Pipefish Experiences...Let's discuss the state of the art.

S

small alien

The fungus is among us.
Greetings friends.

Pipefish fall into that category of Holy Grail fish for me in that they are really amazing and generally considered quite difficult, this difficulty being primarily due to their feeding habits as they seem to be relatively stout fish otherwise.

I have had really mixed success with this group of fish. I have kept 4 species in the last two+ years.

The Bluestripe (Doryrhamphus excisus), Banded (Doryrhamphus dactylophorus), Yellow Multi-band (Doryrhamphus pessuliferus) and Dragonface (Corythoichthys sp.)

My record with them is as follows:

Bluestripe: Doryrhamphus excisus. 1 for 1.
I'm going to call this one a success even though I did lose the fish in a tank transfer. I had it over six months and it was feeding very well.

Banded: Doryrhamphus dactylophorus. 1 for 3.
I'll go into more detail in a following post. The 1 success is one of the two pipefish I have currently. For a fairly comprehensive look at my experience with one D. dactylophorus and one D. pessuliferus, check out my somewhat tragic thread on them here.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1741640

Yellow Multi-band: Doryrhamphus pessuliferus. 0 for 1.
I'll go into more detail in a following post. Also see link.

Dragonface: Corythoichthys sp. 1 for 2.
The 1 success is one of the two pipefish I have currently.

So, that's 3 for 7. Phew. Kind of suckage. The loss of one of the bandeds and the yellow multi-band (within a short amount of time) really made me rethink fishkeeping generally and especially keeping wild caught fish. I felt absolutely terrible. But as time passed and I understood more of what happened and why, I did try more pipes.

I think there are two basic keys to success and they're not very complicated. Starting with healthy specimens and then what I'll call a given specimen's "will to live". I feel like weening hard to feed fish like pipes has a lot to do with the "personality" of the given fish and it feels like some just want to live more than others. Actually, all 7 pipes did take prepared foods. Some were harder to train than others. Some ate with significantly more gusto than others. I think perhaps I had two losses from starvation (you really can't tell well with pipes ime, but that's my guess) and two from disease/bacterial infections. And the bluestripe in the tank transfer.

I'll following with specific posts on each my experience with each species as soon as I can.

Let's hear your experiences.

Cheers. :bounce3:
 
it looks like we have very similar tastes in fish. I hope to add a pair of dragon faced pipes to my tank in a few months.
 
Terrific and thanks. Do pipefish normally consume copepods? How do you get them eating prepared food? What kinds? I have a great interest in these fish from my diving days but have never tried them in an aquarium. Any other people doing this?
 
I personally like the dragon pipes. They aren't highly colored or as majestic as the others but for some reason they are my favs. Have any of you guys seen the video on i think it was the discovery channel of the pair that were mating?It was sweet! Also whats the average life span of pipes?
 
I've had my bluestripe pipefish for 6 months now. She readily eats frozen mysis shrimp and is a bit overweight, she's round in the middle, lol. better than starving, i guess. i just bought her a male 4 days ago and i saw her teach him to eat the shrimp. at least thats what it looked like. they are so cute together :)
 
That's great, trickeye.

The bluestripe I had ate frozen right from the start as well. At that time I did not have my trusty prawn roe in my food quiver, so it was mysis and cyclopeeze. The bluestripe ate both with vigor.

It was a very cryptic fish. Even in a 20 gallon tank, I rarely saw it except at feeding time. When food hit the water, it would immediately appear and begin snicking up the chow.

It was pretty oblivious to other fish and they didn't seem to notice it. This seems a trait with pipes. Unless you have aggressive fish, there really aren't much in the way of compatibility issues it seems.

I don't know what the natural lifespan of a bluestripe is. And I can't say for sure that mine was receiving proper nutrition when I lost it (literally, it disappeared) in a tank transfer. But it was active and vigorous and ate like crazy for six months, so I'll call that a success.

