The Moorish Idol Thread

[Paul B]

Kieron I just came back from a large LFS a couple of blocks from my home. I just go there to buy salt and worms. The owner asked me why I never buy livestock from him. We walked over to the coral tank and I showed him three elegance corals that were just about slime. They came in beautiful about three days ago.
I said "what the hell do you do to this water?" He said he does not know whats wrong because the water is perfect. I asked about the salinity because every coral, maybe 30 of them were dying. He took out a refractometer. The salinity is 0.040.
I told him it would be real good for brine shrimp, and I left.
His moorish Idols which were in a different set up that I did not check had that thousand yard stare on them. You know the look.
Like "should I live another day or what". They are in a tank of orange spotted filefish, another winner fish. There is a tank of frogfish that the bottom is covered in dead mysis shrimp. Frogfish eat that don't they? There is an entire tank of "colorful slugs" sold for algae control, Not a slug in there, all nudibranchs.
They have about thirty of those small plexiglass compartments that most places sell slugs and small crabs, I asked "how much for the hair algae" because thats all that is in there.
This is a very large store, an entire block with maybe 60 salt water and a hundred fresh water tanks. It is a shame that there are no laws on this stuff.
Paul

 

[KDodds]

Let me guess, are the initials CC?

 

[Paul B]

Actually no. It is New Hyde Park Pets. Maybe the dogs are OK

 

[KDodds]

Is that the one on Jericho? Near NHP Rd.?

 

[Paul B]

Yes it is. I live around the corner. You know the place? A little far from you isn't it?
Paul

 

[KDodds]

LOL. A little. It's never too far to drive for quality stock, IMO. In this case, tho, I think I'll pass. Yeah, I've been there and left, um, unimpressed. I actually hung out in LI quite a bit in my younger days and my best friend lives in Malverne, so not that far. There's only one major store I haven't been to on LI and the name keeps escaping me. Anyway, I've said pretty often online that I've been to pretty much every store in the tri-state, barring probably those in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, at least once. Who wants to deal with all that traffic?

I know exactly the shoes your in. There are two stores near me that I use occassionally for food that have asked me the same question.

 

[Paul B]

Kieron, have you been to Fish Town in Flushing?
I helped start their salt tanks in the late sixtees. I don't know anyone there anymore but the owner always wants to buy stuff that I collect. Their prices are very cheap because they import their own stuff. Fire fish and gobies $7.00
You just have to be careful there as you do everywhere.
As you know, here on Long Island I am inundated with aquarium stores. They are all over the place but none too good.
As for Manhatten I have been working there for 35 years and after another 18 months I never have to see that city again.
Paul

 

[KDodds]

Hehe, I hear ya on the city, and the state of affairs in LI LFSs. There's one I think, that I might consider using if I lived on LI, but they do a lot of commercial work and I've seen those tanks and know the contract terms (since I've been asked for advice on some of them). That kind of puts me off of them, hence I don't get to LI LFSs much. I hd been to the one in Flushing ages and ages ago. I don't remember all that much about it other than that it was fairly decent (at least for FW, I wasn't doing Marine at the time), but too far to get to regularly (by bus).

I get most of my fish from Absolutely Fish in Clifton, NJ. Their prices aren't as low as some other places on the common fish, but they're pretty inline with mail order prices on less common species, and even cheaper some times. Price, tho, is not a driving factor for me. I'd rather pay 10, 20, 30% more for a fish I know is healthy, feeding, etc. They're also a MAC store, which is a big plus for me. Staying on topic, my original Idol is a MAC fish.

 

[Paul B]

Kieron I went back to New Hyde Park Pets again today. My friend owns the building across the street so whenever I visit him I go in for a look. I was wondering why there was nothing living but hair algae in the plexiglas cubes so we checked the salinity.
0.60. I guess they added a little water to a bucket of salt and dumped it in.
Paul

 

[bskiba]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8052663#post8052663 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
I guess they added a little water to a bucket of salt and dumped it in.
Paul

That is funny. maybe they believe in keeping coral at a higher salinity. I remember years ago I went over to a friends house and his 50 gallon had evaporated down 1/3 and the walls were solid green. I looked in from the top and his fish were still alive. his tank was at .035 specific gravity. great Salt lakeish.

