The Moorish Idol Thread

[mixer911]

Thanks, Yes I just picked him up. He is one of the best I have ever seen. Very fat and healthy looking. I will keep you posted. I have wanted one for years and never have seen one I thought was a good specimen.

We have a local reef and fish club if you are interested. Palm Beach Marine Aquarium Society

I am also an avid local scuba diver. Which store do you work at?

 

[zfunk007]

Mixer, I work at Coastal Aquarium in North Palm Beach. I am very familiar with PBMAS. Alot of your members come in here. The only reason I haven't been to one of your meetings is that I work almost every saturday till 7 O'clock and don't usually have time to make it out to where the meetings are. I am very interested though and I recieve the club emails.

I am also an avid diver although I am not certified for scuba yet. I want to get certified later this summer. Any suggestions on where I should go?

Me and my brother frequently dive off of the Palm Beach Inlet, Breakers Shallow, Blowing Rocks and a couple other places. Big into collecting little tropicals. Fun stuff.

Is your Idol eating yet?

 

[mixer911]

Ok, Your store is a sponsor of the club. I have not been in the store yet.

I dive with Splash Down Divers They are located in boynton though. They have a great dive instructor. Great group to dive with. I also dive off my brothers boat.

You would love to see what is on the deeper reefs. Thousands of fish. I grew up here also so I've snorkeled and dove all over the area.

He is picking. I am going to give him a mixed dinner tonight to see what he likes.

 

[Paul B]

Chevy, sounds good. You could dive in that tank. Good luck. I still don't know if I will be keeping my tank when I retire in 701 days, 7 hours and 6 minutes, but whos counting. We are moving out east on the end of Long Island and I hope to do a lot of traveling and maybe getting a place in the Caymans. If that happens I will have to give up the tank as there will be no one home for months at a time. Maybe I will adopt a fish sitter.
Zfunk, you would hate diving here. Visability ranges to about three feet on a good day.
But at least I can collect a lot of Idol food.
Take care.
Paul

 

[zfunk007]

Paul, don't give up your tank!! Thats what retirement is for, so you have more time for hobbies such as reef keeping .

You should get a fish sitter and make your tank more automated. Use the tank of the month for inspiration. His tank is very self sufficient and he could probably leave for a week or so and not have to worry to much about it. If anything you should upgrade and get a bigger tank. The bigger the better, more room for error.

Plus if your Idol lives he's gonna want a bigger tank .

 

[Paul B]

Zfunk. Although my tank is automated, I would still have to be there once a week or so. I would hate to give it up. It will be 36 years old when I move. If I do keep it, like I would like to, I will upgrade to a much larger tank. I may build one out of concrete but it depends on what type of home I buy. I would also like to constantly circulate natural seawater through it but that depends on how far I am from the water. Hopefully just a few feet. It also depends on finances. Waterfront property on the east end on Long Island is not exactly free.
It is 100 degrees here today.
Take care. Paul

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

YEA, what Zfunk said. That and you can't let the oldest active tank just stop. What would the rest of us do for inspiration?

Or are you trying to become a legond and a myth? . I think you've already got the legond part accomplished.

Enjoy the retirment but see if there's a way to keep the tank going.

 

[Paul B]

I am trying to be a legend in my own mind.
Paul

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Well you better hurry up then as I do beleive you have become a legend in a lot of RCer's minds.

 

[zfunk007]

I think your already a legend Paul .

On another note, my tank is in danger again. Some jacka** cut down a tree in our neighborhood and hit a powerline so the power is out AGAIN at my house. It's not going to be back on for several hours. I'm still at work and can do nothing about it. My sump also overflowed again and dumped a good 30 gallons of saltwater on the floor. I have to do something about that.

Any ideas on how I can upgrade my sump with as little effort and little cost as possible? I was thinking I could drill some bigger holes in the side of it and attach them to a seperate sump with PVC pipe and the water would just flow through to both of them. I'd have to use BIG PVC though.

That tank of the month kind of inspired me with his 2 sump idea. I think I could pull it off. I need to do something cause whenever we get a prolonged power outage (which lately is every other freaking day) my sump overflows. I just hope my fish will be ok. This is getting rediculous!

 

[Paul B]

Zfunk, why does your sump overflow? Bad design, it should never do that in a blackout. Didn't you get a generator this year too? You really have to fix that problem. I don't have a sump so it can't happen and I also have a generator. Can't you plumb the sump so that the flow stops when the water level drops an inch or so? or does it come from the bottom of your tank?

Chevy, a lot of people also think I am nuts for the way that I run my tank, NY water, asphalt rock, UG filter, live NYC mud etc.
Paul

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Sounds like your getting some back siphon from the tank as well. A easy fix for that is to drill a small hole in the return line, just below the water level in the tank. When the water goes below that line, it will suck in air and break the siphon. Hope that helps some.

 

[gofor100]

Tagging along...planning an extremely large tank with one of these beautiful fish as the center piece.

 

[zfunk007]

Yeah I did drill a hole in the return line a while ago but the algae growth must have clogged it. Another problem is that my sump is to small. Since I added the 110 fish only tank to my system the water volume is too much for the sump to handle (I have all 3 of my main tanks running together in the same system).

Today I added another sump to my system by drilling a 2" hole in my main sump and running it into a seperate 50 gallon rubbermaid container with a PVC pipe. Then I put a valve on it so that I could cut it off and do a quick water change if needed. Like I said the tank of the month kind of inspired me to do something like that. Interesting idea. Now I just have to drill some new holes into the return line so it won't keep sucking. Thanks for the advice guys .

All my fish survived the power outage. It lasted about 5 hours. Although since my water level was so low it killed a few of my small acropora frags near the surface that were exposed the whole time .

