyond saving. In other words, they aren't easy fish. Truth be told, they should be a special order-only fish that only get collected when someone is aware of what they are getting themselves into.

Bongo, I can't really tell you. Citron gobies were too aggressive for the harlequins. Juvenile cardinals seem fine. The files will likely ignore the seahorses because they are so passive, but the files do swim the tank a lot. It's not the fast, aggressive swim of a tang but it's still a lot of movement. The courtship is a lot of movement and sometimes fairly aggressive. Would either bug the seahorse? I don't know. The files are substrate pickers and might pick the seahorses by accident. Would they do it enough to really bother the seahorse? I don't know. Personally, if I were to do it, I would keep the files in the tank for at least six months to ensure that there are _no_ issues with feeding or keeping weight on. And I would certainly have another tank running to transfer the horses to if there are any problems. But as long as you have the other tank anyway, why not just keep them separate so you can be sure there'll be no issues?

Tom--Seahorses and pipefish are food competitors and pipes rarely eat frozen. That said, lots of people have done it.

 

[Elysia]

tmz -- Pipes share many of the same diseases and parasites with seahorses, and that is one of the main problems with housing them together in the States (where we do not have the opportunity to purchase captive bred pipes.)

Pipes seem to vary by species in their willingness to take frozen food. I'm not sure about alligators; I've heard that yellow bandeds are tough; dragon faces its a toss up; IMO banded flagfins and bluestripes are the "easiest" to care for (which doesn't mean they are easy, by any means, but I have seen a significant number take frozen foods.) But as Andy mentions about the filefish, it is also a challenge to find healthy pipefish to purchase -- like seahorses, they can not go very long without feeding, and thus capture, importation, and time at the LFS can really be stressful on them.

Bongo, I hope you were kidding with tmz.

 

[tmz]

Thankyou Elysia and Ummfish for the information.

 

[roshi719]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15696192#post15696192 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
The might much on some Pocilliporids or other small polyped corals, but still they are coralivores. The number of rare specimens that I know of that have adapted to aquarium fare I can count on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over. For a fish that is sadly imported in large numbers and retails dirt cheap, that is very poor odds indeed.

Actually I have a friend who bred them and trained about three or four different pairs to eat a variety of frozen foods as well as spirulina flake.

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15704786#post15704786 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by roshi719
Actually I have a friend who bred them and trained about three or four different pairs to eat a variety of frozen foods as well as spirulina flake.

That still even rates as extremely rare Especially when you consider the thousands that get collected and imported, to only die, in order to get that very small handful that does adapt to aquarium fare.

 

[JHemdal]

Umm, Fish?

Bill has it spot on. Recently, there have been some reports of these filefish switching over to prepared foods, but I feel that this does a great disservice to the typical home aquarists who read that, and hoping against hope, buy one of these - only to have the same result as we did 30 years ago - they wither and die.

Why is this? Multiple reasons; savy aquarists can preferentially acquire fish from better sources, and are better prepared to meet their specific needs. There are also cases online of people reporting they did well to save face, but in reality, their fish also died (Obviously, not talking about Matt, et-al here).

The "rank and file" should not rely on the few reports of certain fish doing well - they probably cannot replicate those results. If you can get one from a region other than the Philippines or Indonesia, and you can get it in your SPS tank ASAP, you might also have moderate success....if you have all your other ducks in a row!

In my 40+ year history, I've seen hundreds of these fish go through the supply chain and just die. The ONLY two that I personally had success with, was recently, with ones where I bypassed my normal quarantine protocol, and moved them directly into a SPS tank. They did just fine there. Fat and sassy, when I moved them out (because they were eating too many corals), they also withered and died. If I had spent many hours with them individually, I may have been able to get them to convert their food type, but I just couldn't afford the time to do that. Therefore, this species is still on my definitive "do not acquire" list.

Jay

 

["Umm fish?"]

Bill and Jay, I don't disagree with you about whether I think these fish should be mass-imported:

Truth be told, they should be a special order-only fish that only get collected when someone is aware of what they are getting themselves into.

But I also don't believe we should mislead people about the care of the fish, either. I do think that people are much more willing to believe our warnings about the fish's care if what we say takes into account the things they've read in the popular literature (like Matt's _Coral_ article). After all, it doesn't take much work with Google to find video of them eating spirulina flakes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMLQ_WJ9Kkc). If I've said, "They never eat anything but coral," where's my credibility at that point?

I just think people are much more likely to heed warnings about care of the species if we start out by telling them the truth: That they are possible, but that success with them is not a certainty even with the best efforts and that they require a lot of time and effort and are very expensive to try to keep.