Okay, well, FINALLY, I can start contributing. Some excerpts from my 450 journal, HTH:
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:00 pm
Fish is between 2-2Ã"šÃ‚½" TL. MAC Certified specimen. The minor tearing on the fins was cause post introduction by the Powder Blue and Navarchus. Otherwise, besides being a little skinny, he's a perfect specimen.
Introduced 24 hours ago as of this posting. He fed in the store on Mysis and Bloodworms. More later...
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:12 am
Okay... have a little more time at the moment.
At first in the store, he didn't look like he was eating the Mysis he was taking. IOW, he seemed to be spitting them out. Then I noticed on the third Mysis that he was taking them in, doing the distinctive Moorish Idol sawing of the head, and spitting out the tails and shell. Oddly, or maybe not, he treated the bloodworms in a similar fashion, eating most of the "meat" and spitting out the rest. Fine, he was eating, he looked spectacular, and he's MAC certified! Stupendous, what more can one ask for? Well... two would have been nice. Ah, but they're so few and far between. The last acceptable specimens I saw were a year ago, when I really wasn't ready for them and made the biggest mistake of my most recent fishkeeping career. I settled for this single specimen and will add another when it becomes available if this one does well, which (yeah, I know, it's only a little more than a day) he does appear to be doing. I half eyed a $15 sponge on the way out, but decided against it. If he's eating other foods already, prepared foods at that, I don't really want to take that step backwards at the moment. Perhaps in a few weeks, once he's truly accustomed to other fare.
Other than the Powder Blue and Navarchus, no one is bothering him at all and haven't for hours. The PBT still makes a run at him every now and then, as does the Navarchus, but everyone else has pretty much learned it's futile. This little guy can swim like greased lighting and stop and 180, in place, at top speed, and shoot of the other way with almost no change in speed. Not even the PBT can compete with these maneuvers. But it does go to show that Idols are swimmers, incredibly consummate ones. If you think you need a 6' tank for most Tangs to be comfortable, I'd say it's probably the barest minimum for Idols, and probably chancy at that unless it's 3-4' deep (not high). So, is he eating? Yup, you bet... next update I'll list all of the food items he's taken, which he seems to prefer, and which he seems not to, and which he won't take at all.
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:40 am
48 hours later and he's showing signs of the dreaded "full belly syndrome". Yes, he's eating very well, and the 6+ meals yesterday and 3 today certainly helped fill him out as well as curbing the aggression. All signs of aggression are already all but gone. The Navarchus is the last hold out, but only makes half-hearted passes and only twice today that I observed.
Enough, right, what's it eating and what's it not? Here goes:
First and foremost, the size, oddly, of what is being fed seems to matter a great deal. This particular individual seems to prefer anything about the size of a quarter grain of uncooked rice. Weird, right? Especially since they're reportedly natural browsers.This makes me think that young Idols may not be the consummate sponge-grazers that the adults are reported to be. Granted, this is a single individual, but he (or she) is decidedly targeting food items of a particular size in the water column and it did so immediately and without hesitation upon introduction. This rules out possibly learning the behavior from other fish in the tank (although Moorish Idols, IMO, are an incredibly intelligent and observant species, always aware of their surroundings and able to very quickly assess situations). It also indicates that plankton was probably taken by this individual in the wild. I'll have to check the MAC cert, but my guess is that it came out of Hawai'I and was in my LFS's tank within days of capture. You don't see Idols in this good condition that haven't been rapidly transferred, especially when held under the fairly common practice of lowered SG and somewhat common practice of maintained Cu levels. I know it wasn't at my LFS more than a day. I haven't been able to find any natural history on possible dietary differences between juveniles and adults in the wild, but it would be interesting to see if there are any. If anyone knows of dietary studies of juvenile Idols (or any studies of juvenile Idols), I'd greatly appreciate links. Why am I going so far into this? Well, a year ago, as you might recall, I tried two Idols, prematurely, and both exhibited the same preferences and both were about this same size. Even only having had them a very short period of time, the observed behavior bears investigating on a broader scale, IMO, if it has not already been done. It should also be stated that this particle size preference does not seem to exist when the Idol is grazing or "blowing sand". This is also another curious Idol behavior that has been going unmentioned in several internet threads on Idol keeping. It's been stated by almost any keeping them that Idols are sponge crazers almost exclusively. That may be born out by gut content studies of several or a dozen or more specimens, but it does not explain away sand blowing behavior. Reef fishes being what they are and living in the environments in which they do, energy conservation is one of the most important determining factors in species success or failure. In this case, it would seem incredibly odd for a fish to have developed energy-sapping behaviors that are completely useless to its continued survival as an individual or a species. What I mean by this is that if a fish exhibits these behaviors, there must be a reason for it's doing so. The logical conclusion would be that it hopes to uncover something. But what? Submerged sponge? I'm no sponge expert, but it would seem to me highly unlikely that an organism that depends on circulation through its colony would remain buried in sand for great lengths of time. This would be the only advantageous reason for the Idol behavior if you believe the assumption that they consume only sponge (or almost only). So, they must be looking for other organisms, right? And there would have to be substantial benefit, otherwise, why not just go for the sponge that's reportedly preferred anyway (and yes, there's a ton of sponge life in my tank)? So what are they hunting for in the sand? When a nice sized sponge is staring them right in the face? Well, it happens so quickly that I can't tell you what this specimen is eating, but it is eating some things that it is blowing out of the sand and rocks. Small gammarids, possibly, or pods or mysids, maybe. But it is eating something in this fashion and spends about 20% of its time doing this. The other two specimens I had did the same. So what am I saying here? I'm saying that I don't necessarily believe that small Idols feed predominantly on sponge. In fact, you'll see once I start listing foods, that sponge matter in this particular specimen's diet does not seem to be preferred at all. So on to the foods, in no particular order in any category, except that there is ALWAYS a preference for size of the particles...