My feeling is the bluestripe is the easiest pipe to feed. Anecdotally, a local lfs had one in a 30 gallon Solana for well over a year and it received pretty much benign neglect. It seemed to thrive.

Mine seemed fit on two feedings per day average. Either mysis or cyclopeeze. As with all my pipes, there is plenty of pod pressure in the tank. My first fish was an ocellated dragonet, so my tanks have always been short of pods. I feel it survived largely on the twice daily feedings.

Like all pipes, the bluestripe has no stomach so it's not storing food. It has to work with whatever it's eating. I do think it likely builds some fat reserves but this is all really speculative except the no stomach part. The feedings must provide ample opportunity for the pipe to gorge as much as a pipe can. Definitely must be able to eat its fill over a 10-20 minute period. I think with two feedings like that per day, you've got a good shot at success. Please know that is not at all scientifically verified fact. That is my experience combined with my insights.

Does anyone know the natural lifespan of a bluestripe?

Please share your bluestripe experiences.

Best, small the alien
 
snorvich said:
Terrific and thanks. Do pipefish normally consume copepods? How do you get them eating prepared food? What kinds? I have a great interest in these fish from my diving days but have never tried them in an aquarium. Any other people doing this?
Click to expand...

I have always assumed pipefish eats copepods in nature but I really don't know. They seem well suited to it.

Thinking back, I've never really had to try that hard to get them eating frozen. I've always had live brine on hand except with the bluestripe. And I've introduced that as needed. I needed the live brine with one of the two dragonface. I also used those live bottled copepods with the yellow multi-band to get it to break it's initial fast. I've worked with a few green mandarins in a very focused live brine to frozen brine to mysis kind of way. But I never really had to with the pipes.

As I mentioned earlier, some ate with more vigor than others. I think it's a bit luck of the draw. Two of my losses were disease related (apparent bacterial infection combined with ich) and two died for no apparent reason which I attribute to starvation even though both were eating but which could have been any number of things I suppose. The two that did not die of disease died after several months in my care. The two that died of disease/infection died more quickly (see the thread). The 3 survivors lived 6-15 months and are still living (except tank transfer bluestripe). Hope that all makes some sense. It's a little late. :hmm6:

Snorvich, what pipes did you see in the wild and what kind of habitats were they in?

Cheers, paul
 
I purchased a D. pessuliferus about 5 days ago, that was eating newly hatched live brine at the store. I have since switched it's diet to frozen baby brine and frozen cyclops, and it seems plump at the moment.

After reading Small Alien's saga with his two Dunkerocampus species, I've decided to add "Maracyn 2" and "erythromycin" to my normal QT procedure of Prazipro and cupramine. I'm hoping this clears up any bacterial issues that could arise.
 
When I was going through my little saga, someone suggested lowering the tank temp as another way to help combat bacterial infections. It's my understanding that pipes can handle higher temps than ponies but they still don't mind it a bit cooler too.

Here's a link to MCCOOL's thread over in Reef Fish about D. pessuliferus. Check it out. Let's all put our experiences together and maybe we can emerge as more effective keepers of our pipes.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17552643#post17552643
 
cycopleze what i got most started on, and then to mysis and spirula brine, also keeping pod production going helps and getting them onto prepared food helps the pods build up some
 
small alien said:
That's great, trickeye.

The bluestripe I had ate frozen right from the start as well. At that time I did not have my trusty prawn roe in my food quiver, so it was mysis and cyclopeeze. The bluestripe ate both with vigor.

It was a very cryptic fish. Even in a 20 gallon tank, I rarely saw it except at feeding time. When food hit the water, it would immediately appear and begin snicking up the chow.

It was pretty oblivious to other fish and they didn't seem to notice it. This seems a trait with pipes. Unless you have aggressive fish, there really aren't much in the way of compatibility issues it seems.

