Dear Coral Cruze:
Yes, sir, as long as you feed them properly, I believe the Red Banded Pipefish (Dunckerocampus dactyliophorus) would feel right at home in a mixed reef. Such an environment would be a good approximation of their natural reef habitat and they are much stronger swimmers than seahorses, so the water flow shouldn’t bother them at all.
A well-planted "Fish-Only-with-Live-Rock" (FOWLR) seahorse setup or seahorse-safe reef tank is the ideal habitat for the Red Banded Pipefish. Plenty of live rock, lots of macroalgae, and seahorse-safe soft corals and/or SPS corals are all very appropriate forms of decor. Is In the wild, these pipefish can be found swimming under rocky overhangs, corals, or close to the floor of its reef habitat, and in the aquarium they will appreciate live rock arrangements that form caves, arches, and overhanging ledges. (Pipefish will often swim upside down along the roof of a cave or overhang.)
In a tank with lots of live rock and a thriving pod population, you may sometimes see the red banded pipefish slithering along the bottom of the tank in a very serpentine fashion, as it hunts for copepods and amphipods in all the nooks and crannies in the rockwork.
The Red Banded Pipefish is one of the highly prized reef pipefish or flagtail pipefish from the tropical IndoPacific. It is a relative of the seahorse with a very long, slender, cylindrical body that resembles a colorful pipe cleaner (hence the name pipefish). This species is boldly marked, with dark reddish to maroon vertical rings running the length of its body and a very striking flag-like tail that is used to propel it horizontally through the water. The tail is a bright red oval with a brilliant white margin all around and a distinctive yellow mark in the center that is often shaped like a cube or rectangle rather than a round dot. This brilliant tail fin makes the Red Banded Pipefish a faster, stronger swimmer than its seahorse cousins and it rarely comes in direct contact with the substrate. Unlike the slowpoke seahorse, which moves through the water vertically (head up and tail down) with a stately, dignified swimming style, the Red Banded Pipefish propels itself horizontally through the water like a torpedo with powerful strokes of its oar-like tail and sinuous body when swimming.
My main concern would be that the pipefish might be out completed by the other reef fish at feeding time, but that is easily circumvented by target feeding the pipefish. And, of course, if your reef tank has a healthy population of copepods and amphipods, the pipefish will actively hunt ’pods on their own.
Once they have settled into a new aquarium, they will accept a variety of frozen foods and nonliving foods, but they are not dish trained. The food for them needs to be carefully dispersed or you can target feed the pipefish with a baster or something similar. As you know, seahorses are accustomed to plucking small invertebrates from the vegetation are the substrate, which is a feeding habit that makes it easy to train them to take frozen Mysis from a feeding station. But the pipefish are accustomed to plucking zooplankton suspended in the water column while they are swimming, and they therefore need to be target fed rather than coming to a feeding station. They do readily accept small frozen Mysis or minced Mysis once they are accustomed to their surroundings and feel at home, but their food needs to be presented to them from above so that it drifts down right in front of their snouts, whereupon they will snatch it from the water column and dart around cleaning up the remaining pieces that drift down.
However, several hobbyists that keep their red banded pipefish with their seahorses have reported that the pipes eventually learned to take frozen Mysis from the feeding station by following the seahorses' example.
The Red Banded Pipefish is a carnivore that needs a meaty diet but it's tiny, tubular mouth severely limits the size of the prey items it can consume. In the wild, its diet consists primarily of copepods and in the aquarium it will thrive in a well-established tank with lots of live rock and macroalgae that houses a large ’pod population. Hobbyists will find it convenient to supplement its diet with Nutramar Tigrio Bottled Live Copepods, which are an ideal food for this fastidious feeder. Over time, as it becomes accustomed to its new surroundings, the Red Banded Pipefish will be content eating nonliving food such as frozen CYCLOP-EEZE®, very small frozen Mysis, Ocean Nutrition Instant Baby Brine Shrimp, and Nutramar Ova. The Ocean Rider Red Banded Pipefish are trained to eat frozen Mysis as their staple diet, and they will do so in your home aquarium, as long as the Mysis are small enough.
