Have You Overlooked These Fish?

[Mr Flagfin]

Triggers: Have a niger in a reef tank - no issues whatsoever, and a picasso in a FOWLR, again no issues.
"pedro" the picasso is now hand-tame, and "george" the niger has bitten the missus (Flagfin) only the once...he's a slow learner !!
Wrasses: Have a pair of bird-nosed in a FOWLR. Boisterous, yes and only eaten inverts that went in after them...oops !
"percy" the 6 line or pencil wrasse is a little pushy with the 4 spot (banana?) wrasse but great with everyone else.
Ulysses (Marine Betta) ...absolutely fantastic.
Expensive, yes, but the missus' favourite fish and so docile !!
Eels: don't forget the garden eels...a great addition to a seahorse/pipefish/shrimpfish tank
Filefish: Tassled file fish are gorgeous and looked spaced out all day !!!
Also, they dont look like living road-kill !!
Copperband Butterfly: Chester likes feather dusters and not aptaisias...D'oh !!
Hawkfish: "Spike" the longnose hawkfish is happy eating mysis to the point of throwing up, and then having a second dinner.
used to love river shrimp when we could get hold of them, but generally loves to bloat then float !!!

 

[Lynden]

Thanks for the input. I omitted garden eels because they are reputed to be exceptionally difficult to keep. If you have reports regarding the successful care of this creature, do let us know.

 

[andywg]

Eels: don't forget the garden eels...a great addition to a seahorse/pipefish/shrimpfish tank

Only if said tank has a bare minimum of a 6"deep sand bed for eels (better around the 8-12" mark) that get to around a foot long. For 12 garden eels Scott Michael recommends a 6x2x2, and he is hardly expansive on his tank sizes.

 

[STD]

Dragon Wrasse - not a fish I'd recommend for a reef

They are not safe with inverts IMO

Worse they rearrange the tank on a regulasr basis and are quite capable of moving your corals around

 

[Lynden]

Dragon Wrasses (Novaculichthys) are magnificent fishes and easy to keep, but unfortunately are powerful
and intelligent predators. Your best bet would be to keep it with corals, hermit crabs, and large snails,
buy the fish young, and feed them very well. Can consume small fishes when large.

Thought I implied that. Will update.

 

[STD]

Groupers also are generally safe with larger fishes, but they may consume shrimps.

While they are generally safe with larger fishes they grow incredibly fast so be aware of there full size before adding one.

They can also be very aggressive particularly to new additions

Harlequin Tusks (Choerodon fasciatus) are a psychadelically coloured and ferocious-looking fish.
They are docile and well suited to a reef tank, but they may consume true crabs, especially if underfed.
Introduce newcomers at night for best results. A word of caution; only purchase Australian specimens.
They are superior for several reasons, including better colour and higher health level.

Fabulous fish - mine has never touched any invert in my tank - even safe with feather dusters - Also although they get quite big they grow very slowly

 

[Lynden]

Agreed. Thanks for your input.

 

[Tommy Gun]

 

[Lynden]

You have missed the point of this list. This list was meant to be a short and clear post on the idea that some fish deserve a closer look. It is not a gigantic care sheet or a rant on "morals" of keeping difficult fish.

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the first paragraph... plenty of reef aquaria are run without hermits, which are themselves a difficult meal.

As for the butterflyfish, I listed the ones that will usually not bother nems. I will add that most do eat tubeworms.

I added dragon wrasses 'cause I love these fish and I think they make great aquarium inhabitants; not because I want every nemo-lover to go and buy one. I stated that they can be kept in a specialized reef but that they are usually not good for most setups. In addition, they effectively replace most cleaner crew members by sifting the sand and eating a great deal of food that would otherwise go uneaten.

Morays do not typically burrow under rocks. If the aquarist has a well-seated stack in the first place, they will not cause any rockslides.

I will add that clams are a tempting target for most angels.

Blue throat triggers (and other Xanthichthys, Melichthys, and Odonus) are planktonic feeders. They are no more likely to eat a hermit crab or any ornamental invertebrate (except sponges; these are in fact eaten by niger triggers in the wild) than a firefish or clownfish is. When they get larger, they can pose some problems just because of their size, but they are typically a great addition to reef aquaria. The specimen that does eat inverts is the exception.

