Rhinopias scorpion fish

[triggerfish55]

i'm interested in maybe buying a Rhinopias scorpion but i cant find very much info about where to buy one or the cost online. the main thing that interests me is the price of this fish i have not seen in on sale anywhere but i hear some people say that they bought it for 500-900$ and then i hear other saying that they bought it for around a 100$
so what is a realistic price for this fish
thanks

 

[jarrod13]

Reisfic price is $200-$500. I consider myself very lucky to have bought 2 for $125 each. Keep in mind though the ones I bought were not a pretty color like the more expensive ones are.

 

[Dmorty217]

Depending on the variety of the Rhinopias somewhere between 200-400$

 

[namxas]

Renee and I have paid as little as $200 and as much as $600 for them. Obviously, the super nice specimens tend to cost more, and price is sometimes species dependent.

 

[gsiegel]

Cool fish - I saw one at my LFS for I believe around $400 not long ago.

Do you plan on keeping anything with this fish?

 

[triggerfish55]

no i plan on keeping it alone in my reef tank. any special considerations that i should look into before getting one of these?

 

[triggerfish55]

i just spoke to my lfs and the guy told me that he can get me one in the 150$ range, but he told me that some of his customers had not had very good experiences in the past with these fish and in some cases they did not live long what are your experiences?

 

[snorvich]

My experiences with them have only been in the wild. I have visited the same ones at the same locations in Papua New Guinea (Rhinopias aphanes, Milne Bay) for years and a variety of different ones in Indonesia (Lembeh Strait, Rhinopias eschmeyeri).. Water temperature was about 77 F and they tended to be a bit on the slightly deeper side (50-75 feet). They were always in areas with a lot of reef fish and hence in mild current. Gorgeous fish but they can consume fish that are about half their size.

 

[fishguy99]

http://www.freshmarine.com/rhinopias.html
This well help

 

[triggerfish55]

any body have any experience with the rhinopias aphanes?

 

[namxas]

Other than the chances of finding a TRUE Merlet's scorp (R. aphanes) is pretty darned slim, you'd likely be seeing a price tag in the $2k range. We've been keeping venomous fishes for a number of years, and still haven't found one.

Many of the Rhinos offered are mis-ID'd, and we've seen some for sale as R. aphanes, but they always turn out to be one of the other species, generally R. frondosa or what some are considering a frondosa x eschmeyeri hybrid.

IME, Rhinos do well with stands of live macro algae, as well as a good amount of open substrate. None of our specimens have ever been super fond of caves/overhangs as would be the case with most Scorpaeniformes. Our tanks typically run at 77*F. This particular genus doesn't mind gentle current, but strong current isn't the best for them, esp. if it's laminar flow.

They should be weaned onto non-living foods (SW fish flesh, shrimp, bivalve meat, squid, etc.), and fed 4-6 eye-sized food items 3x a week.

HTH