mfinn
Surgeonfish
I'm curious, who has pipefish and how are they doing in your tanks?
What are your feeding schedules, what are you feeding and how?
What are your feeding schedules, what are you feeding and how?
who has pipefish?
- Thread starter mfinn
- Start date
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I have a single bluestripe in my main reef display tank - he hides during the day, and only comes out when the lights are off, or when the actnics are on. I feed daily a mix of mysis, and other food items in my homemade mix - he is fat, and happy..... have had him for well over a year
mfinn
Surgeonfish
Do you add food specificly for the pipe?
How does he react to the flow in your tank?
Do you worry about corals that could sting him?
1) nope - he does come out during feeding and snags a few floating mysis here and there
2) could care less about the flow, and I run 2 MP40s at full power for circulation
3) nope, and I've got maxi minis........... he stays clear of the rocks, the dragonfaced ones crawl around on the rockwork tho... I had those once, but they both committed overflow suicide after about a month - they were also fine tho with the maxi minis
mfinn
Surgeonfish
I have a pair of yellow banded pipefish and was advised to change the mp10 I have to a steady flow rate to keep the pipesfish from suddenly being blown into a coral that could possibly sting them when a surge happens with the mp10
sounds like paranoid propoganda to me - those pumps arent "that" powerful.
a healthy fish can easily swim in any kind of flow those put out, even a pipe
i see mine swim right up to the unit often, mine runs on random reef lagoon
mfinn
Surgeonfish
This person usually is very cautious and I can see him wanting me to error on the side of safety.
The tank is a branching LPS tank with encrusting type monti's and a couple favia's inbetween.
Kind of a new direction for me.
Besides the pair of pipes, the only other fish is a mated file fish, that I put in when aptasias and majanos threaten to take over.
I may move the file fish soon as he doesn't have any pests to eat, so he spends his day looking for (I'm assuming) copepods.
lol - nice! how big are those yellow banded pipes anyhow? Ive seen some 2' long!
From experience I can say, DO NOT add a Lawnmower Blenny! I didn't know it at the time, but found out the hard way, they are notorious for killing Pipefish. I lost a pair of Blue Striped Pipefish to a Lawnmower Blenny several years ago, actually watching him catch and kill one of them.
They can handle high flow just fine. I also wouldn't really worry about them being stung by corals. My pair were in a LPS tank with Frogspawn, Hammers and Torch Corals, as well as a large Bubble Coral, Favia, Acans and Chalices.
Dragon face are more difficult to keep/feed...Blue Lined or Flag Pipefish are much easier.
They can handle high flow just fine. I also wouldn't really worry about them being stung by corals. My pair were in a LPS tank with Frogspawn, Hammers and Torch Corals, as well as a large Bubble Coral, Favia, Acans and Chalices.
Dragon face are more difficult to keep/feed...Blue Lined or Flag Pipefish are much easier.
mfinn
Surgeonfish
1guydude
Well-known member
im intrested in pipefish and such myslelf...thxs i find this helpful 
yea! no lie...... saw them at a less than credible LFS around here, had to have been wild caught and fresh from the ocean - prolly a fluke, or a mis-labeled pipe or something tho
ccreviston74
Member
Gave my pearl bubble coral to a friend for safekeeping while my tank was torn down, and it ate his pipe fish. No joke. It was good sized coral, though.
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mfinn
Surgeonfish
Anyone else?
tamarindthai
Well-known member
i used to have same pipefish for many many years ,,this is not compatible with pipe fish ,those fish will take food away from them,wreasse,all species of manarind goby ,butterfly,angel,,train them to eat mysid schrimp,,give them the place they can hide at night ,,i am only feed them only one time a day (a lot of mysis schrimp),,my pipefish is also feeding on redbug i got alot of Red bug in my tank all they can eat(this is their real food),,maybe why they are lived for longtime and healthy in my tank:noidea:
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Herefishyfishy
Smart Bass
Used to keep them in my Sea Horse tank. They require either an overfed tank or a very docile one. Had a hard time keeping Dragon pipefish alive and also the white banded ones even when eating seemed to die. Species name: Doryrhamphus dactylophorus
The African and Japanese blue stripe were good.
My hands down favorite were the harder to find yellow multi banded red tailed ones
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Krish
RF STAFF
I went snorkeling on the weekend and saw 3 pipefish hanging out by the reef together. They were small and were around what either looked like newly hatched fish fry or newly hatched shrimp. Was really cool to see. Guess it doesn't help you much Martin, but thought I'd share anyways
mfinn
Surgeonfish
I want to hear everyones experience with them.
Even in the wild.
Even in the wild.
Krish
RF STAFF
Lol! Well I got within 5 feet of them without them taking off which I thought was pretty cool. Either they don't mind people much or they were so scared that they froze
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mercenary-grunt
Well-known member
Lol. My gut tells me that's not what the intention was.
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