I don't know what the natural lifespan of a bluestripe is. And I can't say for sure that mine was receiving proper nutrition when I lost it (literally, it disappeared) in a tank transfer. But it was active and vigorous and ate like crazy for six months, so I'll call that a success.

My feeling is the bluestripe is the easiest pipe to feed. Anecdotally, a local lfs had one in a 30 gallon Solana for well over a year and it received pretty much benign neglect. It seemed to thrive.

Mine seemed fit on two feedings per day average. Either mysis or cyclopeeze. As with all my pipes, there is plenty of pod pressure in the tank. My first fish was an ocellated dragonet, so my tanks have always been short of pods. I feel it survived largely on the twice daily feedings.

Like all pipes, the bluestripe has no stomach so it's not storing food. It has to work with whatever it's eating. I do think it likely builds some fat reserves but this is all really speculative except the no stomach part. The feedings must provide ample opportunity for the pipe to gorge as much as a pipe can. Definitely must be able to eat its fill over a 10-20 minute period. I think with two feedings like that per day, you've got a good shot at success. Please know that is not at all scientifically verified fact. That is my experience combined with my insights.

Does anyone know the natural lifespan of a bluestripe?

Please share your bluestripe experiences.

Best, small the alien
Click to expand...
Agree with all of this. No idea what their natural lifespan is, but I've had mine for at least three years, maybe as long as five.

It's currently in an over-stocked 40 gallon tank with a couple of growing clowns, a singapore angel, small bluespotted toby, and a scribbled boxfish. It pretty much ignores everyone, but occasionally nips at the toby and angel at feeding time.

I wouldn't describe it as cryptic, exactly. I think it just doesn't care for bright lights. I often see it out cruising the tank after lights out.

I describe this fish as "it" because, while I'm pretty sure it was a female when I got it, I recently noticed that it has developed prominent snout bumps ordinarily found on males. Maybe it changed. It has not been with another bluestripe since I've had it.

My experience pairing them has been mixed. It's sometimes hard to sex them when they're little, but they know. I put two females together and one immediately killed the other. I had a pair, but lost the male after they spawned. I'd love to pair this one, but am reluctant given my experiences.

What else? It lurvves frozen mysis and live tigger pods. It likes cyclopeeze ok. Arctipods, not so much. I've never seen it eat any pellet or flake food.

Great thread, small alien.
 
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences, Robin.

I don't think they can change sex. Maybe yours is just maturing. It's getting that little 7th grade mustache. :)

Have you tried Nutramar Ova Prawn Roe?

Best, small
 
Let's see a photo of your bluestripe, Robin! Better yet, an enchanting video where your bluestripe plays the hero and saves the entire aquarium from an attack of non-reef-safe hermits!!! :)
 
Day 7

my D. pessuliferus has been in my care now for a week, and is still eating the frozen cyclops very well, (about one piece every 2-4 seconds for roughly 8 hours a day at this point).

Today is the second day it's been in my 20g QT in prazipro, and so far, so good.
 
photo2.jpg

photo10.jpg


Here are a few pics of mine.

I've noticed the exact opposite of Small Alien, his D. pessuliferus seemed to only eat off of the substrate, whereas mine only seems to eat from the water column. It loves the baby brine(frozen and live) and the cyclops, but I've yet to see it pick off any pods or other micro-fauna on the rock or sand.
 
Welcome MCCOOL and your lovely pipefish. Glad to hear it is still doing well on day 7. How do you go about providing cyclopeeze 8 hours a day?
 
small alien said:
Let's see a photo of your bluestripe, Robin! Better yet, an enchanting video where your bluestripe plays the hero and saves the entire aquarium from an attack of non-reef-safe hermits!!! :)
Click to expand...
Happy to report there's nothing non-reef-safe in my tank. I'm not much for pictures, but maybe I'll try this weekend.
 
Well, if you look at the other pics in this thread and many others, the competition is not so stiff. Mine certainly are made of monkey pebbles. Give it a shot. You'll only get better by practicing. Cheers.
 
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