The Moorish Idol Thread

Just a little more info. MIs can harbour and be infected with flukes and black ick. Mine had a mild case of both and I treated the tank so far for 2 weeks with 2 doses of Prazipro. Prazipro may affect their appetite, as mine ate during treatment but did not devour nori as fast as he usually does.

Nice posts Pinnatus and Docsky.
 
Brief Educational Video On Moorish Idol Problems & Solutions

Brief Educational Video On Moorish Idol Problems & Solutions

I hope this helps!

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That is a beautiful video and a moorish Idol is about my favorite fish but remember that most of them live 6 or 8 weeks, a year or two is about normal. I have had many of them and spent some time with them in the South Pacific. They eat great and they eat most anything and swim around looking healthy, and then take a turn for the worse and die. Mine lasted almost 5 years until I killed him by accident but even if he lived, I doubt he would have lasted another few years. None of them do. Maybe one out of a thousand live to ten years and that stinks. That fish should live 15 or 20 years. I am just going by the longivity of similar sized fish.
I have only heard of one living ten years and I can't be sure about that. In the sea I only saw them eat sponges. That is what I fed mine. I collected sponge in the sea and froze it. They will eat anything including flakes and I don't know how that rumor got started that it is difficult to feed them. I never had one that would not eat.
I believe the problem is that they live in pairs and the male is the first one to find the food which is almost always sponge, then the female shows up and the male leaves to find more sponge. Maybe it is something in that type of sponge that they need or maybe they need a mate. I can't be sure but they take 100 yard swims around the reef searching for sponges.
 
I just noticed this moorish Idol at the very bottom of the picture I took in Bora Bora. Moorish Idols are very common there.

Guppies.jpg
 
Hey Paul and the rest of the gang.

I haven't checked in here in a while but thought I would today. I've finally somewhat gotten over my loss of my big fish, including my 4+ year old MI, due to a GFCI trip and losing my pumps, there by depriving my fish of oxygen.

Anyways, I'm slowley rebuilding the system. I've still got my large pink tail trigger and majestic angel. I've fixed the problem with my GFCI and it shouldn't happen again. hasn't in over a year.

So like Paul, I can't stay away and the bug is biting at me again. I talked it over with the boss and she agrees. After the first of the year, when I have some time at home, I'll be out shopping for another MI. Maybe two this time since I no longer have all of my large fish in the tank and have reaquascaped it to allow even more swimming room. She miss them as much as I do I think.

The only down side at the moment is that I no longer have access to NSW like I had in the past. So far everything seems OK in the tank which one would expect. It's just that I have had so much success using NSW and have seen brighter colors in my fish and corals with it. However, I have finally gotten a plating monti cap coral to grow in the tank and it is doing very well. So something is going right. maybe the lack of such large fish in the tank polluting is the reason. Who knows.

So wish me luck as I go on a search for a couple of good specimiens.

Oh and have a great Turkey day.
 
I'm unsure how much skeletal calcium is in flake food. As a result, I have been feeding Hikari enriched freeze dried spirulina brine shrimp. My MI loves this stuff. Just take a cube and soak it in a little saltwater, marine zoe, and selcon. Then absorb excess liquid with a paper towel and feed. My MI gulps this down in chunks. I have been feeding this several times a week in hopes of providing exoskelaton, vitamins B12 and C, highly unsaturated fatty acids, and lipids.
 
Crusty Old Shellback said:
Maybe two this time since I no longer have all of my large fish in the tank and have reaquascaped it to allow even more swimming room.

So wish me luck as I go on a search for a couple of good specimiens.
Click to expand...

Don't know that multiples are a good idea. When I got mine I ordered three. Two of them ganged up on the third til it died. Then the two fought til only one was left. I still have that one, nearly two years later. The disclaimer is that the three were in a friends sump while my tank was getting ready, so they didn't have a lot of room, which may have caused the battles.
 
Outerbank said:
I'm unsure how much skeletal calcium is in flake food. As a result, I have been feeding Hikari enriched freeze dried spirulina brine shrimp. My MI loves this stuff. Just take a cube and soak it in a little saltwater, marine zoe, and selcon. Then absorb excess liquid with a paper towel and feed. My MI gulps this down in chunks. I have been feeding this several times a week in hopes of providing exoskelaton, vitamins B12 and C, highly unsaturated fatty acids, and lipids.
Click to expand...

I have found that greens are really important to my MI health. When I first got it, I had a terrible byropsis problem. But I noticed that the MI would eat it, not in any great quantity, but it would definitely take a mouthful from time to time. Then, I got rid of my byropsis, and I soon noticed the MI was not looking as good as before, and its pennant stopped growing. I began feeding Nori, and the Idol began looking better and the pennant began growing again. Ran out of Nori, and the pennant stopped growing and the fish began looking poorly again. Started Nori again, and its pennant must be 6-7" long now, and he is looking great again. Very strong correlation to greens and health, IMO.
 
