The Moorish Idol Thread

Thank you for the compliments!...To see him doing well makes me feel good that i made the decision to buy him from the LFS. He didn't look to happy in their little cubicle of a tank with 2 other fish in it. It has been a rollercoaster ride, as the first 3 days he didnt eat, then he got ich(prety bad), but i made up my mine i would do everything i could to give him a chance.

Shawn, you say your Coral Beauty likes to pal around with him, and my Pacific Blue Tang seems to do the same.

I believe my MI thinks he can talk, cause sometimes when i am looking in he will swim to the glass and start moving his mouth as if he is try to tell me something(like feed me) :)
 
I believe my MI thinks he can talk, cause sometimes when i am looking in he will swim to the glass and start moving his mouth as if he is try to tell me something(like feed me)

Haha, mine does the same thing benf. Its pretty normal aquarium behavior for them I think. They seem to have ALOT of personality. I think you made the right decision to get your Idol because if you didn't some irresponsible aquarist that saw Finding Nemo and wanted to get a "Gill" probably would have.

Whenever I goto the wholesalers and there are Moorish Idols there they are netted up the instant someone sees them. So we have to make sure we educate people on their needs and give them the best chance possible to survive in captivity. It can be done, and we are learning how more and more every day.

Glad to hear your Idol is eating so well Shawn. Hopefully that will continue. My Idol also likes to buddy up with another fish in my tank. In my tank its my Regal Angel though. Thankfully noone bothers his dorsal fin.

I may have posted this before but I will do it again. Here is a list of the corals my Idol has "picked at" some more than others. This will hopefully help people when and if they decide to introduce an Idol into their reef tank. Here they are:

-Various Green Montipora (once in a while has done a little damage)
-Caribbean Cup Coral (at first but not anymore)
-Blue Trumpet (he keeps destroying it and it keeps comming back then he'll destroy it again)
-Various Acroporas (just nips on occasion hasn't done any visible damage)
-Any kind of brain coral (completely destroys them DON'T put an Idol in a tank with brains of any kind IMO)
-Some kind of Caribbean Acropora (on occasion)
-Small frag of Blastomosa (completely destroyed)
-Fire Coral (at first but not anymore)

I think alot of it has to do with how often I feed him and if hes hungry or not. Also of course they are much more likely to eat LPS's than anything else. This has been the case in my tank, although he seems to like hard corals in general and ignores the softies.

Lately and since I have gotten my automatic feeder working he is getting fed on average 4-5 times a day and he doesn't seem to pick at things as much. Before I was feeding him this much he was much more interested in destroying various corals.

As far as corals he hasn't ever touched, here is a list:

-Various soft zoo polyps
-Xenia
-Star Polyps
-Clove Polyps
-Purple Gargonian

Strangely he doesn't seem to like the soft stuff but goes after the hard corals. However I am so dedicated to this fish that I have removed most of the corals he has picked on. He comes first. If there's a coral he likes to eat, it comes out and he stays. Even if I had to remove every coral in my tank, the Idol gets priority. Just thought this list might be helpful to people who were thinking about putting an Idol in their tank and what to expect.

Of course everyones experience is different. This just happends to be mine.
 
Oh yeah, benf, where is wesley chapel? Is it near West Palm Beach? I'd love to come by and check out your Idol sometime. Let me know if your close by.
 
hey paul how much of a supply on the sponges do you have and where are you getting them from? i want to start freezing some in a few weeks. to make sure i have enough over the winter as i dont have access to a boat. and how is the idol doing?
 
Paul B said:
Zfunk, I believe that you are correct about feeding an Idol seven or eight times a day (although I think it would be impractical)
I think it would benefit all fish since they eat constantly. A fish like an Idol, in the sea never gets a chance to eat more than a mouthful (or less) at a time and they eat all the daylight hours. They are never "not" looking for food. There is a lot of competition in the sea and no one is dropping pellets on them.
They probably can't even handle the amount of food we are giving them at one time and are excreting most of it out without even digesting it fully. Many feedings I am sure would benefit them. Your water quality may suffer though.
Paul

I think that's a good point, I read an article (which I believe was a link within a link that was posted at the beginning of this thread) that talked about feeding small amounts with an automatic feeder 24/7. With the night feeding being for the corals. It said that there was no significant change in water parameters when they switched from feeding 3 times a day to every 15 minutes as they believed the larger feedings were not being fully digested by the fish and causing more waste anyway. This was NOT a scientific study and was not geared towards MI's, but given the high metabolism of MI's it seemed to make sense to me that HOW they eat could be as important as WHAT they eat.

I'm still in the research phase myself and have not set up a tank yet, so I can't speak from personal experience, but it may be that MI's are more susceptible to the stress of binge feeding as opposed to being able to graze all day in the wild. Perhaps that may have something to do with them just dropping dead after a couple of years as Paul has experienced.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the reading (still on page 9). Keep up the good work all!
 
I believe my MI thinks he can talk, cause sometimes when i am looking in he will swim to the glass and start moving his mouth as if he is try to tell me something

LOL!! Yeah, this is common behavior.. mine does it too.. lol, its soooo funny when they are trying to come throughhhhh the glassssss... their little checks jiggleing! haha!!! its really funny!


