Moorish Idols

[Paul B]

I have had a lot of Idols and finally figured how to keep them, Of course I had to go diving with them in Tahiti about a dozen times to figure them out, and I have a lot of experience with them, they are not a fish for everyone. It seems with Idols that they live in mated pairs and one, the male I think leads the female to the food which is almost always sponge. I think thats why some of them do not eat, The female follows the male. Anyway, I never had one that would not eat, but I never buy a fish unless I see it eat in the store, thats my main rule. I also feed frozen sponge a few times a week that I collect myself here in New York. (I know a lot of people can't do that) Although my Idol will eat anything, it will just about jump out of the water for sponge. I am almost out of sponge this year and I am feeding a lot of live blackworms that are fed with Selcon. Idols have to be fed a few times a day so I also feed "Soft and Moist" pellets in an automatic feeder with Selcon added.
Since my Idol at first only ate pellets I invented a feeding dish that I still use. It is a small dish (that I found while diving on a sunken tugboat but any dish will do) I connected a tube to it which extends above the water. A funnel is at the top
The automatic feeder puts food in the funnel and it goes into the dish, the Idol checks out the dish every two minutes or so all day and eats all that falls there. The other fish are not that interested in the dish so they ignore it.
Paul
PS, Like I said, I would not buy any fish If I do not see it eat and I would also not get an Idol unless I could collect sponges, although they will live on other things, thats all I saw them eat in Tahiti, spicifically a lime green sponge which I can't identify. They also need a lot of swimming room, mine keeps tearing his streamer off in my 6' long tank.
This picture was over two years ago when the fish was smaller, now he is as large as the dish which is covered with coraline algae but he still checks it out every couple of minutes and sticks his "nose" up the tube when he is really hungry which is all the time.

 

[Paul B]

I will trey to put up a picture if I can find one,

 

[NaH2O]

Paul, I'm glad you are posting about your success. I have always been against keeping this fish in captivity, as I think it has such a dismal record. We had a previous discussion on them FOTW ~Zanclus cornutus~, where another member also posted of his success....also this thread Moorish Idols...How to keep em' without a "Four Leaf Clover". In the second thread, I mentioned about reefers collecting sponge for their MIs, and I believe you were one of the hobbyists I was thinking of when posting that. There is another reefer in the Florida area that does the same thing with collecting sponge (going off memory here).

I have a few questions: How many years now have you had this MI? What health challenges have you faced with it? Have you had MIs before, and if so how many? ...and What types of tank mates do you think would be best suited for the MI, or do you feel the MI would do best in a species tank?

 

[Jiddy]

i JUST WANTEd to add that i swim with Moorish Idols on the weekends, thank you for your time

 

[Paul B]

Nikki, Thats why I added the disclaimer about keeping them. I have this one about a year and a half. I have had about a dozen of them over the last thirty five years. The health problems I had with this one was a severe case of Pop Eye. I have a lot of experience with this and I cured it easily by using a hypodermic needle and sucking out the pus then injecting an antibiotic. Good as new in a few minutes. That was a few months ago. Like I said, I think the problem is a lot of people buy the wrong Idol. One in the pair is the dominant one and it should feed with no problem, the other one may not eat on it's own. I don't know if they mate for life but I saw a lot of them in the South Pacific and I only saw mated pairs. Only once I saw one alone. They are also not that rare, I saw them all over the place. They live with long nosed butterflys and heniokus (spelling?) or false moorish Idols. I found most, if not all of them in shallow water about 20 feet deep. They swim in wide circles about 100 yards around the reef looking for food which is sponges. One eats for a few minutes until the other one catches up then "he" leaves to look for something else.
I keep mine in my 6' long reef but I have to keep removing rock because he still wants to swim 100 yards. I believe you have to feed them a few times a day as they will eat a lot of food and sponge is probably not that nutritious being mostly skelital material. I also give "Selcon" by putting it in "Soft and Moist" pellets and by feeding live black worms with it before giving them to the Idol. Mine is not in a species tank and I do not know if it is a good Idea to keep a few of them together as I have never saw more than three at once. To make sure it gets enough food I hand feed it sponge with something like a large turkey baster. None of my other fish will eat the sponge anyway. New York sponge looks like dirt I am very surprised anything will eat it. I mentioned how I also feed every day with the dish. In the beginning that is the only way it would eat. It also keeps the food out of the rocks and the Idol eats all of it. Any crumbs are eaten by scavengers.
I guess thats it for now.
Here is a shot in Bora Bora and one in my reef.
Have a great day.
Paul

 

[Paul B]

I just read my last post, I have had the moorish Idol about two and a half years. Not one and a half.
Paul

 

[Elmo18]

i JUST WANTEd to add that i swim with Moorish Idols on the weekends, thank you for your time

LOL Jiddy

By the way, the clowns i'm looking for in Guam are the Bluestripes..(A chrysopterus)....there should be some down there Jiddy

Best,
Ilham

 

[ethanriley]

Paul any particlary types of Sponges I have always wanted an MI and obviously it is pretty easy for me to harvest the sponges we have several hundred species

 

[Paul B]

Andrew, I know the sponges you have in the Bahamas as I have many dives there but since there are no Idols there I have no Idea which ones they would eat. The sponge I collect here in NY looks like dirt and it is very tough. I have to cut it up to feed it because a moorish Idol has very weak jaws. Maybe you could collect some different sponges and try to feed an Idol in someone's tank or if there are any in a store there. I didn't notice any in any of my trips to the Bahamas.
Paul

 

[shallowreef]

i JUST WANTEd to add that i swim with Moorish Idols on the weekends, thank you for your time

Thank you for that aggrivating note Jiddy!!!

 

[Paul B]

Sponge is finally again in season in New York, I collected about a pound of it yesterday. Of course my Idol is in heaven again. This year I will collect enough to have enough to last through the winter. I ran out about half way through last year. Only the moorish eats it, none of the other fish will touch it. That may be because NY sponge looks like slimy dirt.

NYC sponge.

 

[Sparks]

what temperature does the NY sponge grow in? Have you been able to grow/keep it alive? Do you "rinse" it for a few days to get ou impurites that may exist in the water?

 

[Paul B]

Sparks the sponge in NY lives here all year and the water temp goes from about 40 degrees in the winter to almost 70 in the summer. It will only live in a tropical reef tank for a few hours then it starts to rot. I never tried to keep it in a chilled tank but NY water if full of life and I doubt it would even live in a chilled tank for very long.
I don't rinse it except in the seawater I collect it in. It is full of live worms and tiny crabs, I freeze it just like it comes out of the water. I also don't worry about impurities, I use NY water in my reef along with amphipods, copepods and anything else I find under rocks on muddy beaches.
Paul