AlexG
Valuable Member
So about a year ago I was at the Shedd aquarium in Chicago. In one of there many displays they had a reef tank with shrimp fish. I was fascinated by there movements and overall behavior. I worked in a couple of LFSs and we never got these fish in so I had no experience with them. There is little information on these fish and their care. They typically live among sea grasses in large schools and they eat zoo plankton. I made a post about them but it seems the community has very little to no experience with shrimpfish so I figured I will share my experience so far.
My setup is a 120gal 4'x2'x2' plumbed to a 120 gallon sump with a separate 60 gallon refuge tank ~280gallons in the total system. I keep LPS and soft corals. There is one MP40 for extra water flow and it is turned down to lower settings. My LFS let me know they could get me some shrimpfish so I ordered 6. I asked that these fish not be acclimated to the stores system and I would take them directly home. I decided on a drip acclimation over 2 hours with small doses of water from the system every 30 min. 1 shrimpfish did not survive the acclimation but did look rather weak when it came in. 1 more shrimpfish died the following day in the display tank. Once I added the shrimpfish into the main tank I was wondering how my other fish would react. I believe the first reaction from the other inhabitants to the shrimpfish was what are these alien creatures. Since they did not know what to make of them they were simply left alone. My wife had a similar reaction to them and named them the Borg collective because they are always acting together as a single minded group.
Feeding:
I felt this was going to be a biggest challenge with shrimpfish. With little information on these fish out there I assumed this might be the biggest reason they are not seen more often in the hobby. I made sure I had lots of live brineshimp on hand to get them started. It might not be of nutritional value but its a start. I also have an enormous number of pods in the display and in the sup and refuge tank. I figured mysis and cyclops might eventually be eaten give some time. There was also the competitive factor of trying to get food among all of my other fish. During the first feeding they did show interest and actually did eat some live brine. The only issue I saw was that the live brine was almost to big for them to take down. At that point I did not think mysis was going to be eaten and cyclops would be the go to diet. Amazingly within a couple of days they were eating cyclops without any issues. Over the past couple of weeks they have started hunting over the rocks and glass. These fish look everything over before they snatch it up. When they hunt for pods they will take there time and the strike is so fast it is difficult to see how they actually open there mouth as it is very long and thin like a tube. Since I am at the 2 week mark I have been monitoring the pod populations on the glass and I have not see a significant decrease in populations. It seems as they pick over the rocks more there have been several degrees of aggressiveness towards eating cyclops from day to day. I also have been hatching brine in the system but I am not sure how much of this is making out into the main tank from the refuge.
Schooling behavior:
As soon as these fish were put into the bucket for acclimation they were close together. Once the fish were added into the main display schooling was immediate and I have found shrimpfish rarely leave the school all staying within 1-4 of inches of each other which is another reason my wife calls them the Borg collective. They are almost always standing on end looking downward. I have not been able to determine an actual leader of the group as they will change directions by simply rotating without changing positions in the school.
General behavior:
I have observed that shrimpfish can handle a wide range of currents. For the first week they remained in calmer water flow occasionally venturing out into the main water flow of the tank. As they have grow accustom to the environment they have started to go out into some of the high flow areas without any issues. Back when I first saw these fish at the Shedd aquarium they were hanging out in front of a return line. Since they stand on end if they swim directly in front of the MP40 they will get blow a bit but when they turn into the current they slice through it like a knife. The shrimpfish will get close to corals but have not bothered them in any way. As for the rest of the fish they do not bother the shrimpfish. One surprising thing I have noticed is these fish have tended to stay in the upper part of the water column instead of gathering near the bottom.
I will post another update on the shrimpfish in a few weeks.
My setup is a 120gal 4'x2'x2' plumbed to a 120 gallon sump with a separate 60 gallon refuge tank ~280gallons in the total system. I keep LPS and soft corals. There is one MP40 for extra water flow and it is turned down to lower settings. My LFS let me know they could get me some shrimpfish so I ordered 6. I asked that these fish not be acclimated to the stores system and I would take them directly home. I decided on a drip acclimation over 2 hours with small doses of water from the system every 30 min. 1 shrimpfish did not survive the acclimation but did look rather weak when it came in. 1 more shrimpfish died the following day in the display tank. Once I added the shrimpfish into the main tank I was wondering how my other fish would react. I believe the first reaction from the other inhabitants to the shrimpfish was what are these alien creatures. Since they did not know what to make of them they were simply left alone. My wife had a similar reaction to them and named them the Borg collective because they are always acting together as a single minded group.
Feeding:
I felt this was going to be a biggest challenge with shrimpfish. With little information on these fish out there I assumed this might be the biggest reason they are not seen more often in the hobby. I made sure I had lots of live brineshimp on hand to get them started. It might not be of nutritional value but its a start. I also have an enormous number of pods in the display and in the sup and refuge tank. I figured mysis and cyclops might eventually be eaten give some time. There was also the competitive factor of trying to get food among all of my other fish. During the first feeding they did show interest and actually did eat some live brine. The only issue I saw was that the live brine was almost to big for them to take down. At that point I did not think mysis was going to be eaten and cyclops would be the go to diet. Amazingly within a couple of days they were eating cyclops without any issues. Over the past couple of weeks they have started hunting over the rocks and glass. These fish look everything over before they snatch it up. When they hunt for pods they will take there time and the strike is so fast it is difficult to see how they actually open there mouth as it is very long and thin like a tube. Since I am at the 2 week mark I have been monitoring the pod populations on the glass and I have not see a significant decrease in populations. It seems as they pick over the rocks more there have been several degrees of aggressiveness towards eating cyclops from day to day. I also have been hatching brine in the system but I am not sure how much of this is making out into the main tank from the refuge.
Schooling behavior:
As soon as these fish were put into the bucket for acclimation they were close together. Once the fish were added into the main display schooling was immediate and I have found shrimpfish rarely leave the school all staying within 1-4 of inches of each other which is another reason my wife calls them the Borg collective. They are almost always standing on end looking downward. I have not been able to determine an actual leader of the group as they will change directions by simply rotating without changing positions in the school.
General behavior:
I have observed that shrimpfish can handle a wide range of currents. For the first week they remained in calmer water flow occasionally venturing out into the main water flow of the tank. As they have grow accustom to the environment they have started to go out into some of the high flow areas without any issues. Back when I first saw these fish at the Shedd aquarium they were hanging out in front of a return line. Since they stand on end if they swim directly in front of the MP40 they will get blow a bit but when they turn into the current they slice through it like a knife. The shrimpfish will get close to corals but have not bothered them in any way. As for the rest of the fish they do not bother the shrimpfish. One surprising thing I have noticed is these fish have tended to stay in the upper part of the water column instead of gathering near the bottom.
I will post another update on the shrimpfish in a few weeks.
