Pipe fish Questions?

[mandm25254]

So I think I'm going to want to add a pipe fish eventually to my system but I have a few questions first. Can I keep them with a sps dominate system and very few zoo's and chalices? Will everything be fine if they are with a picaso clown, yellow tang and a goby? and lastly about how long do you think my fuge should be running before I introduce one into my system? I have a 50g breeder dt, and roughly a 20g fuge. Also please any advice would be allot of help, I have tried to do some reading but there is not much in this form about maintaining them.

 

[small alien]

you'll likely get some good suggestions here. my initial thought is they will do best in a very peaceful tank where they are not pestered. With your Picasso and YT, your tank sounds like it might be a little rough and tumble for pipe fish. let's see what the experts say. Experts?

 

[David123]

I have only kept pipes in species only tanks, well dispersed flow, lots of fake seagrass.

I do not like the idea of such very bright lights as needed for seagrass, IMO they will blind syngs, so fake is my choice.

They do not seem to like flow, unlike seahorses, they are ambush type hunters, so they tend to be fairly unmoving.

Some species differ, the small/tiny ones are quite active, but the larger and our indigenous ones are quite slow, and flow really disturbs them.

Don't know if that was helpful, just my personal observations.

 

[mandm25254]

what do you say would be alot of flow? im in this for thw challange, im here trying to collect thought from the ppl better then myself. snd you say to bright by what do you mean, a pipe can not handle 6 bulb t5's out but?

 

[pledosophy]

What type of pipe's?

Janis might be a good one to look at for your system IMO. Many people keep pipes with SPS tanks. Some use them to help control redbugs.

 

[mandm25254]

To tell the trueth, i'm here to try somthing new. When i started reefing the cool hard thing to do was keep sps, now i can do that with my eye's closed i want to try other things such as pipe and sea horses, ill put a little looking into what kind i want. What are some major ones i shoudl stay away from tho

 

[Elysia]

What is available depends on your location. "Pine Hill" doesn't mean anything to me, so I am not certain where you are located.

Once you know what is available, you can start eliminating those that do not fare well (as that is something that is variable depending on location as well.)

 

[pledosophy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15548078#post15548078 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mandm25254
To tell the trueth, i'm here to try somthing new. When i started reefing the cool hard thing to do was keep sps, now i can do that with my eye's closed i want to try other things such as pipe and sea horses, ill put a little looking into what kind i want. What are some major ones i shoudl stay away from tho

SPS is not hard, has not been in some time IME.

A syngnathid tank is also not hard, just set up completely different from an SPS system. Once you get the quirks it is fairly easy IME.

Unless you are planning on breeding, you may become easily bored with this as well.

If your really looking for a challenge there are more to be had out there. Maybe look into orange spotted filefish. You can apply what you have learned and also keep one of the harder to care for yet stunning fish. JMO Gonipora, nepethea, or a Dendronephthya, no one has gotten them to grow and thrive as far s I know.

Honestly pipefish are pretty easy IME. I did do a water change back in May, I have done some pruining back, I add food a couple times a week, I refill my resivour tank once every two weeks. Balancing a system like that was a fun challenge. But now it is all balanced, not much to do.

JME

 

[philter4]

While I agree with some of the above posts about the agressiveness of the YT and your picasso's, I dissagree with some of the other statements. I keep my redstripe pipes and bluestripe pipes with all sorts of corals, SPS and LPS with no problems since 2006 (when I collected a pr of each in HI). Flow doesn't seem to be a problem for them and actually helps with moving the frozen foods around so they are more interested in it.

As far as David123's keeping them in low light, that is not how they live in the ocean with full sunlight. If I have to find some pipes the first place I look is in the floating sargassum weeds which are at the surface in full sunlight. they are also found in the grass flats all over here, again in full sunlight. even the bluestripe pipes I collected in HI were in very shallow water, swimming around and active in the daylight hours, the redstripes were usually in over 100 ft deep. With that said my redstripe tank has 150 watt metal halides lighting it and they have never seemed bothered by the amount of light.

 

[small alien]

Interesting philter4

 

[Ralph ATL]

I wouldn't keep pipefish with any coral that can sting or eat them, I'm thinking chalices might not be a good choice. Not too sure, as I only have sps, clams, and a scroll coral with mine. 2 x 400 watt MH, 2 x 600 Tunze streams no issue. I have some low flow areas with halmeda, though.

 

[finsurgeon]

I've had a Janss' and a big blue-stripe in my mixed reef with 30 fish and every kind of coral, including a 15" bubble-tip anemone for about 2 years. I had a pair of blue-stripes, but lost the small one when its mate chose the newly arrived Janssi over its own species when it arrived. I think cyclopeeze and "arctipods" that float a long time in the water column while the tangs and angels eat most of the mysis,etc are the key, as well as that these 2 species seem best suited to taking care of themselves.

 

[LUVSPS]

A little bit of a hijack here.....and this seems kind of obvious but Pipefish can't be kept with Vortechs can they? I'm guessing not.

 

[small alien]

Why not?

 

[LUVSPS]

Well, won't they get caught up in the propeller? I have 2 vortechs and it looks like to me that they could slide right through the slits and get chopped up. Or do they not swim up that high in the tank? I'm talking about Dragonface pipes.

 

[Ralph ATL]

it possiable, but 3 years with 2 Tunze's..........

 

[small alien]

I guess I wouldn't think they would just dive into a meat grinder if the pump was on. When my power heads are off during feeding, my tailspot blenny is all up in there. I try to remember to look before turning them back on. I think that would be the only issue. Them getting in there while they're off. And then turning them on.

 

[small alien]

My dragonface pipes take food from the surface at times and definately explore the glass looking for wee morsels. They will go everywhere in your tank at some point.