pipefish and sps

[IU2468]

I currently have a 58g set up with mostly SPS and some palys, I am currently setting up a 30g to hold the palys. My question is I have high flow in the 58 because of the SPS and I was going to put in a school of Anthias and I wanted to also put in some pipefish. Will the pipefish be able to handle the flow and lighting, or should I put them in the 30g with less lighting and flow? Thanks in advance for the info

 

[TamiW]

It depends on the type of pipefish and the corals you have. Any of the flagtail and dragonface pipes should do fine as long as you don't have any stinging corals or anemones.

 

[RocknReefr]

A friend of mine has a dragon-Pipefish pair in his 180 sps extremely high-flow tank. He has had them for over a year now and they're doing great. He actually wants to add a couple more! Good Luck!

 

[IU2468]

Thanks for the info I either was going to put them in the SPS tank or the zoa/paly/mushroom tank. So it sounds like I should be ok. Thanks for the info.

 

[orbit]

sorry dont mean to hijack this thread.. what is exactly considered an stinging coral?

i would think torch, hammer and frogspawn are right?

are chalice considered a stinging coral?

 

[Ralph ATL]

sps tank is fine. I wouldn't do the zoa/paly/mushroom tank. Just turn your PH off periodically now & then. 20 minutes or so.

I've had 2 DF in my 55 sps tank for well over 2 years. 2 Tunze 6000 w controller.

I also have 2 fuges. One in my sump, and another hangon cpr.

 

[Chibils]

What kind of anthias are you putting in there? I can't think of a single species that would do well long-term in a 58G tank (harem). Keep in mind that some of the most common ones (i.e. lyretails and pink squares, etc.) get over 5".

 

[JJohn]

The real key is feeding. They seem to be able to handle pretty good flow but that same flow makes it nearly impossible for them to catch any added food items. They need lots of pods. Mine ate frozen mysis but did poor in competing for them. The more the flow the worse he did. Luckily, there were plenty to hunt for in my live rocks.

 

[E.intheC]

I've always felt like the high flow requirements of an SPS tank and the lower flow requirements of the pipefish conflict with each other. Even if there are cases where this has worked, I'm sure there are other cases where it hasn't worked. It's just not a natural reproduction of their environment.

I agree with the fact that higher flow rates will blow the pods around too much as well...

 

[amstar]

unless you have your powerheads on some type of controller that stops them during feeding times????

 

[Ralph ATL]

I cut my powerheads off a few times a day, but I also have some low flow areas in the tank.

 

[danfrith]

When ever I feed the tank I turn all the powerheads off and the pipefish are able to feed easily in the open water. Also, the copepods that they feed on are benthic, the copepods arent blown around by the powerheads they grip the glass, live rock and other substrates.

 

[IU2468]

So what I can tell the major issue is getting them eating, I could put them in an SPS tank but would need to turn some PH to help with the feeding.