The Ultimate Aggressive Experiment

ezhoops said:
I also disagree with this quote, if we as hobbyists don't Try new things in a responsible way like you did, we wouldn't learn much about the creatures we love so much.
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well, when you try something that has been done without success, by some/a lot, over many years, and if you know about triggers, especially Undys, which were described by Axelrod as "being perhaps the most belligerant fish in all the world's oceans" you would see this was bound to be a failure...
and as others have said, unless you stand over your tank every second of every day, anything can happen...
can always refer to the sticky about mixing aggressive fish that ended in failure...

Undys kill, torment, and harrass for the sheer delight of it...they are dangerous fish and should not have any tankmates...some trigs snap and go postal when they are older and larger...for the most part, even a small Undy will attempt to kill a fish many times its size...just sayin...
however, I bet we will see a similar "experiment" in a few weeks...:headwalls:
 
humaguy said:
well, when you try something that has been done without success, by some/a lot, over many years, and if you know about triggers, especially Undys, which were described by Axelrod as "being perhaps the most belligerant fish in all the world's oceans" you would see this was bound to be a failure...
and as others have said, unless you stand over your tank every second of every day, anything can happen...
can always refer to the sticky about mixing aggressive fish that ended in failure...

Undys kill, torment, and harrass for the sheer delight of it...they are dangerous fish and should not have any tankmates...some trigs snap and go postal when they are older and larger...for the most part, even a small Undy will attempt to kill a fish many times its size...just sayin...
however, I bet we will see a similar "experiment" in a few weeks...:headwalls:
Click to expand...
My point is that sometimes as hobbyists experimentations can leader to learning experiments.

But i won't double post it. :uzi:
 
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humaguy said:
well, when you try something that has been done without success, by some, over many years, and if you know about triggers, especially Undys, which were described by Axelrod as "being perhaps the most belligerant fish in all the world's oceans" you would see this was bound to be a failure...
and as others have said, unless you stand over your tank every second of every day, anything can happen...
can always refer to the sticky about mixing aggressive fish that ended in failure...

Undys kill, torment, and harrass for the sheer delight of it...they are dangerous fish and should not have any tankmates...some trigs snap and go postal when they are older and larger...for the most part, even a small Undy will attempt to kill a fish many times its size...just sayin...
however, I bet we will see a similar "experiment" in a few weeks...:headwalls:
Click to expand...

I had a nice cogent reply all typed up and my phone crashed.

I did a search and tried to find anyone who had mixed two undulated triggers and I didn't find anything. I already had both fish established in separate systems before putting them together. Here's why I did it.

The smaller undy hides ALL of the time. It hides in places only it can reach. It has an ugly tank with freshwater decorations because it claimed them and will not let go. It sees me walk into the room and darts back into a hiding spot. Honestly, I was a little bored of that and wanted to see what would happen putting the two of them in the same tank separated by eggcrate. I had no plans on ever removing the eggcrate. But lo and behold, the smaller trigger became more active and interested in its surroundings. The larger didn't seem concerned with the smaller. So I cautiously removed the eggcrate and they got along for almost two months.

It's actually more difficult to mix tangs and angels than it was to do this. What happened was that the smaller trigger went back to hiding all of the time, and the larger would rush the smaller on the rare occasions it would come out and swim. It never bit that I saw, but would paddle over and grunt the small fish back into its cave. The type of behavior you see from triggers all of the time, they grunt and put you where they want you. I didn't want the small fish always hiding out of fear.

But now it's back in its own tank...hiding all of the time. Oh well.

By the way, every time anyone leaves a tank with an aggressive fish...you're taking a risk. I won't even house damsels with my undy's. I was just trying something and wanted to document what happened.

Also interesting that this thread had almost 1500 views but nobody said anything negative until I pulled the plug on the experiment.
 
the only reason nothing came up when you searched for undys together is because it is a given it will not work...every book, piece of lit on the fish, and expert says this...there is always talk/posts about clowns, queens, and titans "going postal" one day as they grow...it is understood that undys will go postal even as a baby and attack fish much larger than they are...clowns, queens, and titan do okay when smaller and seem to become aggressive with size..an undy is just a mean nasty fish and likes to hurt and kill other fish...
 
ezhoops said:
My point is that sometimes as hobbyists experimentations can leader to learning experiments.

But i won't double post it. :uzi:
Click to expand...

the double post was an accident...rc froze up as it does from time to time...

When an experiment has been done, is constantly :headwallblue:met with failure and discussed ad naseum, and when the experts say "this fish must be kept alone" it seems the writting is on the wall...
:headwallblue:
 
A little update, traded in the smaller undy. It hid all of the time even when it was by itself, and I wasn't a huge fan of having another tank set up with no visible fish. Would never come out of the log, so it rode in the log to the store.