 

[john37]

update, after about 2 months of only eating clams, my moorish idol is finally eating primereef flakes. YAY!!

 

[ledford1]

I've also taken up the challenge of a Moorish Idol today.

It and a Blue Tang (no, I'm not doing a Nemo theme) are in QT with some PVC and LR.

I left the lights off for a few hours and covered the tank with a towel. I then uncovered the tank and waited another couple of hours before turning on the lights.

Both are doing quite well it appears. The MI is quite active and has been picking at the LR half the time.

I tried a few bloodworms. The MI was a bit hesitant until it saw the BT going for it. They both seem to have healthy appetites. I have also tried a few pinches of pellets: Formula 2, Soft & Moist krill, and Specturm Thera+A. I very happy to see the MI eat them all. I also have a variety of flakes and seaweed, but I don't want to overdo it on the first day.

We'll see how it goes.

 

[Paul B]

I wanted to update the feeding dish I am still using to feed the Idol. As most of you know this dish that I found while diving on a tugboat in NY has a tube attached to it with a funnel at the surface. An automatic feeder puts pellets in the funnel twice a day. The moorish Idol checks it out every 30 seconds or so.
Anyway, it has gotten full of coraline algae but still works as planned. The Idol has about doubled in size in the three years he has been with me. His dorsal fin has not regrown and I atribute this to the small size of the tank. 6' is no where long enough for any fish this size but especially a moorish Idol. I have removed as much rock as I would like to to give him more room but he does not like to turn around that often.
The copperband also steals food from the dish as he seems to think the Idol is his big brother but the Idol nudges him away.
The fish seems to ve very healthy and so far shows no signs of croaking but with a moorish Idol that means nothing. Last year he survived two "Pop eye" operations which were completely successful. He still loves frozen New York sponge and bananas as does the copperband. Besides the pellets he gets twice a day, he also gets live black worms, sponge, bananas fresh blue claw crab (when I catch them) mysis and plankton both fresh from the sea and frozen.
Have a great day.
Paul
see how he used to fit into the dish

 

[john37]

well i decided to get another moorish idol and put him in my main tank but the existing one, about 2in smaller, beat the snot out of him for 3 days. I thought he was going to die bc his eye wasnt looking too well either but then i caught him and put him in my frag tank 2days ago and now his eye has gotten better and HE'S EATING PELLETS! yay, took my other one 2months to start eating flakes. anyways here's a video in honor of a fighter. these guys are tough.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

My MI is on a plane from hawaii right now! I hope I can add some positives to this thread. Any last minute advice before he goes in? Thanks to everyone who adds to this thread, it is very important to share what happens good or bad.

 

[Paul B]

Does he have a window seat? :lol:

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8152656#post8152656 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
Does he have a window seat? :lol:

Nice to see someone else with a sense of humor on RC. I think they are hard to find sometimes! I was thinking of going to the LFS and buying some blue sponge for the MI. Do you think I should or give him a few days?

 

[Paul B]

I really don't know if they eat blue sponge. I feed orange sponge that I collect in NY but I hear the sponges in Phoenix are a little dry. :eek1:
They don't eat all types of sponge and buying live sponge to feed an Idol would be very expensive. Mine eats a lot of sponge.
Mine does not even eat fresh sponge, he only will eat it after I freeze it. They have very weak mouths and can't really bite off anything. Just be sure to feed it a variety of things, especially seafoods that you can find frozen like sardines, clams squid etc. Small whole saltwater fish would be nice but I am not sure if you could get them where you live. I give mine vitamin A (cod liver oil) at least once a week. I soak pellets or flake food in it. You really should also feed a few times a day. Three or better five times is good but you would need an automatic feeder unless you really have no life. Mine also loves bananas but I am sure they don't need it to survive.
One more thing I really don't recommend most people buying these fish. Some posts here may make it sound like they are fairly hardy if they are eating, this is not the case with an Idol
Good luck.
Paul
here is the sponges I collect to feed

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

That stuff is nasty looking. Fresh or frozen banana

 

[Paul B]

Yeah I know, horrable. It doesen't look bad at all while it is growing but after you scrape it off the dock and keep it in a container in the boat it looks like that. Frozen it looks decent.
They eat fresh and frozen bananas.
paul