Yes I think their favorite food is BRAIN CORAL!!!!.. mine is CONTANTLY nipping at the brains... but leaves everything else alone!... well, most everything .. he just nips at the Brains and the Monti Cap.. orange..... nothing more.. besides just LR... and Mine hasnt touched the Blasto! ... :)


lol, yeah the CB and the MI do hang about together alot... but it ticks the MI off.. he starts to chance after the CB after a while... and considering I think that the ONLY reason why the CB follows the MI around is to nip at his streamer... NO WONDER why the MI gets so ticked! haha
 
BenF your idol looks fantastic! One of the best I've seen

Shawnts, I am not MI expert.. but I'm pretty sure half of a cube a day isn't a lot when people feed there 4-5 times a day. I'm glad hes still alive, and as everyone suggested I wouldn't do the freshwater baths, they are just making him more succeptable for more ick. As you said it was 1, you bathed him then it was 5, then you bathed him hopefully it isn't 10 now. I agree with what you said about the UV steralizer. I think either the fish waits it out and lives, is quartined and either hyposalinitied or copper treated, or he dies. So I hope yours can fight it out!!!!!!
 
And you said your MI must have had a very high metabolism to gain weight so fast, doesnt a high metabolism allow you to burn off the food faster and not gain any weight.....
 
here is a link to my live fish cam...plays in windows media player!

Fish Cam

sometimes i have to reset it, but is working now! Usually have cam on from 11am - 5pm est
 
Benf you never cease to amaze me!! That is fantastic! You know I was looking into doing something similar a few months ago but it never panned out. How exactly do you do it? Do you need a server or something like that? How much does it cost?

As for your tank, how much of the tank is that? Lots of flow I see!! Your Idol looks great! He wasn't in front of the camera all the time though. He seemed to like to wander a bit :). Thanks for the link, I'll now be checking out your tank frequently!
 
Benf, that was awesome! Boy you've got current! It was funny watching a small goby trying to move forward against the current.
 
I am running a server os on one of my computers at home, and being that i have FIOS(~2mb) upload speed i find it runs pretty good. Only problem since i have other things going on at the same time on that computer that the camera connection sometimes gets bumped and i have to reset it, other than that it works well.

I am using a wide angle x10 wireless camera on a tripod.

The current is going to increase in a week when i change out one of the transformers on my Tunze's. I changed one a while back and just ordered the second...it will double the flow from the powerhead.
 
Of Course, no matter what Forum you go to there is ALWAYS going to be someone there who says they are trying to help but in the process of helping attachs you for some reason or another!


Shawnts, I am not MI expert.. but I'm pretty sure half of a cube a day isn't a lot when people feed there 4-5 times a day. I'm glad hes still alive, and as everyone suggested I wouldn't do the freshwater baths, they are just making him more succeptable for more ick. As you said it was 1, you bathed him then it was 5, then you bathed him hopefully it isn't 10 now. I agree with what you said about the UV steralizer. I think either the fish waits it out and lives, is quartined and either hyposalinitied or copper treated, or he dies. So I hope yours can fight it out!!!!!!


A cube is about the size of a cateye marble... or so.... he picks at it all day... and is INGESTING IT... also he is picking at LR and the sand and corals and algae..... he is eatting something from all of these sources.. its not like the CUBE is his ONLY means of nutrition!

Yes the ICH is gone now... ICH FREE for a week I believe.... Yes I AM WELL AWARE OF THE ICH CYCLE, please DO NOT "inform" me of it !... notice thats why I said "YES THE ICH IS GONE NOW" and not Yes the Ich is gone....

Thank you for agreeing with me on the UV steralizer issue!... and I do agree with you on the Quartine Tank Issue... I do not however like copper... too much and your fish are dead.. to little and it does nothing.. I just think its to iffy!

Personally I think with any disease with fish should be fought out by Building their Immune system at much as possible, like with the Garlic and the Selcon or Zoecon... they help the fishes immune system which in turn fights off the infestation!



And you said your MI must have had a very high metabolism to gain weight so fast, doesnt a high metabolism allow you to burn off the food faster and not gain any weight.....


Yes... a high metabolism does help you burn off fat! :).... Then I suppose the MI does NOT have a high metabolism... concidering he has gained weight... while NOT ALOT... but has gained a good bit of weight...
Thank you for that ever so helping hint! ... :rolleyes:




Shawnts, I am not MI expert.. but I'm pretty sure half of a cube a day isn't a lot when people feed there 4-5 times a day.

Yes, your right it isnt alot... but ... If Im not mistaken they are feeding SMALL amounts of food several times a day... small meals = less pollution = most food for the fish to consume = healthier fish = happy fish = healthy tank :)

I am not dicing the cube up into 4ths or 5ths... I am just putting the whole thing in there and he grazes at his leasure.. you see what I mean?
 
Just bumping the Thread so it doesnt get lost in the Abis of forum threads...

:)... btw: did I spell ( uh- bis ) correcttedeabley? haaha
 
Thank you... *abyss* :)

lol, Yeah I thought mine was eatting Zoo polyps for a while.... but then I relized that he was just munching down on some yellow sponges that was in the Zoo rock.... I kinda relized that the zoos werent disappearing so... that must have been what he was muching on so much!


Although was is weird is I bought that yellow ball sponge... and to my surprize... he didnt eat it at all.... completely ignors it... must be that he knows what is what in the sponge world... colors dont meen anything to them!...

Oh.. BTW: I did get some Blue Haliclona Sponge ordered.. although it didnt come in the store... the didnt ship it... but Im sorta glad... the sponge would have cost me 25$ plus shipping!... thats crazy for some MI food... just for a few hours! LOL!!!


I am still going to order some... but I kinda hope that he doesnt eat it! I really like the stuff... can you blame me!
 
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