Pipefish in 24gallon reef ?

[60G]

HI, i have a 24 gallon reef tank that has been up for 3 years and wanted to know if adding a pipefish would be ok.

 

[small alien]

Well, you might try the seahorse/pipefish forum. That said, I think the answer is probably "maybe". Can you tell us more about the tank, what's in it, how you feed, etc.?

I will say in that small of a tank, feeding will be a major commitment and could give you water quality issues depending on your setup and tank mates.

 

[cside]

it depends on your other fish and coral species. pipefish will only survive in a tank with peaceful fish and nonaggressive corals. you should also have a supply of live brine to feed the pipefish just in case it doesnt take frozen.

 

[cside]

I would also recommend a relatively low level of flow

 

[small alien]

Flagtail pipes can take regular reef flow as long as it's not super over the top.

 

[60G]

all i will have is just pipes and maybe a goby and i just have the stock pump thats on the 24 gallon nano cube and i only have xenias in it.

 

[small alien]

I think it's a reasonable shot. Please do as much reading about feeding them as you can before buying one.

And good luck.

 

[Eric the half-bee]

it depends on your other fish and coral species. pipefish will only survive in a tank with peaceful fish and nonaggressive corals. you should also have a supply of live brine to feed the pipefish just in case it doesnt take frozen.

Be wary of those statements containing "never, always, only, etc". I've had a pair of Janss' pipes in my tank for 2 years and rarely feed brine shrimp and I have several aggressive fish in my reef. If you have enough live rock, they can thrive as mine have. Albeit, they stay in the rockwork most of the time, they've done very well.

 

[block head]

crappy photo. acan grabbed it . pipes have no scales. poor dude's tail was fried and he'd died a couple hour later. i'd say your going to need a lot of luck.

 

[small alien]

It's not so much that the photo is "crappy", it's that it's an inch wide.

Always tough to know if the pipe was killed by the coral or dying and weak and thus blown into the coral by the flow. I found one of my dragonface pipes dead in my torch coral a couple of days ago. I really have no idea the chain of events that lead to that.

 

[small alien]

And, in this hobby, we can all use a bit of luck!!!

 

[60G]

lol thanks for all your help ill post again if i do some still not sure yet.

 

[small alien]

Just to temp you a bit. They are amazing fish.

 

[60G]

wooooooow what are you feeding

 

[small alien]

It eats Hikari mysis, prawn roe and cyclopeeze with vigor but its taken some time. The roe was the first food it took and I'd recommend starting with that and having all three on hand from the get go. This is a yellow multi-band which are often the most challenging to feed ime. This one is doing pretty great.

 

[small alien]

Here's a video of the yellow multi eating prawn roe. You can also see the banded and dragonface.

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[small alien]

And eating cyclopeeze. Yes, I originally had a pair. That's the pipefish game for ya. It's a bit hit or miss. I don't feel proud of that. But I always did my best.

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[teemee]

It eats Hikari mysis, prawn roe and cyclopeeze with vigor but its taken some time. The roe was the first food it took and I'd recommend starting with that and having all three on hand from the get go. This is a yellow multi-band which are often the most challenging to feed ime. This one is doing pretty great.

+1 on the multi-band being difficult. I house 2 dragon faced pipes, and two janss successfully in my reef tank, and am adding a couple of blue lines on the weekend. But can I suggest, in such a small tank, maybe making sure there is little to no competition for copepods in your tank, ie, no dragonets... Do you have a refugium? If not, it wouldn't be difficult to add an hob one adapted from an hob filter. My pipes all eat frozen - another suggestion: turn off the pumps for a while when they are being fed, because they are a bit slower to grab it, even though my dragon faced are happy to go flying across the tank to chase mysis as well as spirulina flakes. I'd go for dragon faced to start - imo they are the easiest.
Good luck! Small Alien, you're my fishy guru!

 

[small alien]

Great advice from Teemee. Turn off the flow, yo!

Couldn't resist.

 

[rssjsb]

I would probably stick to bluestripes in a tank that size. Just be sure if you try a pair that you don't have two males.

Dragonface pipes are much harder to train on frozen and I worry about a smaller tank having enough pods to sustain them for very long.