Yellow Stripe/ Urchin Clingfish

[Damayn]

Hey all, I wanted to know if anyone has been successfully keeping diademichthys lineatus and what they are feeding them. I've wanted to get one of these guys for a long time, but there's little info on feeding habits and I wanted to know if anyone has been able to wean them onto something other than nutramar ova.

 

[JoeVandal49]

I'm interested as well. I would love to pair one up with my two longspine urchins.

 

[eatbreakfast]

When I had them in the past they would eat cyclopeeze. The issue I ran into when keeping them was they would always end up in the verflow.

 

[Moort82]

I tried one many years ago and didn't have much success. I couldn't find anything it would eat. I believe it was picking at natural foods in the tank but had to take it back to the shop as it was mainly interested in the eggs of my cleaner shrimps and when I say that I mean straight off the shrimp. This obviously freaked them out so it had to go.

I do believe they are difficult fish though as a lfs had 5 or so and they quite quickly dwindled to none. They just couldn't get them feeding.

There are lots of tiny foods which I'd try if I had one again that weren't available. Ocean nutrition do fish eggs and lobster eggs which I bet it would go for. Similar sized fish I have now love them.

 

[ThRoewer]

I had one many years ago. I kept him in a nano tank (one that truly deserves that name) by himself. I could never figure out what he eats and after a few weeks he died.
It is definitely not an easy fish.
They need for sure to be kept with the right diadema urchin if you want to have any chance with them.

 

[rlpardue]

Two females have been in my 150g high-flow SPS tank since February. They are much fatter now. They were eating cyclops in the LFS, which is why I took them home. When introduced, they quickly began "hunting" my blue-legged hermits (+/- 200 in the tank). They line up, then snick a bite and the hermit tucks into his shell. I suspect they are eating eggs, like Moort82 saw with his cleaner shrimp above.

I imported OceanNutrition lobster eggs from the Netherlands hoping they would it the stuff. They do, but they seem to prefer hermit eggs (or eyes, claws, or whatever they're eating off of them). I believe I got lucky in that they were interested in prepared foods from the beginning.

They are frequently getting into my overflow box, but I have screens around my dursos. I keep a lot of tiny fish in the 150 - green banded gobies (20), dragonnettes, assessors, 2 bluestripe pipefish, priolepsis gobies, small blennies, etc., so I feed lots of very small foods.

Suspected tips for success:
-keep them in groups (they are very social and seem to have much less energy/curiosity when one gets into the overflow for a couple days)
-feed small foods
-have lots of natural foods
-keep plenty of spawning shrimp (peps, cleaners, etc.)
-buy females and not males (read thread on competing site for the reason why. Basically, females are easier to feed)

 

[ThRoewer]

How do you tell males from females with them?

 

[jimbob321]

Cool fish i had to look that one up..

here is the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diademichthys_lineatus

and a quote from there.
" Long-snout clingfish feeds mainly on burrowing bivalves in corals, tube feet of their host and eggs of a commensal shrimp.[6] The sexual dimorphism induce a difference between male and female diet, so the adult female, having a longer snout, eats more often small bivalves and shrimp's eggs than the adult male, which eat more frequently tube feet.[7]"

 

[JoeVandal49]

Cool fish i had to look that one up..

here is the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diademichthys_lineatus

and a quote from there.
" Long-snout clingfish feeds mainly on burrowing bivalves in corals, tube feet of their host and eggs of a commensal shrimp.[6] The sexual dimorphism induce a difference between male and female diet, so the adult female, having a longer snout, eats more often small bivalves and shrimp's eggs than the adult male, which eat more frequently tube feet.[7]"

Interesting. I wonder what long term effect if any one would have on a single urchin in captivity. Would the urchin get picked at to the point of death?

Makes you wonder if their hosts in the wild are more permanent, or simply remain host until they are picked at to the point of death, then the fish just moves to the next host?

 

[rlpardue]

I moved a couple of long-spined sea urchins from my large refugium to the DT, and the clingfish took a look at the urchins for a couple of minutes then lost interest. I haven't seen them look at the urchins since then.

I suspect that they associated with urchins as juveniles, much like Banggai cardinals. Scientific literature describes males as inhabiting bivalve shells, not sea urchins.

TheRoewer, the males have a thicker snout; females have a longer-needlelike snout.

 

[rlpardue]

Quick video of my reef tank, with a clip at the end of the clingfish interacting. Right before taking the video, I had rescued one of the clingfish from the overflow box (where she had been for a couple of days), so this is kind of a reunion. Looks like a little dominance display/peck, followed by business as usual as they commence their hunting of hermit crabs.

https://goo.gl/photos/ijyPQBLKFd9Kqxj46