Orange Spotted filefish

[thefishbowl2006]

Has anyone ever had an Orange spotted Filesih before. It seems to be eating brine, but also did a number on my montipora. I've read they will only survive with acropora? I bought this not knowing the special requirements.

I thought maybe someone in this forum might have had luck

Anyone got any acropora to frag or part with?

Scott

 

[billsreef]

The only long term fat and healthy ones I've ever known of are in a 20,000 reef at a public aquarium. I have on rare occasions gotten them to pick on brine and known others to do the same, but again that is only rare occasions and in all those few occasions the orange spotted filefish did not last more than a few weeks to a few months at best. That your's ate montipora is interesting, as that is a fast growing weed that you just might be able to grow or source out enough of to meet the nutritional needs of the fish for live coral.

 

[Ooulophilia]

I wonder why I have seen over the last few years MAC certified orange spot filefish at wholesalers . Maybe the collection is sustainable, but something seems amiss there.

 

[GreshamH]

Wholesalers? Well, I guess since there's two, you can say plural

 

[Ooulophilia]

Well, the one in LA beginning with Q in particular

 

[Ooulophilia]

dp

 

[GreshamH]

Funny how you could throw a rock from S and hit Q :lol:

Well, if you had a good arm

 

[Ooulophilia]

if it didn't land on W on the way

 

[sjfishguy]

It is my understanding that even if the fish is eating brine or other common foods, it will slowly starve to death from lack of nutrition. This fish is by far my favorite fish out there, but it is also on my top 10 list of creatures that should not even be offered for sale.

 

[JHemdal]

All,

I tried a MAC certified orangespot - just to see if they are any different than the ones I stopped buying 35 years ago. Nope - no difference (yeah, so a sample size of one isn't valid, but I wasn't going to invest more fish than that for this test!). It arrived emaciated like they often do. It did fine while I kept it in a SPS propagation system, (even began to fill out) but stopped eating when I moved it to a soft coral prop system (my coral guy was getting frustrated with it chomping all his frags). I asked John Brandt why MAC certifies these fish; I did not understand his answer....but they do apparently have a rationale for this.


Jay

 

[billsreef]

My understanding of MAC certificatin (from their own literature) is that certification is strictly about catching methods, sustainable fisheries plans for the fishing area and chain of custody through MAC certified exporters, importers/wholesalers and retailers. Nothing what so ever about a species being a suitable aquarium species comes into the equation. The only thing MAC certification implies is that the fish was caught by MAC certified fisherman in a MAC certified fishing area and sold to MAC certified exporter and in turn sold to a MAC certified wholesaler and then to MAC certified retailer. There was a push a few years ago for MAC to include aquarium suitability in the certification process, but they declined to go with that.

 

[Ooulophilia]

I was told the same thing, and it sort of turned me off on the MAC thing. It seems strange when you can walk into a place, and have the same species of fish at the same size and coloration, but one costs five dollars more than the other one. If certain places are going to push this, should they on the MAC certified species only have MAC certified ones?

 

[JHemdal]

Bill,

Well - thats the point I was trying to make. Since the majority of orangespot filefish have always been collected with cyanide (to get them out the the Acropora thickets) it made sense to try one that was certified for its collection method - to see if it made any difference in their survivorbility - it didn't in this case, a corallivore just the same. Still, I needed to check this out - some other "well known problem fish" end up being o.k. when collected by hand...

Jay

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9220771#post9220771 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JHemdal
some other "well known problem fish" end up being o.k. when collected by hand...

Quite true, and one of the problems with a "suitable" species list. Bicolor Angels and Copper Banded Butterflies come to mind. Get the Bicolor from Fiji and it does quite well, get the Copper Band from Australia and it also does well. I've also talked to many Australians that have collected their own cleaner wrasses and had excellent luck with them, as opposed to the astonishingly high mortality rates of the usual Phillipine/Indo imports we see in the states.

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9223150#post9223150 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Quite true, and one of the problems with a "suitable" species list. Bicolor Angels and Copper Banded Butterflies come to mind. Get the Bicolor from Fiji and it does quite well, get the Copper Band from Australia and it also does well. I've also talked to many Australians that have collected their own cleaner wrasses and had excellent luck with them, as opposed to the astonishingly high mortality rates of the usual Phillipine/Indo imports we see in the states.

Since not much, if any, dope is used on cleaner wrasses, I'd say the problem is the COC is PI and INDO, rather then the method of capture. With all the middlemen in the COC in both countries, it can be two weeks before the animal even sees a tank that may offer it some food.

 

[billsreef]

Gresh,

Before I knew enough to not order cleaner wrasses and certain other species, the symptoms I would see in the cleaner wrasses were a complete match to the symptoms of being starved for 2 weeks. I'm basing this on a research paper, I'm drawing a blank on the names of the researchers, but I'm sure you know who I'm talking about...they originally ascribed that set of symptoms to cyanide poisoning but later research they did proved it was starvation.

 

[GreshamH]

I remember those papers as well Bill, but for the life of me I can not remember the names. I'll have to email Peter and ask him :lol:

 

[billsreef]

I'm glad I'm not the only one going senile :lol:

 

[GreshamH]

I forgot what I was going to say :lol:

 

[pperez]

It's a beautiful fish. Here's one that Billsreef is talking about, this is from the Atlantis in Riverhead, LI. It's in the 25,000 gallon reef. It has plenty of SPS to chomp on. I personally consider it one of those leave it on the reef fish.