Who's keeping pipefish in their reef?

[reedman]

Since loosing all of my fish I have been contemplating keeping some pipefish in my tank. I wanted to hear others experience with them. Dealing with intakes, PHs, flow, and any other things that might pose a problem. pics would be great too!

Thanks,
-Reed

 

[Octupus]

Hi Reed!
I have a 180 gallon reef. I started with the plain pipefish (green kind Alligator) and i was not that lucky.. they lasted about two weeks. i found one in my sump and for some reason i never saw them eat... but they lasted for a good two weeks so they must have been eating something.

I recently got two red banded pipefish. They are beautiful but keep hiding behind the rocks. the only time i see them is when the lights and the powerhead is off... they go to one spot and sleep vertically together! Beautiful. Gut feeling is that you should not have a lot of circulation. i am thinking of putting my powerheads on a timer so at night they stop.

This is my aquarium (live webcam) i doubt you will ever get to see the pipe fish they are always hiding http://24.16.41.129/main.cgi?next_file=main.htm

Andy

 

[ajnweb]

I have a dragon faced pipefish, had two for about a year, maybe more, then one died/disappeared about 6 months ago, and the other seems to be doing fine, always out searching for food, not shy at all or afraid of any of the other fish. The two were originally in a 75 gallon, now the lone guy is in a 34 gallon cube. Here is a link to a post with some pictures that returnofsid took.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43140&highlight=ajnweb

 

[reedman]

Nice. Thanks guys. Hopefully more people will chime in.

 

[tamarindthai]

i got redpipe and yellowpipe for 2 1/2 years now ,,still eating well.

 

[Octupus]

what kind of food do they eat Tamarindthai?

 

[tamarindthai]

frozen mysis and frozen formula one,,,in sps tank lot of flow by 6x 6100 tunze

 

[jhampton_wsu]

I've had a banded pipe fish in my reef since November. He is always out and he eats. I always feed mysis usually with Rods H-Blend and mix in Formula 1 and Formula 2. I don't have a lot of flow 3 tunze 6025's and a split return from my sump with a total of 900gph Mag 12. The tank gets good flow but he seems to be ok. None of my other fish bother him. The only semi-aggresive fish in my tank are two tangs (hippo, yellow), 2 clowns, a long nose hawk but none of these fish bother the pipe fish.

 

[burning2nd]

from what i hear.. and read they are more like sea horse's they require a special environments.

uselly found in thiick sps for cover

 

[krisfal]

I have had a dragonfaced pipefish for about a year, I have tried to add a second one without luck. The one I have did just fine in a tank with 2 anemones and high flow. Currently he is hanging out in a ten gallon tank waiting for my new cube to cycle.

He really likes cyclops, rods food and spirrelina brine shrimp and aggressively eats out of the water column.

In the high flow tank it was funny to watch him hang on to a rock with his tail and then when done hunting in that area launch himself into the flow to move to the other side of the tank. I think the dragonfaced is better suited to the high flow tank as they cruise around on the rock hunting , rather than swimming around in the water column.

 

[saltcitydivr]

I have a janss pipefish in our 90 gal.. Had 2 originally. Both ate well. One decided to give up the ghost. The other is healthy and swims all over the tank. I just tried 2 multibanded pipes. Our fungia ingested both. They were both eating and looked healthy. I want to try them again. Cool looking fish!

 

[reedman]

Cool inputs all. Any troubles with them going toward your intakes for the pump/powerheads? What other difficulties have there been? This would be one of the first fish I would add so they could establish themselves.

Thanks all!

 

[tamarindthai]

i got 6 -6100 tunze and other small k3,,it too smart enough not to get infront of the pump,they knew where to find the calm spot

 

[johnmaloney]

i keep pipefish, I have had like 20 of them over the years. Been easier to get on myids than I have heard. Some only took pods though, I have a gulf pipefish on pods now.

 

[StacyS]

After a bit of research and talking to Kevin at Aquatic Dreams, I placed two blue striped pipefish in my 75 gallon reef. Love them! They aren't as big as the others, but they are strong little swimmers and eat about any frozen food I put in the tank. They get right in the thick of feedings with the wrasse, butterfly and clowns. I didn't want a pipefish that wouldn't eat prepared foods due to the fact that my mandarin needs the pods.

If you decide to go this direction do keep in mind the males do fight. You can have several females, but only one male. I recommend at least two- mine rarely seperate from each other.

Enjoy!

 

[reedman]

Thanks again everyone. Based on the responses I am thinking I might give a pair a try without any other fish and see how it goes. We'll see.

 

[saltcitydivr]

I got an email from saltwaterfish.com a couple of days ago saying they had multibanded pipefish in stock. Just a thought.

 

[Octupus]

Nice Stacy. I have two yellow multi-banded pipefish they are beautfiul and at night they sleep next to each other in one corner of the tank (which proves they do have good memory) as as soon as the powerheads start they move to the back fo the tank. The question is i never see them eat and i was told they eat pods... i only see pods in the tank at night (plenty of them!)... when the pipefish are sleeping. Does anyone have an idea? do fish such as (mandarin and pipefish) manage to get the pods during the day? sorry if it is a basic question.

 

[reedman]

I am happy to say I added a dragon face pipefish from barrier reef and it appears to be doing very well so far. No problem moving all over the tank, seems to be finding food (I will be adding a refugium soon too), and nothing bothering it. I am going to wait a bit longer before declaring success, but at this point things look good. If this works out I would like to add a few more pipes (another dragon face and a couple of the more colorful ones).

 

[MrSculpin]

I don't have pipefish.. yet! Maybe someday...

Bur recently I met a fellow reefer here in post falls. Im not sure if he visits this forum, but he had a pair, that were out and about swimming around. His flow was a lot... so much that it was keeping the sand up in one corner of the tank.
His pair slept together and he said they ate well.