Tell me about flounders

E

EnderG60

Plumbing Engineer
We got a small one about 2" long in at work today, its black on top with some white speckels(BTW the tank its in has black sand, not sure if they can change color to match) pretty sure its atlantic.

Anyway I kinda want to get him for a bit. Since im pretty sure its an atlantic one im sure it will get to large for my 58g eventually, but i have alot of sand bed and I can always bring him back to work when he gets to big.

but im wondering what kinda stuff they eat, if they ever come out of the sand besides at night, how they usually do in tanks, and are they reef safe.

thanks
 
i have a friend who had one and he would just drop chopped shrimp in there and would come flying up out of the sand and grab it. Really cool fish. Starting eating any kind of meat he threw into the tank.
 
I have a flounder and I feed it shrimp but I have to put the shrimp next to it for it to eat it. Oh and I usually turn the lights off when Im feeding, because flounders are mostly nocturnal and feel more comfortable at night.
 
I know they taste really good when you stuff them with crabmeat....

seriously they are cool, but I dont really think that they are good aquarium candidates. The atlantic species will get to be the size of a doormat so he will defintely outgrow your tank. Another word of caution, when they get bigger they are very efficient predators. Come nightfall anything sitting near the bottom of the tank will be fair game
 
well thanks to my 13" engineer goby I dont have any shrimp left, and only a few emeralds(once with pretty big claws) so Im not to worried about him getting the inverts, and my smallest fish is a perc clown thats only 1/2" smaller then the flounder im looking at.

And like i said once he gets to be about 5-6" If i havent gotten my 180 yet ill bring him back into work.

My only real worry now is how it would do in a reef, and if a mix of mysis, brine, bloodworms, fish eggs and cyclopeeze would be enough for him.
 
i have one in my 70 gallon its while matchs agrorite sand that i have... it started out eating brine... but now eats everything from mysid to formula 2 flakes
 
I fish for flounder a lot and they are unbelievable agressive predators and can eat ENORMOUS stuff.

My brother caught one about 24" long once that had a 7" inch long mantis shrimp in its stomach.

I use killifish 3-4" long for bait and routinely catch short 9" flounder that have completely swallowed them.

Only suitable for a tank where they are clearly the smallest fish, IMHO, and they will grow VERY fast and get very big.
 
welp picked him up yesterday, and he is the smallest fish in the tank by far. Hell the pistol shrimp in there is the same size :)

anyway he changed from a dark grey to a light grey to match the sand i guess and has been chilling in the corner on the sand.

See if he eats tomarrow.

Ill see how fast he grows, if he is getting to big to fast I can always toss him in the 800g fish only tank at work....my dad wants to grow him up and fry him:p
 
Hmm...odd that people think they're nocturnal.

People never, ever fish for flounder at night (there are many species of fish where the fishing is usually better at night) Only during the day. and generally the brighter the sun and less clouds the better the fishing is.

They're purely sight predators.
 
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