I have been preaching nori for over 6 years. After I fold nori onto a clip, I will soak the nori in water to soften the algae, then take the nori out of water and sometimes add several drops of selcon and let the selcon soak into the nori. Then I place it in the tank. The fish will consume a lot of selcon as they attack the nori before the selcon rinses off. I should probably do this more often.

Some interesting nori information http://www.itmonline.org/arts/seaweed.htm

Scott
 
With my past MI, I would feed him and all of my fish a wide varitey of pellet food along with Nori I would get from the Asian market.

For pellets, I would mix just about every type and manufacture of marine pellets that I could find along with a few non marine ones. All in various sizes as I had various size fish in the tank, from 12" long Naso's to 2" long wrasses.

As for the Nori, I would just drop in a full size sheet of it as it didn't take long for it to be consumed by mostly my tangs, MI amd Pink Tail trigger. My MI always looked fat and healty with a nice size streamer.
 
Just joined this thread. I've had my MI for 14 months so far so good. I got it eating with clams on the half shell. Then I seen him picking at Nori on the clip but not eating just yet. I tried a silverside on the clip and to this day is his favorite thing to eat. He/She will eat Silversides, Nori, Mysis, Brine, Clams, (recently because I hardly feed it) pellets, Bloodworms.

My experience with this my first MI, is they do best under very little stress, as most fish do particularly finicky feeders. Bullies will only prolong the acclimation/Initiation period if you get lucky.

I've heard from many that they live a year maybe two and die. I'm worried about this and at the moment the only thing I can think to do is feed it a varied omnivorous diet.

I've tried to introduce a second Mori but sexing is near impossible. The first one I purchased with a slight infection. I put it in QT with a Powder Blue that had Ich. Big Mistake... The second Mori I got was small and healthy so I thought they might be a match. Second big mistake, my first Mori tore it apart. I rescued it nursed it back to health in QT on Brine and mysis and thought it would be genius to try it again. Same thing, the first MI went after it to kill. I rescued it again, but failed to feed it brine and only fed mysis. It died as it didn't have the strength the second time around to eat the mysis as it was only about 2" long.

Currently my MI is buddy buddy with a Blond Naso. The Naso is very gentle and the MI is the boss of the tank when it wants to be. Hope this info. comes in handy for someone. Thanks for this thread.
 
Congrats on the MI and good luck.

I think you will find that several on this thread have made it well past the one or two year mark with a MI. Mine was about 5 years in capativity before I lost him due to pump failure. :(

As for diet, one of the key's that I have found is a varied diet. The more varitey you can feed, the better. That along with plenty of swimming room as they are constantly in motion.

I remember watching a group of MI's at the long beach aquarium and they would swim laps around the large pool that they were in. Constantly on the move.
 
hey guys, do you think MI are sensitive to temp?
would keeping them at 69* be too low or do you think they'd be ok at that temp?
 
I was contemplating adding a second MI to my tank. A LFS has had one for a least a month now, and it seems to be eating well etc. My question is does anybody have experience with multiple MI's in the same tank? My only experience is when I first got mine, it came together with two others. They were all three kept in a sump while I was getting my tank ready for them. Over the 1 1/2 months or so that they were in my friend's sump, two died. I did not see any of this but it was reported to me that the two Idols killed the third, then the one I have killed the other. I attributed it to the tight space they were being kept in rather than actual aggression issues. And then I read Scungili's post above which also made me think. So, I am wondering that if i do decide to get that other idol, would they fight and i would be left with one Idol again? (Cause obviously I don't want to do that). Any multiple Idol experience out there?
 
Before I added mine I asked around the fish stores and they all said it was near impossible. However, people have done it on this thread. The problem is 1) you can't sex these fish, at least no where on the net or otherwise could I find how. 2) You don't know until you put the fish in the tank if you will have a problem, and then getting the fish back out is stressful and very difficult.

THe first time I introduced the second MI to the tank I couldn't get it out until it was so weak from being attacked, that it was nearly dead.

I would PM Paul B unless he chimes in, I'm pretty sure he has had 2 or even 3 at one time.
 
I never kept more than one Idol as my tank is only 100 gallons but all of them that I followed in the sea were in mated pairs. I think it would be hard to find them in a store like that because they are usually juviniles.
 
I would suggest trying to find (or build yourself) a floating container (similar to a breeding/acclimation container that has slits in the bottom) that the new MI could be kept in the DT, just to see if the other MI will be aggressive towards it. If it is pecking or showing aggression towards the MI in the container, then take it back.
 
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