Oxymonacanthus longirostris - my experience

[rort]

As this fish (the Orange Spotted/Longnose Filefish) is a highly admired and difficult fish to keep, I felt it was my turn to explain my experience with this beautiful fish. I originally saw this filefish in an exhibit in the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific.

I then found a lot of information which started my fascination through "Umm, fish?" thread of his tank and specifically breeding this fish. So my pair...

I found these fish at a Local Fish store in Long Beach. I was told that they were purchased from Quality Marine Wholesale in LA. I was told that they were eating at the wholesale and I didn't believe it at all. They had two pairs of M/F.

I was giving the opportunity to feed them at the store and found that they were all eating Mysis, brine, pellets, and flakes!!!!!! :bounce2: I could not pass this up so I bought one of the pairs immediately.

I did a very slow drip acclimation over an hour to my 30g QT. I decided to keep the salinty at 1.022 (the same salinty they were at they store). I will slowly raise it over the course of the next month to 1.025.

Since them have been in their new home they have continued to eat mysis mainly, and sometimes are nipping at live brine. They have stayed together at almost all times and am hoping that have already paired off.

They are currently in the QT with a Singapore Angel that is more skiddish and hides/is scared more then they are. But they all seem to be getting along.


*more to come later*
**Sorry for the bad pics, only have my camera phone for pics right now**

 

[rort]

Gender

Gender

My first issue with this pair is finding out the exact sex. When I found them at the store 1 was clearly a female, while the other was a male. Once bringing them home, the female has seemed to show the same coloration as the male. Yet after a week of them in my tank the female seems to be slowly returning to the female coloration.

Has anyone had any experience with these fish being hermaphroditic?


*Again my camera is broken but I will have pics up shortly to show what I mean*

 

[euod]

Ate pellets and flakes? Wish I'd run into one that ate all that. Good luck.

 

[seahorsedreams]

Yours are way fatter than mine! Mine were the fattest I'd seen, so I thought I was doing good. I see now I have my work cut out for me.

Quality Marine takes good care of there fish. They are a little pricier than the other wholesalers but I've come to expect a little more from them. Are you able to share which store in Long Beach? I'm not sure if you are allowed to list stores on this site or not.

 

[rort]

Age of Aquarium in Signal Hill/Long Beach.

I just checked and they only have 1 left I believe. I think they are like $40/each?

I hope they start eating like crazy soon for you! Keep me updated on how yours are doing!

 

[seahorsedreams]

Ah! Love that place.

 

[rort]

Feeding

Feeding

Today i was able to grab a lot of good shots of the pair eating mysis. Hope you enjoy!

 

[rort]

Update on feeding

Update on feeding

This week, I have successfully fed them Mysis, Brine, Pellets, Flake, and Nori.

All the food I feed is enriched with VitaChem, Garlic, Amino Acids, and Selcon before feeding.


Mysis
They are not able to finish a piece in one bite but seems to be their favorite and best choice

Brine
They go after it but don't seem to be able to catch it when it gets to be very small. Good but not best choice!

Flakes
They go after these very easily as it is easy to see and eat. For snack it is good but because of its lower nutritional level, I would only use it for that and not depend on it

Pellets
I love to feed pellets to my larger fish and DT and would love to get these guys to eat this easily, but because they are not able to consume it in one or two bites it is a waste as most of it falls to the floor. Once their they seem to ignore it.

 

[seahorsedreams]

How's everything going over there?

 

[small alien]

cool thread. thanks.

 

[Sheol]

Please keep us updated on these!

Matthew

 

[rort]

2 Week UPDATE

2 Week UPDATE

These guys are doing GREAT!!!! They still will eat just about ANYTHING i put in there. *I have found that they are able to eat flake food the best as it stays in the water column the longest, and they are learning to eat larger bites. I have been feeding them about 5 times a day. 3 times is usually small pinches of flake, then the other two are mixed with mysis, brine, and spirulina.

My main concern (besides them eating all my SPS) is their ability to compete for food against my other fish (tangs, chromis, anthias, wrasse, the usual) and be able to still stay fat. I would like to eventually get them able to eat about a half of a piece of mysis before they go into the DT.

So far they have gotten a LOT better at smelling/seeing food and eating it immediately. I first truly believed that these guys were terrible at hunting and would never make it in a competitive tank.

*Female Update*
These guys where purchased as a pair from the LFS, and from the wholesaler. The female has always been a little fatter than the male, but in the last week I have noticed it continue to get larger. She may be carrying eggs, or just getting fat... But I am currently looking into this!

I will keep you guys updated!

 

[rort]

Figured I would throw up another update following Seahorsedreams update! :wave:

The file fish were doing great in the QT and eating EVERYTHING i put in there. I decided to see how competitively they would eat with another larger more aggressive fish in their so I put in a small Zebramosa Desjardini. They all got along great with no problems. The Filefish pair ate great and was actually fighting for food from the water column with the tang.

So the other day I decided to add them to my DT and things have been going awesome so far! There was no aggression showed to them even when they swim by the my Tomato clown pairs anemone. It took about a day for them to become fully adjusted to the tank. They are no longer scared by any other fish and don't feel the need to always stay together. Yesturday, the male was so aggressively eating that he stole a bite of mysis from my Unicorn Tangs mouth!!!!! :fun2:

They have nipped at just about ALL my sps (Acros, birdsnest, digi, montis). I didn't really care about my acrose and digis but when they start nipping at my montis i got ****ed... but its the chance I took!

I have found that they nip quite a bit through out the day and do affect the smaller frags I have but don't really bother the few larger SPS colonies in the tank. I will see how the corals do over the next few weeks and decided from their if they need to go into my girlfriends tank or not.

Pictures of them in the reef will be up later this week!

 

[seahorsedreams]

That is awesome! Eventually mine will go in my "Special" tank.