Pipefish help

[Parker7]

Ive been setting up my 29G biocube and Ive wanted a pipe fish for a while now would this be too small for one or two? they probly will be the only fish if anything else it would be a purple fire goby
but i also want coral and inverts any sugestions on witch would be safe with the pipefish? or if the tank is too small?
any info would help thank you :lol2:

 

[namxas]

Which pipes are your considering?

 

[Parker7]

personaly I really like the dragon face pipes

 

[namxas]

DF's would do fine in that setup, however, they have tiny snouts, and subsequently need tiny food items. You'll likely need to start them on BBS and/or demersal copepods to get them fattened up and then try weaning them to frozen cyclopeeze, mini mysis, and Nutramar ova.

Don't keep them with any stinging coral or crabs. If you MUST have crabs, only keep them with scarlet reef hermits.

 

[Parker7]

so basitly i couldnt have a brain or hammer coral in my tank

 

[namxas]

DF's slither around, so anything they can rest on that has a sting or would engulf them wouldn't be the best idea.

 

[mwilliams62]

I have been reading several forums all recommending the Frozen Cyclopeeze why not the one that is not frozen made by Instant Ocean it has 20 packets in the container.????

Is there something special about the frozen ones??? "Cyclopeeze"

 

[namxas]

Because the pipes will likely not eat it. It's like eating packing peanuts to them. It also floats, and you need to get the food down to the fish. What you're doing here is getting the fish to recognize dead food, and that's hard enuff without trying to get them to eat hard little BB's.

 

[aday2remmbr]

i think you could fit a pair of almost any species of pipefish in there they dont get big, but nto all at the same time lol. but they are like seahroses they swim slow and cant really compete well for food so choose tankmates wisely if you are to have any. seahorses will alsays make great tankmates as well as mandarins.

 

[mwilliams62]

Doed brine shrimp have a special oder to them?? The reason why I ask is that my pipefish swims to them at feeding time and it looks like he is smelling them and turns away if it does not appeal to him... And what is the difference between some brine shrimp that is almost a faded pink to a very bright reddish-pink??

 

[rayjay]

Artemia colouration comes from food influences and from oxygen content.
Lower oxygen turns them redder. Common with high density cultures.

 

[mwilliams62]

How does lower oxygen occur?

 

[namxas]

Doed brine shrimp have a special oder to them?? The reason why I ask is that my pipefish swims to them at feeding time and it looks like he is smelling them and turns away if it does not appeal to him... And what is the difference between some brine shrimp that is almost a faded pink to a very bright reddish-pink??

What's happening is your pipe isn't recognizing the BBS as food. Artemia isn't a marine critter, it's found in salt lakes, so SH and pipefish don't see them as a food item, but have to learn.

Try and get some live pods to get the pipes eating, then add some live BBS into the tank once the pipes are eating. At some point, they will likely snick some up "by mistake" and will learn that BBS is good food.

 

[rayjay]

How does lower oxygen occur?

Most commonly it can occur with higher densities of artemia in a given volume of culture water as the artemia use up the oxygen.
For instance, I hatch out 12 gms of cysts at a time and if I put the hatch into 20g of aerated water I should have a normal redish colour, but if I put them into only 5g of water, they will rapidly consume the oxygen even though it may be aerated.