Frog fish ownership

[chair]

A couple of things I'm hoping the r2r community can help me answer...

1. A reputable source for buying frogfish online

2. The most ideal water parameters or unique things I should be doing for my frogfish tank (Temp lighting MG etc)

3. Feeding amount, diet variation and supplementing

4. Can I pair my frogfish, and if so which species of frogfish should I go for...

5.Any helpful tips from previous or current owners would be greatly appreciated :D

I am currently new to this hobby with a newly cycled tank (32.5 fluval curved tank with 2 Ai 16 reef lights with 2 clowns at the moment and frag of frogspawn)

 

[Chrisv.]

@lion king may have suggestions!

 

[lion king]

Frogfish will eat fish up to their own size, and will even cannibalize each other. Unless you are moving the clowns it's a non starter. In that size tank there is nothing that can live with a frogfish of any species. The pygmy frogfish are rare and expensive and are not worth the challenge, they die rather quickly regardless of their care.

 

[GK3]

A couple of things I'm hoping the r2r community can help me answer...

1. A reputable source for buying frogfish online

2. The most ideal water parameters or unique things I should be doing for my frogfish tank (Temp lighting MG etc)

3. Feeding amount, diet variation and supplementing

4. Can I pair my frogfish, and if so which species of frogfish should I go for...

5.Any helpful tips from previous or current owners would be greatly appreciated :D

I am currently new to this hobby with a newly cycled tank (32.5 fluval curved tank with 2 Ai 16 reef lights with 2 clowns at the moment and frag of frogspawn)

1. Frog fish aren’t like clowns in their avability online. Find a place that has them and check reviews.

2. I’ve had 3 frog fish and kept all of them in mixed reefs.

3. Most won’t come eating anything but live food. I eventually got mine to eat frozen squid. I’d feed every few days enough to where they wouldn’t eat anymore. I do not believe in feeding them small meals everyday as that seems to slowly starve them.

4. risky. I did it once and they were fine but if the big one gets hungry enough the little one is a goner.

5. Consensus is they live a year or so in captivity. I had my longest with me for 3 years. They have no swim bladder so if you expose them to air they will gulp it and float until they can expel it. They aren’t great swimmers so no high flow tanks. They are fun to feed, but don’t feed for entertainment purposes. They will eat clown fish in two seconds.

 

[chair]

Thank you for your responses!

I've been looking online for awhile with no luck, what type of frog fish did you own? any recommendations? @GK3

I'm planning on moving the clowns or dividing the tank. I think it would be super cool to pair two frogfish together and having them potentially spawn. Unfortunately sexing them seems next to impossible.. I saw that Frank Baensch successfully raised some frogfish out of larval state. As well as any idea on why you think they don't live long in captivity?

Frank Baensch article https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2022/04/28/larviculture-breakthrough-commersons-frogfish/

 

[GK3]

Thank you for your responses!

I've been looking online for awhile with no luck, what type of frog fish did you own? any recommendations? @GK3

I'm planning on moving the clowns or dividing the tank. I think it would be super cool to pair two frogfish together and having them potentially spawn. Unfortunately sexing them seems next to impossible.. I saw that Frank Baensch successfully raised some frogfish out of larval state. As well as any idea on why you think they don't live long in captivity?

Frank Baensch article https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2022/04/28/larviculture-breakthrough-commersons-frogfish/

you should look up how frog fish actually breed. It’s quite violent and the two don’t actually pair or coexist. They mate and split. Likely so they don’t eat each other.

I always had the dwarf ones, so never larger than 4”.
Growing from larval would be tough because of feeding requirements. Unlikely you could keep enough small food in the water column. Especially with a smaller tank.

I think most of them die in captivity because their meals are handed to them, they get lethargic, and just end up perishing.

 

[chair]

Yea.. I have seen plenty of frogfish spawning with the male pushing the female to the surface and finally releasing her eggs. I came to the same conclusion as you, making breeding frogfish next to impossible because of their potential seasonal breeding and aggressive eating habits. I would like to stay hopeful seeing that some people have had their captive frogfish spawn, unknowingly if they every produced. I understand the difficulties that would come with raising them out of the larval stage, just passionate about trying. Frogfish have been my favorite fish of mine since I was young :D @GK3

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Most well known online shops don’t seem to have any in stock currently- I’d check out saltwaterfish.com and see if they seem reputable enough for you - they had a few small specimens of three or four species in last night. If you trust Liveaquaria’s current shipping enough, they occasionally get a few in Diver’s Den.