Most Preferred:
ON Formula Two Flake
NL Spectrum 1mm Pellets (will blow sand to get these into suspension again)
ON Formula Two Frozen
ON Formula One Frozen
PS Veggie Formula
Nori
Moderately Preferred:
Hikari Mysis
PE Mysis
ON Angel Formula (contains sponge, but will take both Formula One and Two over Angel Formula, given a choice)
ON Prime Reef
Low Preference:
SFBB Bloodworms
SFBB Spirulina Brine Shrimp
Refuses to eat:
Hikari Squid
Foods not yet tried, but will be in normal rotation as they come up:
SFBB Glassworms
SFBB Emerald Entree
SFBB Omega Brine Shrimp
Hikari Daphnia
Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:23 am
72 hours, he's right up in the mix with all of the other fish, albeit "on the fringe" of the main boisterous lot. Feeding preferences remain the same, as well as particle size, with the exception of Nori, which he's now grazing from, but only if they're smaller floating bits. His belly remains nice and rounded, stool short and solid. IOW, all appears to be well. I should see him starting to fill out a bit all around from regular eating by mid to late next week.
Someone asked whether the spitting into the sand would seriously impact a DSB. My answer is this, in a tank large enough to house an Idol, no way. The sand stirring is FAR less than you would get from a single small sand-sifting goby.
Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:49 pm
One of the great things about "diarizing" this whole experience is that I can go back and check dates. Not dates that I wrote (or forgot to write), but actual post dates.
So, the Cleaner Wrasse was put in over a month ago. While a month is certainly not a measure of SUCCESS in terms I understand, I can say that I have been successful SO FAR. He remains healthy and, from what I can tell, "happy", inasmuch as he is behaving normally, is filled out well, and is displaying brilliant colors.
In my experience, the best indicators that a "tricky species" is going to do marvellously, in terms of marine keeping, are feeding and behavior. If you can get the species to feed regularly and with gusto on a varied diet, and it's behaving normally for its species, if you can get this to happen almost immediately and sustain it for the first month or so, well, chances are very good, again, IME, that the specime you've acquired is going to do very well. The first two to four weeks seem to be the most critical point. If the above doesn't happen immediately, but within the first two weeks, your chances are still pretty good. If it goes beyond two weeks, your chances decrease with each passing day. At about the four week point, if you're still having trouble achieving stable "success", or you haven't achieved it at all, it's probably only a matter of time before the specimen dies.
Anyway, I bring that up because of my most recent addition, which could probably be a journal unto itself, the Moorish Idol. "Uh-oh," you're saying at this point, right? Have no fear. Things are fantastic, or at least as much as they can be within the first week. He's actually progrsseing ahead of schedule. He's noticeably filling out already, which I didn't think I would see until next week (I mentioned this above). He's also eating more food items with more gusto with each passing day. And here, behavior comes in again. Not species behavior, mind you, but a general kind of thing. Ever notice how a Lawnmower Blenny will ravenously attack Mysis? Especially when kept in a tank where natural algal growth is not abundant? Why do you think that is? I'd postulate that the Blenny's "hunger" mechanism remains triggered, even tho it's obviously quite full. Maybe not something that clear cut, but probably very close to it. I mention this because it's not a species specific behavior. You can see it in corallivorous Butterflyfishes as well. Eventually, such specimens can die for "unknown" reasons. I mention this because this is what I would expect to see from an Idol that appears to be doing very well, to some people, but in actuality may not be doing so well at all. I'm very careful to observe my Idol's behavior at feeding time and there does not appear to be anything suspicious in his manner.
So, end of week on of MI keeping... let's hope week 2 is as good or better.
Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:44 pm
Why so many updates on a single fish? Because, it's a Moorish Idol, simple as that. Any brief research into the species will bring forth the same stories, almost all culminating in the same vein, it's virtually impossible to keep them alive for any length of time that would be considered "successful" by most experienced aquarists. There are a handful of people keeping them pretty successfully, but they have not, to my knowledge, journalized those efforts, at most offering only cursory recommendations and suggestions. IOW, this diary of MI keeping is, IMO, long overdue in the hobby. There are others, as well, who have kept MIs with a reasonable amoount of success but have had continuing problems with their individual specimens including hunger strikes, emaciation despite feeding for no apparent reason, chronic infections, etc. While their specimens continue to live, one could not reasonably say that they're thriving. These intrepid aquarists are actually more likely to detail their keeping of MIs, perhaps in search for better ways to do things.
Anyway, updated feeding list:
Most Preferred:
ON Formula Two Flake
NL Spectrum 1mm Pellets (will blow sand to get these into suspension again)
ON Formula Two Frozen
ON Formula One Frozen
ON Prime Reef
PS Veggie Formula
Nori
Moderately Preferred:
Hikari Mysis
PE Mysis
ON Angel Formula (contains sponge, but will take both Formula One and Two over Angel Formula, given a choice)
Low Preference:
SFBB Bloodworms
SFBB Spirulina Brine Shrimp
SFBB Emerald Entree
SFBB Omega Brine Shrimp
Refuses to eat:
Hikari Squid
SFBB Glassworms
Hikari Daphnia
.
