The Moorish Idol Thread

Had a CBB for years in my tank along with a bunch of tangs. had no problems at all. When I put the MI in the tank, it was the first time I saw my CBB even pay attention to another fish. Probably due to very similar body shape and therefore competition for the same food source. This only lasted a day or so and then they were swimming with each other after that, never bothering each other.

I recently lost my CBB, he just dissapared in the tank, never to be seen again. That happens sometiems in a big tank with a lot of hidden places. But it wasn't because of the MI.
 
When I introduced MI to the tank 5 months ago, my CBB decided to pick on MI aggressively. The CBB's "frenzy mode" didn't last five minutes due to MI fought back, and CBB was no match to MI. Now my MI is the boss in the tank, it occasionally shows aggression to CBB during the feeding time, but just small chase. Overall they don't bother each other.
 
Whats the difference between the Moorish Idols and the Heniochus Butterfly?
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It's like the difference between Christie Brinkley and Rosanne Barr. They are different animals but I have seen them living together in Tahiti. They come from the same place but look much different from each other and eat different foods. A heniochus is much easier to keep.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15291989#post15291989 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
It's like the difference between Christie Brinkley and Rosanne Barr. They are different animals but I have seen them living together in Tahiti. They come from the same place but look much different from each other and eat different foods. A heniochus is much easier to keep.
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lol Good comparison. :P Which one is more reef safe? My definition of reef safe is, will it touch, cleaner shrimp, clams, flame scallops, gorgonians, starfish, inverts, corals like LPS, softies, leahters, ect?
 
I just wanted to share a picture of my moorish idol. I have had her for about 3 months and she is doing great! She currently shares a 315g tank with a copperband butterfly, magnificent foxface, blue tang and yellow tang. She eats everything I put in the tank, including PE mysis, brine, nori, pellets and live black worms.

Sorry for the blurry picture, I'm a horrible photographer.

idol.jpg
 
Beautiful fish Brandon.

One thing I noticed is my MI, in addition to a good appetite, seems to like breakfast the best. He will be begging for food before the lights come on and will tear apart nori first thing in the morning. Just another little observation/tip that I have observed which may help others.
 
Well it is a sad day today.

At 230 this morning I woke to silence. This is a bad thing since my 400g tank is in the room next to the bed room. I imeaditly got out of bed and checked the tank only to find my worse night mare.

A GFCI had tripped and my return pump and skimmer were not running. The silence was defining. As I turned on the lights and looked in the tank, there they were, my 2 naso tangs, pink tail trigger and Moorish idol, all upside down on the bottm dead. They had suficated due to lack of oxeygen. I do not know how long the pumps were off but it was long enough.

I got the pumps started again and crawled back into bed. I had a hard time going back to sleep. When I awoke at 5:30 to get ready for work, I finally went in to asses the damage. My female Naso was up and in the corner shaking but looked to be alive. I saw some of my other fish swiming as well.

However I did incure some losses:
12" 8 year old Male Naso tang
6" 8 year old Pink Tail Trigger
5" Gold Flake Angel
3" Rusty Angel
6" 4 year old Moorish Idol.

Yep, it's a sad day as they all were doing fine when I fed them yesterday afternoon. I have 3 different circuits that run my tank. All have GFCI outlets. I have had all three of them trip for no reason. The only cause I can think of is the salt humidity that is in the enclosure of the tank has caused enough corrision to cause them to trip. I am going to look into installing GFCI breakers and get rid of the GFCI outlets. I'm also going to look into keeping at least one of my closed loop circulation pumps on at night. I have been shutting them down for power comsumption as well as noise reasons. That may have to change.
 
Wow, I feel for ya. That is a major pain and I have to say it surprises me how quickly things went after the GFI tripping. I would not have thought that oxygen would depleat so fast.

I agree with you 100% about the GFI at the breaker. I went that way on my new tank build for exactly those reasons. Another thing I would consider is a battery backup for some power heads. I picked up 2 vortex and a battery backup just in case although the vortex are expensive.
 
Due to the large size and amount of active fish I have in the tank, I can understand the oxygen depletion being fast.

I have no power heads in the tank but may look into one or two for this reason unless I come up with a better plan.
 
Crusty, I posted this this morning but it disappeared.
I am very sorry for your loss. I know the feeling as I lost most of my fish including my Idol in an accident a couple of years ago.
It seems there is a moorish Idol curse where they have a problem after a few years.
Take care buddy
 
Thanks everyone.

Paul, how do we get rid of the curse? I burried him in the back yard. Do I need to go out each day and do some kind if ancient dance around the grave site to break the curse?

I remember your accident as well. But hey at least we were able to keep them alive and healthy for several years which is saying a lot compared to most people.

By the way, I was at the Long beach Aquarium last week and didn't see the MI's that used to be in the shark tank. I asked about them but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. Their MI's were fat and healthy and had been in that tank about 7 years. Wish I could find out what happened to them.

I was a bit disapointed with teh aquarium all the way around. A lot of the stuff I saw on the behind the scene tour a year ago was gone, Including the large group of Naso Tangs that were in the main tank, most of them the size of mine.

Take care buddy.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15382340#post15382340 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Crusty Old Shellback
Do I need to go out each day and do some kind if ancient dance around the grave site to break the curse?
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Be sure to take a video! :lol:
 
Do I need to go out each day and do some kind if ancient dance around the grave site to break the curse?
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I think if you offered up tea leaves to the moon it will be OK.
I was also a little disappointed in the Monterey Aquarium.
They change the fish all the time by letting them go and collecting new ones. (which is a good thing to do I guess) They also don't have a filtration system. they just replace the water constantly with seawater. I wanted to get some insite on filtration .
They do have a lot of problems with barnacles clogging their pipes to the sea.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13255890#post13255890 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by blface
Here's a pic of my new MI. I've had it for about 3 weeks now. It ate like crazy at the LFS but when I got it home my PBT when nuts on him. I could only get it to eat clams on the shell for the first 4-5 days. It took the PBT about two weeks to finally let th MI leave the corner of the tank. He finally stopped pestering it the last few days or so. The MI will now eat mysis & spirulina brine. It still won't touch anything else; flakes, pellets, formula 1 &2 or prime reef. At least it's eating & able to swim the entire 220 gallons now. It's always picking at the rocks. I have alot of sponge growth that he munches on.

IMG_1395.jpg



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Just an updated pic of my MI. It will be a year next week. What a difference when you compare the pics from when I first got it versus now. It looks alot bigger, fatter, & healthier. It now eats everything I feed the tank & shows no aggression towards the other fish.
MI8-1-09.jpg
 
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