Diodonts do need something to wear their "teeth" down but by no means does it have to be a snail or hermit. I have often seen my own tetraodonts bite rocks assumingly for this purpose and the need to keep teeth worn down is an exaggeration anyways as they do not grow particularly quickly. The teeth of triggerfish especially are not fast growing.

I will add a note on their aggression level being relative to other triggers.

...and a note that puffers don't like high flow. I have noticed this in my own tank.

100% water changes are almost guaranteed to be less deadly than ostracitoxin.

I haven't commented on the rest as I found it to be irrelevant to this list.

Lastly, I don't give a flying 'F' about how many "initials" they have - if they're wrong, they're wrong. Period.

 

[Tommy Gun]

 

[ch08]

I like your article and think that it definately does a lot of justice to looking at new fish to add to a tank. However, some fish, such as Centopyge Resplendent should not have neen mentioned in your artice because of their unavailability or extremely high cost. C. Resplendent, for example, is currently on the red list and is illegal to collect in the aquarium trade as the island it comes from has forbid all forms of fish collection. That aside, the article was well thought out and very good.

 

[Lynden]

I am trying to say that the list of fish which do not eat corals is significantly larger than the list of reef-safe fish

I know... but most others do not. The vast majority of people, even most of the "experts" on reef central, et al. don't realize that larger wrasses and most triggers, amoung others, don't eat coral. They look on liveaquaria at the care sheet for a niger trigger and since it says 'not reef safe' they assume it to be truly not reef safe. The term reef-safe applies to coral too (since most large reef tanks are run with few to no hermits/other inverts, I have noticed). I wouldn't exactly call an ornate butterfly (an obligate corallivore) reef safe, even though it doesn't eat misc. inverts; would you?

When I plan to add a fish to my tank I do look at live aquaria, marine depot, saltwaterfish.com; but my final check is always fishbase, a true scientific database. That is where I get my "they don't eat corals" advice that I then pass on to the members on fishforums.net. Somehow I think the entire ichthyologist team behind fishbase is more trustworthy than Mr. Foster and Mr. Smith...

is a great benefit to having a 'devil's advocate' point of view regarding a hypothesis....so I took on that role to some degree

I agree, but I also find it remarkable that you have somehow found flaws in this list that several of our best people have "missed".

however, we cannot truly make an informed decision without having all of the information

As per the above I did a fairly LARGE amount of research before making this list... from all conceivable sources... what more do you ask?

by saying the Dragon wrasse is not good for most setups is basically saying what the 'blanket statement' you are trying to bust up.

People think that dragon wrasses eat any and all inverts/corals. This is a blanket statement. I am refuting the blanket statement by saying that they won't eat certain things and can be kept in certain reef set ups. Again, what more do you ask?

I am just pointing out some of those special circumstances for the benefit of others who may not be driven to research a fish further than reading your information

I have made a list that clearly, and according to fishbase, correctly, states which inverts these fish will eat. It is a perfectly adequate source. One more time; what more do you ask?

it may already be hard enough to maintain an appropriate water temp without having to pick up an expensive chiller

This is totally irrelavant, and by the way, I have a 33 gallon with a 175 watt halide plus 120 watts of PCs all within four inches of the water's surface. My temperature is a constant 78 and the only thing needed to keep it that way is a (poorly installed) fan and a good heater. Not too hard to maintain a good temperature if you ask me...

osmotic shock in our fish --- which apparently you do not believe it very much

Science has found that fish can change their internal pH very quickly They would need to, considering that no habitat is perfectly stable, certainly not an inner reef or tide pool. Think of a tide pool, high on the shore, fed by a spring... all kinds of fish (and inverts) live in there, but yet the temperature and salinity experiences daily swings higher and lower than us reef aquarists would ever allow in our tanks. Something tells me they can take the "shock" of a few degrees of specific gravity.

