Pipe fish Mixing???

tjohnson27209

tjohnson27209

New member
Hey guys/gals I'm new to the forum but have been a member of other forums for about 3-4yrs and I have a question about mixing different species of pipe fish. I'm looking to get a Male/Female pair of Blue Stripe's and possibly another species. I'm doing a non-photosynthetic tank and just want something that will add some movement in the water. So IF possible which species would work best with these guys.

Possible Species:
Blue Stripes M/F pair
Janss' M/F pair

Tank Information
-Live Rock that has been established for 4yrs
-30gal long tank with 20gal sump with Refug. inline add copepods every two weeks to cheato in Refug.
-No other fish in tank just NPS coral

Thanks for the help guys/gals!!!!
-Tyler
 
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I've read consistently that blue stripe males will not tolerate another blue stripe male. That may mean they'd have a problem with another flagfin male of a different species. Maybe not. I tend to doubt it. The other flagfins are more tolerant of conspecifics ime. I would not expect to be able to sustain them from your fuge alone and buying copepods can get really expensive. Every pipe I've had has been trained to mysis, cyclopeeze and prawn roe. You may have to start with live brine to get them going and mix in some frozen mysis after they're eating the brine. Sounds like a neat tank. Good luck.
 
In my short experience of mixing species of pipefish, I haven't had any issues. I have a multi-banded (flagfin type) and what was sold to me as a dragon pipefish. I've actually identified him as an alligator pipefish now. The alligator has a prehensil tail like a seahorse. They tollerate each other very well, and sometimes appear social. I don't recommend the alligator if you want movement in your tank though. While he swims occaisionally, he mostly remains hitched to my koralia cord in the back of the tank vertically.
Other than feeding issues, (neither of mine eat frozen, so I stock live pods very regularly) I haven't had any challenges with them. But, again, I'm very new and inexperieinced with them, so I could be very wrong on this issue.
 
Thanks for the help guys I really appreciate it. I may have to end up asking a Biologist about the male/male issue in my tank. I hope that I will be able to as I want a tank that is "different". If anybody else can help it would be greatly appreciated.
-About the feeding issues, I have a LFS that has copepods for dirt cheap and they have them in their frag tank system like CRAZY so I have connections with copepods until I get them trained to the frozen stuff. Have any of you had luck with your pipes eatting cyclopeeze?? Thanks again!!!
 
Bluestripes are little a$$holes, and will kill other species of flagtail pipefish, even those much larger than them. I've seen it happen many times. Personally I don't advocate mixing flagtail pipefish of any species as they can potentially fight, but it seems that it aggression is exactly opposite to the size of the pipefish, with bluestripes being the most territoral and bandeds generally being pretty peaceful.

I don't think I'd mix species in a tank that small, but if you were to, avoid the bluestripes.
 
FishGrrl said:
Bluestripes are little a$$holes, and will kill other species of flagtail pipefish, even those much larger than them. I've seen it happen many times. Personally I don't advocate mixing flagtail pipefish of any species as they can potentially fight, but it seems that it aggression is exactly opposite to the size of the pipefish, with bluestripes being the most territoral and bandeds generally being pretty peaceful.
Click to expand...
That's interesting. My bluestripe is quite bossy with fish much bigger than him at feeding time. It was not what I expected.
 
I doubt they would notice each other.

However, clingfish (assuming you're talking about the yellow striped clingfish, which are the cool ones) have really dismal survival rates in captivity. You would need several urchins in your tank to give them a chance. Most waste away.
 
I can not find much information about the cling fish except for that they like to hang around the urchins and that they also eat the pyramid snails, what benefits do the urchins give them except maybe a safe place to live? Also are there any other types of cling fish that are reef safe? Thanks
-Tyler
 
They eat the tube feet off the urchin, which is why it's ideal to keep several so that the damage is spread out. Most won't eat anything else, and some won't even eat that once in captivity.

I've seen it said that they eat "pests" off of bivalves, but these references are always really vague.

They're reef safe in that I don't think they eat corals or other inverts. They're just hard to keep. There are other clingfish, but they're kind of ugly.
 
Yes after doing more research i do have to say the other cling fish ARE ugly haha but my LFS just got 3 yellow striped cling fish in last week and they are already eating mini-mysis shrimp. They dont have any urchins in the tank, do you possibly think that could be a reason they took to frozen food so quickly?
Thanks for the help to a pipefish newbie!!!
-Tyler
 
Well, if you've seen them eat, it might be worth the risk. I would still put some urchins in the tank with them.
 
I have a pair of blue stripe, dragon face and banded pipe fish in my 400 gallon system. They all seem to get along and do just fine. I do not add pods I have a refug for that.
 
rssjsb said:
Well, if you've seen them eat, it might be worth the risk. I would still put some urchins in the tank with them.
Click to expand...
Yea true I should probably at least add 1 to be safe

TotalVapor: Yea you have a huge tank and that may be why you can get away with it, I was concerned about them being too close to each other in my tank because its only a 30gal...I'm not concerned about running out of food as the rock is almost 5yrs old now plus I'll have a refuge where I'll add a bottle of copepods every 2 weeks until I get a good reproduction rate.

Thanks for all the help guys/gals...since they are going into a non-photosynthetic tank, are there any NPS corals that I should stay away from since pipefish are sensitive to the stings???

Thanks again
 
small alien said:
be careful. Some bottled copepods will not reproduce at reef temperatures.
Click to expand...
True!!! I have personally talked to "Reef Nutrition's" rep and they said after the bottle is acclimated to the tank and instead of dumping them into the tank add the copepods to the refuge so they feel safer and more natural. And there is about a 90% chance they will reproduce. So that gave me a more positive outlook on the situation of adding them to the refuge first!!!
Thanks for looking out though!!!
-Tyler
 
I've read that tiggerpods would not reproduce at reef temperatures, although I found at least one guy claiming to have cultured them separately. There is another kind of pod (I wanna say tsibe, maybe) that does much better in refugia.
 
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