The Moorish Idol Thread

Hi again, when it rains it pours, there is now ich in my tank and my idol has stopped eating. Any suggestions would be appreciated, this guy was eating everything and is so beautiful. I have lowered the salinity to 1.019 and that seems to have helped, after dropping salanity everyone is more active. I am feeding everything under the sun soaked in chopped garlic and ginger.

Is there any food out there that the idol cannot resist? He still seems excited about feeding time but is not actually eating anything.
 
I received a MI from BZ a few months ago. He arrived about 3", in great shape and eating pretty much out of the bag. I kept him in QT (40gl) for a couple weeks profalatically treated with cupramine and prazipro (i do this with all my fish). He continued to eat through the QT treatments, which didn't seem to affect him much. My QT has sand and LR, very good water quality (protein skimmer, sump, Aquaclear, sponge filters...). Since in the DT he's grown substantially, surprisingly so. Hasn't gotten any fatter though. He's second in command to my Achilles Tang, and no aggression between the two. My MI is quite aggressive, and picks on my copper banded butterfly for sport. I feed a lot. Live littleneck clams nearly daily, live blackworms daily, spectrum pellets, hykari mysis and RN Angel formula with sponge (soaked in either selcon or vitachem) daily, and nori about 1x per week. The MI eats all of this with gusto. I feed both 1mm and 3mm spectrum pellets, for the first couple months he only ate the 1mm but now eats both. Mostly picks them off the bottom, not so much from the water column. This keeps him out of competition with the AT, who pretty much only eats from the WC. Short-term success so far, I'll keep you posted.
 
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does anyone know what the significance of the streamer means? some days mines short and the next day it may be twice his body length. other then that he is eating like crazy
 
screwsloose said:
does anyone know what the significance of the streamer means? some days mines short and the next day it may be twice his body length. other then that he is eating like crazy
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I don't know what the significance is. Some people claim they make the fish more streamline in the water and help direct streamline water flow.

MI streamers break off very easily. Unfortunately, my tunze powerheads will usually tear off my MI streamer whenever it grows to a certain size. That's a bummer and I have not come up with a good solution. I have positioned the heads in other areas and turned the cover upside down with some help (covered side pointing down)
 
MIs in Hawaii

MIs in Hawaii

Hello all,

This is my first post on RC, but I am an avid fish lover and have kept a saltwater tank for many years now. I just wanted to share some photos of MIs that I took while in Hawaii a few months back. I encountered them at depths ranging from 15' to 105' ft (grazing off the shipwreck that we were diving). One observation I made was that at deeper depths I mainly encountered large individuals, whereas in shallower depths I saw groups (3-5) cruising the reefs. I hope to keep a MI, but it will not be in the near future as I am moving soon and would like to have the tank settled before I attempt it. Hope you enjoy and thanks for the wealth of information concerning keeping these magnificent animals.

1) Group of MIs and Yellow Tangs at depth of 60' ft
2) Trio of MIs at depth of 60' ft
3) & 4) MI at depth of 15' ft
 

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i have two moorish idols, someone orderd them into a store and never came to get them they sat there for a while so i bought both of them as they seemed to be so peaceful together, any way to tell the sex on them at 3"
 
its been two weeks now, and boy are they ever getting fat they will eat almost anything i throw in the tank excet seaweed on a clip, but they will eat it if its not on a clip
 

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Shortly after posting my MI pic he decided to nip at my crocea clam. The clam closed on it, almost to his eyes.
My wife called me frantic saying the MI was laying on the bottom of the tank. So Im going home she calls me again saying it was stuck in the clam. I get home take a butter knife and slowly pry the clam open. The MI slowly falls to the bottom, almost lifeless. At this point my wife is in tears,and im heart broken. I let him/her lay there, and turned off the white lights. About 20-30 minutes later he is swimming around. Later that evening I feed and he isnt interested. I noticed his mouth was stuck open a little bit. The next day I fed again, and he wasnt able to open his mouth to suck food in. By the end of the day he had figured out to get down current from the food and swim into the food. After a few days he was able to open his mouth more and more, and eat. He is back to normal eating mysis,spectrum flake, and nori. After reading this thread more, Im going to look for a flake with sponge in it.
We have a joke going"the morrish idol eating clam"....
 
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