Temperature shock, by experience, is a bigger danger to fish than osmotic shock (but still nothing to get too concerned about, unless the difference is truly huge, like more than ten degrees), and indeed I have watched the guys at the LFS throw freshwater born and raised mollies directly into full salt water with absolutely no acclimation and have them live well and give birth monthly for six months until two were eaten by a starving-to-death triggerfish and two more by hungry piscivorous morays.

That last part is why I say "keep the fish well fed"... that same trigger went on to be one of the most peaceful fish I have ever owned.

IMHO, your list is really less than relevant to anyone until you start placing the words "except when..." behind "X-species of fish are reef-safe".

Yup, that's me, just fulfilling the purpose of this list...

You realize that the initials I am referring to are, for example, PhD, among other similar versions. So, in essence, you are trying to imply that you are much much smarter than those who have probably spent more time in a classroom or other learning environment than you have been alive? Keep in mind that just because someone tells you that you are smart...and I concur...this does not mean everyone else is stupid.

Now I wish I hadn't said I was a teenager... I am not trying to imply that I am 'smarter' than them, I just said that they were wrong about the fish they designate as "un-reef-safe"... just because they have some piece of paper does not make them the "gods of fish" and subsequently turn whatever they decide to tack up on their website into truth. Not saying everything they type is wrong, as most of it isn't, just pointing out what is... understand? And by the way, I much sooner give the title of "gods of fish" to the team behind fishbase or wetwebmedia, as they are far more deserving. Likewise, that's where I get most of my info... from the scientists, not the dealers.

Also keep in mind the fact that it is very easy to be correct...which in this case you are....when you narrow the scope of information down to a pin head - the real challenge is to be correct through the use of all available information.

Umm... considering I have exhaustively researched the fish that are now on this list, as above... I don't think this applies here.

 

[Lynden]

I like your article and think that it definitely does a lot of justice to looking at new fish to add to a tank. However, some fish, such as Centropyge Resplendent should not have been mentioned in your article because of their unavailability or extremely high cost. C. Resplendent, for example, is currently on the red list and is illegal to collect in the aquarium trade as the island it comes from has forbid all forms of fish collection. That aside, the article was well thought out and very good.

Thanks. Will add. I agree that threatened fish should not be purchased.

 

[andywg]

Additional thoughts on Eels

Ribbon Morays (Rhinomuraena and Pseudechidna) are generally
very good reef fishes, especially when well fed. They are much smaller and put out
less bio load than other morays as well.

The reason that my mind was only somewhat boggled before is because the fact that no one has jumped all over this piece of advice completely boggles my mind! Sure, these fish are nice and extremely pretty and all of that...but keeping them in captivity is all but impossible. In fact, I just read an article in TFH that I believe points out that a few experts (including zoos and public aquariums) have been able to keep one in captivity for two or three years (which, by the way, is about 10% of their potential lifespan), they rarely live for more than a month in an aquarium.

IMHO, while you may be correct in your assessment of them being reef-safe, to neglect pointing this out leaves a very bad impression on others who may be reading this, and not already know better and hence, is irresponsible in at least that aspect.

Rarely live for more than a month? Do you have any kind of figures to back that up? My white ribbon eel is now a good six months into his life with me (including a change of tank) and doing fine. My smaller one fed and was fine for a short while, but went off of his food (a trait possible to all morays, not just ribbons) and I know of at least another 2 or 3 ribbons feeding at a nearby fish store and Lynden is right that someone else has posted a method on how to get a blue ribbon eel to feed. My personal experience with ribbons, and those that I have had direct contact with, appears to indicate they are far from the impossible to feed fish often painted. Maybe it is to do with the American love of trying to get unhappy fish to feed on live FW fish rather than the UK method of preferring live shrimp (though none of my ribbons even look at feeder shrimp, preferring to be hand fed Tesco prawns).

I find ribbon eels to be a fish where the internet and public aquaria hype to be very different to my experiences, much like my lfs and blue spotted rays. I would almost certainly never have a reef without a ribbon moray, and am considering purchasing a black ribbon to go with my white ribbon.

I don't think there is anything wrong with less than complete advice being given here. This list is meant to be a jumping post from where people do further research on the care necessities of less common fish.

 

[Tommy Gun]