hard to keep fish

[igot2gats]

Anyone have a "hard to keep species" in your reef? Moorish Idol? Longnose Butterfly? Mandarins?

I know some of these are recommended by some to be left in the wild, but curious if anyone has taken the plunge?

Stories? Tips? Suggestions?

[larryandlaura]

Mandarins arc beautiful, however I couldn't convert her to pellets or frozen. Going to try another in a year or so if I get a explosion of pods!

[bigbill]

i have a very large Mandarins in my reef tank hes very health and happy have had him for 3 + months now and i havent seen a drop in pod count at night my tanks was 6 months old before i added him some say a year plus

[evb9]

Blue stripe Pipefish! He's very healthy and happy. I keep my tank around 76 (a little warm but see no ill effects) I have chaeto IN my display and let him kill my pod population lol. He's in a 30 gallon with a mp-10 on full blast and he's always swimming. I love him, although I have not weaned him to frozen food so I do add pods once a month (just to be safe).

[dumbderk]

I have kept a mandarin successfuly for 2 years and I didn't have an extreme amount of flow, added copepods every month to keep pods up and had a nice place in my sump for pods to hide kept the mandarin until I got a leopard wrasse which killed the mandarin. My wrasse is over a year old now and is eating frozen, pellet, and even nori pieces that float away from feeding my tangs, and picks at rocks all day long. Before I got the guy, I made sure he was eating in the store and when I saw him eat frozen food I got him right away and when I put him in the tank he didn't even hide.

[lionhead]

I had a mandarin that did well for 5 years until I upgraded tanks and did not substain a good pod colony with transfer. Other than that I have kept lionfish on and off since I have been in the hobby. The ones I have had the most luck with is the Volitan and fuzzy dwarf. I currently have a Fu Man Chu lionfish for the last 3years. The only advice I can give is do research and try til you achieve a healthy fish.

[demonclownfish]

Ive got a mandarin and a potters angel. The mandarin is easy but the potters is just amazingly easy lol. Liveaquaria rates potters angels as [expert only] fish but its gotta be the easiest fish ive ever owned

[Jstadler]

Originally Posted by demonclownfish

Ive got a mandarin and a potters angel. The mandarin is easy but the potters is just amazingly easy lol. Liveaquaria rates potters angels as [expert only] fish but its gotta be the easiest fish ive ever owned

I think they rate the potters as expert, because it's hard to get some to transition to captivity. I had a little problem getting mine to eat, now he eats everything. Flake, pellets, dried seaweed, he still doesn't like the mysis though. Spits it right out.


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