Pulled everything out and gave the tank a good thorough cleaning. Got rid of the freshwater deco and replaced it with something not much better, some dead coral skeletons. But they are cheaper than rock and are available down here by the truckload. I'm sure the undy will be happy when they get gunked up and greenish brown.

Some iPhone pictures. I don't understand why they turn out so blue. Though it's a beautiful specimen, the fish doesn't look so dramatic in person. It does have quite a bit of blue near the head, but the rest is green and orange. Think Miami Hurricanes. Even so, my phone camera is officially better than my camera camera which is a little annoying.


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my neighbor made a pair of ungies.he put 2 small (1.5" and 2" ) ungies in a 180 galon.At first the large on was bulling the small one the small one hid and came out of the rock work only to feed.all my firends other fish died and it was only the two ungies for a few weeks .then fy buddy started adding much larger fish 8 inch giant hawk 5 inch fuscus and a nice and mean puffer .when this happend the ungies started to gat along and swim together feed together and even fight other fish together.now about 6 months after becomming friends they are always together like a pair of clown fish .It is amazing
 
Sonic, beautiful!!!! That's one gorgeous fish. My iPhone makes all my pics look blue too, of course I do have 6 blue+ bulbs over my reef which I take the most pics of, but it doesn't look nearly as blue in real life


Happyjack, that's very interesting, how big are they now? Do you have any pics or videos of them together?
 
Decided to make a move, this undy is also getting a new home. This tank is in my kitchen and everyone always asks why I have an empty tank there.

As the fish increases in size I don't want to dedicate 100 gallons to an increasingly reclusive fish that you can't house with anything. I could do it, I just don't want to.

If all goes according to plan, by this afternoon the undy tank will have a vibrant new resident...

Stay tuned.
 
The trade has been made. The undy got it's last shot in and bit me so hard it almost brought me to my knees.

Now, this plan was brought about by a desire for a certain fish. I wanted to use the undy tank as a 55 gallon QT for said fish before moving it to a larger tank.

I was expecting a beautiful fish, but I can't believe what I ended up with and the price I got it for. I feel like a criminal.

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I've been trading my triggers for angels over the last few months, but this Regal is by far my largest angel and absolutely gorgeous.

I was thinking I was going to get a little juvi, but ended up with an 7-8 inch Red Sea Regal.
 
In lieu of starting a new thread, I'll just continue this one and see how it evolves.

Swapped out those clean coral skeletons for some dirty ones and some well established live rock. The skeletons in this tank were boiled, baked, and will be left to dry before being moved to a different system where they can re-mature. I think my dwarf angel tank will enjoy the large cat's paw skeleton.

The Regal acclimated fine, it was a shipment fish so I cut open the bag took a couple of measurements and placed the fish in the tank. Temp and SG were close enough, so there was no real acclimation necessary. Hovered in the corner for a few hours before snapping to and beginning to explore the tank.

Dropped in a fresh clam and the fish didn't take any notice. Fed a little frozen, a little chasing and looking but no eating. Probably too soon. The Regal started to pick rock a few hours later so I threw in a pinch of Formula 2 flake and I'll be damned if the fish didn't go for it and ripped it sideways out of the water column like angels do. Even chased and mouthed a couple of pellets. I think it's going to eat. I was concerned because it was so large that it wouldn't adapt to a captive diet like so many fish I read about in the primer. Interestingly I have a much smaller Indo Pacific Regal in a different QT tank and it also got started eating on Formula 2 flake before learning to accept everything after a week. Hopefully this goes much the same way.

But it has ich and a touch of lymph on the gill. I swear it's impossible to get a new fish that doesn't have something. I'd like to get it eating before treating but I may not have that luxury.
 
Sonic,

Beautiful regal. Congrats. Hope you are successful on getting it clean and nursed back to good health.

You should consider doing some FW dips on your new fish before they go into QT or DT. This wont keep the Ich and Brook down, but the number of flukes on fish in the trade appear to be very high.

I've started doing FW dips with Methylene Blue (ph and Temperature adjusted) on all fish before they go into QT. This should help you reduce some problems. I dip between 15-30 minutes depending on the fish species and reaction.

It's worth the effort.

Good luck with your fish.
 
humaguy said:
def treat it now...dont take any chances...
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Well I wasn't going to wait around for long, but I don't like to start treatments until the fish has been in the tank for 24-48 hours. I think it will eat tonight, but either way I'm going to start hypo. I'll also do a prazi treatment but only after it is eating.
 
geaux xman said:
nice regal, is that a LFS or online fish?
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LFS, they had it on their shipment list and I called to inquire. None of us knew what to expect size wise. We were looking through the little bags but it turns out this monster had a cooler all to itself and was packed in about three gallons of water. Paid $134.

This fish is big enough that it splashes water out of the tank if it gets startled and looks uncomfortable turning around in the 55.
 
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