Frogfish Forum: The Frogfish Keeper’s Thread

[MauiAnglerReef]

Welcome everyone to this thread! I will post things that I have learned about frogfish/anglers here to hopefully help anyone who wants to keep a frogfish in their aquarium. I have learned so much for the past 6 months about these guys, and I can’t wait to share it all with you!

 

[MauiAnglerReef]

First of all, I think feeding is the most challenging part of keeping an angler in your tank. My angler only eats live guppies/mollies, damsels, and basically any other fish he can fit into his mouth. The challenge about feeding anglers is that it’s a gamble on whether or not they will eat frozen food, and I have tried so many different ways of feeding him frozen food and no matter what, he won’t eat it. Even if your frogfish eats frozen, I strongly discourage feeding ONLY frozen foods as it is not good for their long term health. Because of this, they are expensive and difficult to feed if you don’t have a large supply of live feeder fish available near you. If you don’t see yourself buying live fish every week, then I don’t recommend these guys for you. In Hawaii almost all types of feeder shrimp are illegal, so I don’t have a supply of live ghost shrimp near me. Based on other people’s experience, they will gladly eat shrimp as well.

Another thing about feeding anglers is the amount of food to feed them. They can go up to a month without food from what I have read online, and my angler’s longest hunger strike lasted about 20 days. I recommend feeding them 2 large guppies or damsels every week when fully grown, and 1 medium sized fish 2 or 3 times a week when they are younger.

Because of my lack of experience with feeding shrimp, I will not recommend a certain amount as I do not know the appropriate feeding schedule with shrimps.

 

[MauiAnglerReef]

The next thing about anglers is tankmates. they do best in a species- only tank, or with fish that are at least twice the size of the angler. The species that I have seen people keep them with are Scorpionfish (specifically the leaf scorpion), Dwarf Lions, snowflake eels, and any fish that is too big to eat and is not going to be aggressive towards your angler. keep in mind that this depends on the species you are getting, if you want the Wartskin angler or Painted angler, then I recommend keeping fish 7+ inches long to discourage feeding. If you are keeping the larger species, like the commerson's frogfish or black frogfish, I recommend keeping them with no tankmates, as they can grow up to 9-12 inches long. also, anglers will eat other anglers. if you want 2 anglers in one tank, I recommend keeping species that grow to similar sizes and that are the same size at purchase. Keep in mind that keeping any tankmates is a risk for the angler and the fish depending on the species, and I don't recommend it. I haven't tried keeping an eel with a frogfish before, but I might try it soon.

 

[MauiAnglerReef]

The tank size for anglers depends on the species. Anglers are slow, sedimentary fish that require lots of rockwork and hiding spots. They do best in a 20-40 gallon tank for the smaller species, and 50+ for the larger ones. they are experts at blending in, so don't panic if you don't see your angler. They also prefer weak flow; this helps them blend in with their environment without getting blasted around the tank with powerheads.

 

[MauiAnglerReef]

Also, frogfish are very sensitive creatures, and do not tolerate spikes well. I learned this the hard way, and I had to keep my frogfish in a hospital bowl with clean RODI water, an air pump, and a piece of live rock from my tank after a nitrate spike in the aquarium. he was in the bowl for around 3 days before I put him back into the tank, and he seems like he is close to making a full recovery. A protein skimmer is necessary to keep water quality in check, and regular water changes too.

 

[MauiAnglerReef]

Thank you for reading my posts! if any frogfish owners want to share their experience, feel free to post in this thread!

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