On a positive note my Regal Angel and Moorish Idol seem to be becoming buddies. They hang out alot together and both are huge pigs when eating. Very fun to watch these 2 beautiful (and seldom seen in the same tank I might add) fish swimming together.

Gofor100 thanks for the post. Keep us updated when you get your Idol.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Glad everything survived. Sounds like your having some fun down there. Good luck.

 

[LivingDeadFish]

Well i guess ill jump in for a swim.
my idol will be 2 in sept, very hardy fish in my exp. eats most foods, he didnt like the angle formula with sponge at all
neither did my last idol.
I cant tell you any secrets to successfully keeping one of these fish.
from exp, I can tell you to try an avoide things like this
power outtages are bad "duh". power outtages with 14" anemones = fatality.
I was told the power was off for about 10 hours, Im not sure of his condition before i got home, but i got to see my first idol dive right into my anemone as i ran into the room.
:eek2: 3 other fish vanished that day.
ok thats enough of the donts, here are a few of the things i do or have done and equip i have with my current idol.

received idol from lps, med large in size. 2 days till i saw him eat.(sick/blockage once did not see him eat for atleast 5 days recovered fine with no treatment).
95% of the food that i feed all my fish(8) is betta bits/tetra bits, same thing. the tetra bits fit in my auto feeder great, and that is set for twice a day now. about every 9 months ill buy some frozen brine, and or formula 2 and feed once or twice a month.
last year when i moved here, it took me 3 more months to move my tank. for that 3.5 months the only food they got was tetra bits 1 time a day, i had to go back and refill the feeder every 2 weeks. the one time i was a few days late i lost my 10 month old clam im sure he was dinner for many of the fish.
I bought one 200 gal bucket of i/o salt this year, and used most of it when i moved my tank here, i ran out about 3 months ago, i try to change about 20 gal every 2 or 3 months.
my tank is a 5 ft 110 gal, 30 gal sump, one compartment of bioballs, 90 gallon skimmer, 680 wt pc\halide. 90 lbs live rock, 4-5" of esv sand, an 8 fish.
and battleing a hair alge problem.
thats all for now. if ya have a Q, just ask

ldf

 

[zfunk007]

LivingDeadFish, is your name a reference to the Rob Zombie song "Living Dead Girl"? Thats great that you've had your Idol for 2 years! Sorry to hear about your first one .

Here are some recent pictures of mine:

In the second picture he is eating that Angel Formula with Sponge I got him. I adjusted some of my powerheads and inflows so that the pieces of food go to that middle spot each time I feed them and him and the Regal know just where to go to get it.

Paul, I recently got some other kind of sponge while diving, this one is bright orange. I froze it gave it to them last night and the Idol just DEVOURED it. The Regal seemed to like it as well . They are good buds now it seems. Nice to see these 2 in the same tank. Anyone else have any updates?

 

[Paul B]

"Z" that Idol looks nice and healthy, not skinny and has a nice dorsal fin. Your last picture almost reminds me of Tahiti. They stand out so much against the corals.
I am going boating today and I will be going to the tide pools to do some collecting. The tide goes down about ten feet here and some tide poold are hundreds of yards long. I collect these big clumps of mussels with associated mud and crabs. The amount of amphipods I get out of there is enormous. I try to feed the Idol as diverse as I can get. Unfortunately, yesterday I left the frozen food out of the freezer. Do you know what that smells like?
Paul

 

[LivingDeadFish]

zfunk007
My first idol , i did everything in the tank just for that fish. made food, changed water often, took out mean fish, test kits, more rocks and read too much.
week one " it will be dead in a week return it or kill it now"
week two " they dont last past a month"
one month " they just drop dead at any time"
an so on. an so on....
later i got mad at the closed mindedness of some people an erased every post and bit of info i ever put up about idols.
i have not posted about this fish in about 3 years, i changed my id, an am still alittle touchie on that subject.
now im livingdeadfish and thats what i keep in my tank.
rob zombie indeed may have helped me pick the name.

those are great pictures, someday, perhaps ill have a camera.
new skimmer and a reactor are higher on my list.

paul, its been many years for me, but i dont think it would be very easy for anyone to forget that smell

must be nice living close to the water, i saw the ocean once 25 years ago.

ldf

 

[Paul B]

LivingDeadFish, I have been to many places but I prefer to go to places that have an ocean. I was stationed in Colorado for a few monthes and although mountains are beautiful I need an ocean.
As a matter of fact I will be going out in an hour boating and meeting other boaters. Anyway to each his own.
Luckilly, I found my frozen food the next day and most of it was still in those little square plastic frozen pouches so it was not as bad as it could have been. Years ago (about 45) we went clamming out on the end of Long Island and we got about 100 clams. We forgot them in the trunk of the Oldsmobile for a week.
We had to junk the car. You could not get near it.
As for the topic of moorish Idols you may have read earlier that I just dove with them in Tahiti and I have an observation. They swim in mated pairs (I think they are mated) and one finds the food while the other one trails behind. It may be that the dominant one, which I assume is the male, finds the food and the female may be the one that does not last as long in a tank. Of course I may be way off on this but many or most of them only last a couple of weeks and do not feed or take a long time to start eating. They may do better in mated pairs in huge public aquarium type tanks. As you know, we can keep them alive but none of them look as healthy or vibrant as the Idols I saw in the sea. That is true with most fish but more so with Idols. What we consider a nice fat healthy fish in captivity is really in very poor health and very stressed. In the sea they are not very skittish and you can almost pet them while they feed on sponge. Their dorsal fin is very thick which I have never seen in captivity. Look at the fin on this one I observed in Tahiti. You do not see any like that in captivity.
Paul