When it comes to prepared foods for your pipefish, stick with the smallest brands of frozen Mysis (e.g., Mini Mysis by H2O Life), Instant Baby Brine Shrimp by Ocean Nutrition, and perhaps bars of frozen Cyclop-Eeze for best results. Bars of frozen Cyclop-Eze usually work better than other forms of Cyclop-eeze because they will shed copious amounts of the bite-size frozen cyclops, but it's a messy food and I recommend offering your pipefish small frozen Mysis instead. Brands of larger frozen Mysis can also be used for feeding the pipefish, and hobbyists tell me that their red banded pipes can even handle the jumbo Piscine Energetics frozen Mysis relicta, looking a bit like a sword swallower in the process, as they gradually gulp down the king sized Mysis shrimp in several bites. But the brands of bigger frozen Mysis often work better after they have been minced or shaved. The frozen Mysis that works best for most hobbyists when minced is Hikari in frozen blocks rather than trays. The Hikari Mysis is much smaller than Piscine Energetics Mysis relicta and that makes it easier to shave off bite-sized pieces for the pipefish.
When it comes to shaving the Mysis, a technique that works well for many home hobbyists is to use a potato peeler to shave off bits of the Hikari Mysis from a frozen block, and then use a single edged razor blade to further mince the frozen bits the potato peeler has removed.
Small, frequent feedings are best. Try to feed your pipefish at least three times daily and be careful not to overfeed at any single feeding, especially with the frozen Cyclop-eeze, which tends to be messy because significant amounts of it go uneaten.
As we discussed briefly earlier, there is another type of prepared food that is bite sized and which the red banded pipefish (Dunckerocampus dactyliophorus) usually eat very readily. It is called Instant Baby Brine Shrimp and is manufactured by Ocean Nutrition. It consists entirely of sterile newly hatched baby brine shrimp that have been preserved for use as a fish food, and seahorse keepers tell me that dwarf seahorses (Hippocampus zosterae) and pipefish typically eat the Instant Baby Brine Shrimp very well.
As you know, the pipefish love to eat live newly hatched brine shrimp, so it makes sense that they will also like these perfectly preserved, intact baby brine shrimp as well, and one of the neat things about them is that the Instant Baby Brine Shrimp are buoyant so they stay suspended in the water column, which is exactly where the pipefish like to feed, rather than settling down to the bottom of the tank quickly, like the frozen Mysis does.
Likewise, reefkeepers tell me that their live corals absolutely love the stuff, and that the instant baby brine shrimp remain suspended in the water column fairly long in reef tanks with brisk circulation. (They also caution that it is very concentrated and easy to overfeed, if you're not careful.) Other hobbyists report that small, active fish -- especially planktivores -- also take to it very well.
In short, if you have any difficulty locating Marine Mini Mysis by H2O Life, I suggest that you obtain some of the Instant Baby Brine Shrimp by Ocean Nutrition and carefully offer it to your new pipefish in an area of the aquarium where it will not be sucked up by the filters before the pipefish get a chance to eat it.
In short, Instant Baby Brine Shrimp by Ocean Nutrition. It usually works well for feeding red banded pipefish (Dunckerocampus dactyliophorus), but use it sparingly because it's very easy to overfeed.
If it's not available from any of your local fish stores, you can purchase the Ocean Nutrition "Instant Baby Brine Shrimp" online from Drs. Foster and Smith for a cost of about $10 from the following website (just copy the following URL, paste it in your web browser, and press the "Enter" key, and will take you directly to the right webpage for the Instant Baby Brine Shrimp:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=16873
In the meantime, the best frozen Mysis that I have found for feeding the red banded pipefish is Marine Mini Mysis by H2O Life, so perhaps you can obtain some of the Mini Mysis from one of the local fish stores or pet shops in your area, while you are waiting for the Instant Baby Brine Shrimp to be delivered.
If you cannot obtain the H2O Life Marine Many Mysis locally either, then try to leave the heads of the frozen Mysis you have on hand complete and intact when you cut it up for the pipefish, and offer the pipefish the anterior ends or pieces of the chopped up Mysis that include the eyes, because the head with the eyes is quickly recognized by pipefish and seems to trigger their feeding instinct.
If you contact me off list at the following e-mail address, Coral Cruze, I can send you an illustrated species summary on Ocean Rider Dunckerocampus dactyliophorus pipefish that explains all about their aquarium requirements and breeding habits:
petegiwojna@aol.com
Happy Trails!
Pete Giwojna, Ocean Rider Tech Support