As has been mentioned, there is a very real chance one of your frogfish would eat the other (part of why it’s so rare to see them spawn in captivity).

Typically they don’t live long because of diet is my understanding- lion king (the above poster) has some really good articles on predator food needs. Keeping Magnesium at ~1400 may help with digestion. Appropriately sized live foods are strongly recommended- things like ghost/grass shrimp (Palaemonetes spp.), guppies, and mollies - not things like goldfish (not healthy feed) or crabs (anglers can’t digest the hard shells). As GK3 mentioned, they don’t take well to non-live diets, and even if they start accepting it, keeping the dead diet properly balanced for a predator fish like these is difficult/tedious. Plus, the exercise and mental stimulation of hunting live food is most likely extremely healthy for them.

If you’re planning on splitting the tank between the anglers and clowns, I think you may be hard pressed to fit two anglers in the tank for any length of time without issue (and that’s assuming one doesn’t eat the other) - even small ones. The smallest ones on the market (and probably the most appropriately sized for what you’re wanting to do) right now are Wartskin Anglers (Antennarius maculatus) and the Pygmy Tuberculated Frogfish (Antennatus tuberosus), and it’s typically recommended that you use a 20 gallon tank (minimum) for one specimen of either.

Plus, as GK3 also mentioned, rearing the larvae in that tank would be incredibly difficult (plus, maintaining a constant food supply for the larvae can be quite challenging whether you’re culturing the feeders yourself or buying them elsewhere).

If you really want to breed these guys, the first thing I’d do is pick up a big tank and ask around for people who have them spawn in their tanks (specifically ask what their feeding routines were and what they think might have helped manage aggression/cannibalism). Beyond that, I’d recommend culturing a variety of feeders (probably Parvocalanus crassirostris pods, S-strain rots, and Isochrysis galbana phyto for the larvae, and ghost shrimp and guppies for the broodstock).

Edit: just wanted to add, I’m glad to see you wanting to give this a go! I’m actually looking at (theoretically) how to keep/breed a few “impossible” species myself once I get my tank up and running (it’ll probably be a little while yet, unfortunately), so I’m glad to see others with similar passion projects.

 

[lion king]

Along with this people have also indicated interest in captive bred lionfish. In the hobby realm this is just not going to happen. As even stated in the article you referenced, the eegs were wild harvested. The system you would need for this is betond the reach of most hobbyist. Clown hobbyist seen to have the most unrealistic views of captive breedinf. Likely because clowns are more easily captive bred. The majority if the captive bred fish are done so in a mariculture type environment, in the actually ocean. Water quality has to be perfect, in the sense of natural perfect, not aquarium water. Spawning in a home aquarium is a long way from a viable species, and even spawning I would say is unlikely, thats why the eggs were harvested from the wild.

In a home aquarium they will cannibilize each other, eventually. Also I am not sure there is a way to visually sex them

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Along with this people have also indicated interest in captive bred lionfish. In the hobby realm this is just not going to happen. As even stated in the article you referenced, the eegs were wild harvested. The system you would need for this is betond the reach of most hobbyist. Clown hobbyist seen to have the most unrealistic views of captive breedinf. Likely because clowns are more easily captive bred. The majority if the captive bred fish are done so in a mariculture type environment, in the actually ocean. Water quality has to be perfect, in the sense of natural perfect, not aquarium water. Spawning in a home aquarium is a long way from a viable species, and even spawning I would say is unlikely, thats why the eggs were harvested from the wild.

In a home aquarium they will cannibilize each other, eventually. Also I am not sure there is a way to visually sex them

Yeah, a lot of these species (especially predators) would require very large tanks and intensive feeder cultivation, not to mention a huge number of grow-out tanks to actually raise the fry in. Plus, as you mentioned, a lot of them require/strongly prefer different conditions than are found in the vast majority of tanks (conditions that are typically only "replicated" in mariculture/ocean environments). These species are going to be well beyond the normal hobbyist's capacity to breed/rear successfully with any decent rate of success. From a hobbyist perspective with these species, I would view it as a success if we're able to figure out how to get relatively consistent spawning, and a big "proof of concept" success if we're able to (even just occasionally) get viable eggs and/or rear a handful into the settlement phase. It would definitely not reach the levels of success enjoyed by clownfish breeders or the aquaculture companies.

