Poll: How old is your oldest SW fish? And what is it?

[ZoWhat]

How old is your oldest SW fish?

1) What is it?

2) What is the main reason it has lived so long? Meaning husbandry tips

 

[Rispa]

Oldest is a yellow watchman goby. No real tips lol. Probably the best I can offer is feed good food.

 

[ca1ore]

Let's see .... yellow tang, regal tang, PJ cardinals and clown pair are all around 9 years old. Once you get a fish past the one year mark, longevity is about water quality, proper feeding, QT and a bit of luck. BTW, I answered the question based on how long these have been under my care. Obviously they are older than that LOL

 

[Davy Jones]

Oldest fish I have is a female clown that has been with me for around 9 years. (I would assume she is older than that)

Funny story I gave away my tank with her in it after about 4 years, went off to military training and got out of the hobby. Got back in 4 years ago and the person i gave the tank to asked if i wanted the surviving fish back and she was the same fish!

3 tanks later she is still with me! As for tips, i have no idea since this fish has lived through some pretty terrible conditions and is still trucking along. Has gone through stints of over 2 weeks without feeding (not while in my care..) survived ich outbreaks (never even got infected) survived dino outbreaks and tank transfers. She lets me pet her at the surface of the water as she thinks im going to feed her every time i walk by the tank

 

[Justfebreezeit]

My dad has a bunch over 15.

Powder blue, yellow tang, blue tang, sailfin tang, copperband butterfly percula, and a damsel.

I think once you are able to keep your tank stable the biggest thing is finding ways to survive crashes or unexpected events.

Those fish all survived hurricane power outages, heater failures.. etc

 

[Johniejumbo]

I’ve got a 10 year old yellow watchman goby. No real tips he’s been mostly bulletproof. He survived moving from Texas to west Wyoming to east Wyoming then back to Texas with a pair of clowns I had until recently.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

my female clown has been through 5 reef tanks with me. I got her back in 2013 for the Nano in 90 contest here on R2R

 

[ZoWhat]

Seems like clowns have the longest lifespan

 

[Fin]

I have a Royal Gramma that was the first fish in my 140 back in 2006. It was also the last fish out of it when I sold it and is now in a 45 gallon temporary tank, waiting for me to finish my current lengthy build. I also have a Copperband Butterfly that went into the same tank in 2008. It is also in the temp tank and doing well.

I feed frozen Mysis, which is soaked overnight in Selcon and marine vitamins.

 

[dwest]

Purple tang older than my son, who is 19. Just lost a clarki clownfish the same age when my dinos were bad earlier this year. I have an ocellaris about 16 years old. Most of their lives they have been eating high quality flake, pellets, etc...nothing fancy. Always lots of pods in my tank and unfortunately, hair algae.

 

[jda]

I have a purple tang that is about 15 years old... older than my 14 year old. This was back when gettin fish from the Red Sea did not cost you a fortune... it was probably around $40-50 and Flame Angels cost more.

I have a Watanabei Pair that is 10 years with me.

They live in a acropora reef with high quality water. I feed NLS and Formula 2 pellets and some Mysis.

 

[tgionet]

I still have my first saltwater fish I got in Nov 2015 (clownfish). She killed her male a few months back.

 

[LadyMac]

I’ve had my two clowns about two years now.

I’m not quite sure what I’ve done to keep them this long(other than basic stable conditions) and as for the length it’s not really considered long just yet. When I’ve had them 30 years, then I’ll feel accomplished

 

[Eastlake]

My oldest is a pajama cardinal, 8 or 9 years old. I can't say that there's really any secret to it other than feeding a variety of good foods and maintaining water quality. I feed frozen, flake, pellet, and nori soaked in selcon and do 10% water changes weekly.

 

[Adele]

Yellow Tang....I think. Might be the Damsel which makes sense because they are 'starter' fish. Both have gone through 3 tanks transitions over the last 10 years. I think Damsels are immortal just due to their ornery nature

 

[andrewkw]

My oldest fish is my naked clown as seen in my avatar. I've had her almost 12 years at a time when mutant clowns were less common then standard ocellaris. The reason she has been with me the longest is she has managed to survive some crashes that other fish have not. Also clown fish are not as accident prone as other fish in that they rarely jump, don't wedge themselves into places they can't get out of and generally don't fight with other fish unless they get right up in their territory. They also generally respond well to medication so if they do get sick all hope is not lost.

Example of accident prone I had a chevron tang for 7 years and one day he got something stuck on his lip a bivalve creature that was just on the live rock not something I added. He freaked out about it and then vanished without a trace after I went away for a few days. That was 4 years ago and still miss the guy.

 

[jhoop]

I have a three striped damsel 8 years old.

 

[Jim Fox]

My oldest is Coral Beauty which is 7 years old. All others are about 5-6 years old.

 

[Brew12]

I haven't had a fish make it over 2 years yet.

Of course, that could be because I only set up my first tank around 20 months ago. I still have almost every fish I started with, including 2 clowns, starry blenny, hippo tang, kole tang, convict tang, mag. foxface, and a flame angel. I credit my early success to good QT practices and high quality frozen foods.

 

[Captain Quint]

I have some friends at the ORA farm. When they first came out with the ORA Platinums they allowed me to come to select one. I've had her for 11 years.