For the OP (chair), lion king's last points here are particularly important - getting them to spawn and rearing the fry aside (already a monumental task), the cannibalism is arguably the biggest obstacle with breeding frogfish (to my current knowledge), as they will almost certainly eat each other at some point. This is made worse by the other fact lion king brought up, which is that you can't sex them visually - you would need to either get lucky and happen to buy two of opposite genders, or get a known/confirmed pair (one that has already spawned in captivity), or get a bunch of different specimens in the hopes that at least one is of the opposite gender than the rest. The good news is, if you get 6 specimens, there's ~98% odds that you'll get at least one of each gender! The bad news is, the more frogfishes in the tank (and you'd probably need each one in the tank to figure out genders when the spawning comes along), the more likely each frogfish is to be eaten by its tankmates.

If you can figure out a way to avoid the cannibalism (at least most of the time), you should be good to start trying to breed them/raise the fry. If not, it might be a very expensive waste of time.

 

[chair]

Thank you @lion king @ISpeakForTheSeas @GK3 for your responses it means alot.
I plan on moving forward one step at a time and taking this task on slowly, I'm going to be reaching out to others who have had their frogfish spawn. I do plan on moving the clownfish into a completely separate tank very soon. It doesn't look like I will even have the opportunity to even get my hands on any frogfish for awhile... but until then Thank you for all the helpful insight!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Let me know how it goes when you get around to it - good luck!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Just for anyone (like me) who might have missed the link to it when reading the article above - another more detailed article about the rearing process for Commerson’s Frogfish (*spoiler alert - the larvae were, surprisingly, not cannabalistic, which makes raising them much easier- the juveniles might be cannibalistic though*):
https://www.frankbaensch.com/marine-aquarium-fish-culture/my-research/commersons-frogfish-culture/
Edit: for anyone who sees this, the link was updated to correct the species after I posted it.

 

[DIY723]

A couple of things I'm hoping the r2r community can help me answer...

1. A reputable source for buying frogfish online

2. The most ideal water parameters or unique things I should be doing for my frogfish tank (Temp lighting MG etc)

3. Feeding amount, diet variation and supplementing

4. Can I pair my frogfish, and if so which species of frogfish should I go for...

5.Any helpful tips from previous or current owners would be greatly appreciated :D

I am currently new to this hobby with a newly cycled tank (32.5 fluval curved tank with 2 Ai 16 reef lights with 2 clowns at the moment and frag of frogspawn in

Thank you for your responses!

I've been looking online for awhile with no luck, what type of frog fish did you own? any recommendations? @GK3

I'm planning on moving the clowns or dividing the tank. I think it would be super cool to pair two frogfish together and having them potentially spawn. Unfortunately sexing them seems next to impossible.. I saw that Frank Baensch successfully raised some frogfish out of larval state. As well as any idea on why you think they don't live long in captivity?

Frank Baensch article https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2022/04/28/larviculture-breakthrough-commersons-frogfish/

Thank you @lion king @ISpeakForTheSeas @GK3 for your responses it means alot.
I plan on moving forward one step at a time and taking this task on slowly, I'm going to be reaching out to others who have had their frogfish spawn. I do plan on moving the clownfish into a completely separate tank very soon. It doesn't look like I will even have the opportunity to even get my hands on any frogfish for awhile... but until then Thank you for all the helpful insight!

I have 5 frogfish between 3-4.25” and 11 other various fish from blenny to yellow tang….they seems to coexist….it’s been about 6 months…

 

[DIY723]

I have 5 frogfish between 3-4.25” and 11 other various fish from blenny to yellow tang….they seems to coexist….it’s been about 6 months…

 

[chair]

I have 5 frogfish between 3-4.25” and 11 other various fish from blenny to yellow tang….they seems to coexist….it’s been about 6 months…

Did you have multiple forgfish at the same time? @DIY723

 

[lion king]

I have 5 frogfish between 3-4.25” and 11 other various fish from blenny to yellow tang….they seems to coexist….it’s been about 6 months…

Do you have pics

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I have an orange frogfish. Its with a longbose hawkish of same size. Rest of fish are bigger or damsels.
He's kool. Eats rods frozen.
I suggest shelf plate rock for the bottom if you don't do substrate for them to burrow.
He's basically a head with an eel body.
Has two little flipper legs. Got him at petco.
Basic $30 frogfish.
-d

 

[chair]

That sounds like a toad fish @monkeyCmonkeyDo

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Yes sorry I think angler when I think of those. My mistake u r correct. I'm talking about toadfish.
D