Long term Rabbitfish owners, please share your experiences & photos!

BaghdadBean

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Have you kept a Rabbitfish for longer than two years? What are your experiences with them? How do they play with others? Anybody have any Biota rabbitfish experience? I’m considering a Gold Lined Rabbitfish from Biota for my 72” x 24” x 19” custom tank, and I would love to hear folks’ opinions and experience, as well as see the photos of your fish!
 

vetteguy53081

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For was jeckle-Hyde . Shy a bad good natured at first, then mild bully and ate some of my zoas
Does not mean they’re all like that but my experience
 

alain Bouchard

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about 8 years with mine. Its my most peaceful inhabitant, big and curious, always come to see whats happening outside the tank. Never touched a coral, never bullied anybody, and nobody ever bullied him (well, he is big). When he's bored, he like to breath air at the surface and blow out bubbles out his gills...
 
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BaghdadBean

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about 8 years with mine. Its my most peaceful inhabitant, big and curious, always come to see whats happening outside the tank. Never touched a coral, never bullied anybody, and nobody ever bullied him (well, he is big). When he's bored, he like to breath air at the surface and blow out bubbles out his gills...
I would be training a cam on my tank to catch that bubble blowing in action!
 
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BaghdadBean

BaghdadBean

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For was jeckle-Hyde . Shy a bad good natured at first, then mild bully and ate some of my zoas
Does not mean they’re all like that but my experience
Eating zoas might be a selling point for me, I hate those things! Did yours ever pick on clams though?
 

billandwende

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My Gold Lined Rabbitfish has been with me for 3 1/2 years at this point. I'm always impressed by how quickly he can change color to blend into the background. At a true 8" he's the biggest fish in my 350 gallon. I have an orange shoulder that's slightly smaller and picks on him at times. The Rabbit flairs spikes and gives him a half a lap chase and that ends it.

Other tank mates include Cleaner shrimp, chromis, anthias, banner fish. copper band butterfly, flame fin tang (jerk), blue tang, sailfin tang, chocolate tang, clowns, aptasia ignoring file fish, kaudern's cardinals, sleeper gold head gobie, and a bi color blenny. The only coral I have is a huge bubble coral (BECAUSE I KILL CORAL) tank also houses 2 bubble tip anemones and 2 rock anemones. There is also a brittle star, pin cushin urchin, various snails, and varoious hermit crabs.

Other tank mates that he lived with ,without issues, but I've killed over the years include royal gramma (refused food), fire fish (vanashed), Scissortail dart fish (jumpers all of them), goat fish (jumped), yasha gobies (eaten by wathman gobie), and the forementioned watchman gobie (I don't know why he died but I hope it was yasha poisoning).

I can not speak to any issues with clams as I havn't attempted to murder, er, I mean keep any at this point. I do feed my tank clams on the half shell so I fear I've trained them that clams are a good food source.

He's a model citizen of my tank. I wish I had tried for 2 when I fist got him. I fear that ship has sailed long ago as I don't think adding a new one at this point would end well.

This in my opinion is a fish you should have in your tank. Hope this helps

Purchase size was about 1 1/2 inch. Hope this helps.
 
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BaghdadBean

BaghdadBean

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Other tank mates that he lived with ,without issues, but I've killed over the years include royal gramma (refused food), fire fish (vanashed), Scissortail dart fish (jumpers all of them), goat fish (jumped), yasha gobies (eaten by wathman gobie), and the forementioned watchman gobie (I don't know why he died but I hope it was yasha poisoning).

I can not speak to any issues with clams as I havn't attempted to murder, er, I mean keep any at this point. …

I wish all reefers were as honest, eloquent, and humorous as you. It would do the world a lot of favors to have people be more open about the casualties of love and war. :D

This in my opinion is a fish you should have in your tank. Hope this helps

Purchase size was about 1 1/2 inch. Hope this helps.

Wow, 6.5” growth in just 3.5 years. That’s VERY helpful to know.

Thank you so much for the input. I really appreciated this post.
 

Markhoh3

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FAC560DF-0AB6-484C-96E2-E1AB15A05494.jpeg
 

Rmckoy

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about 8 years with mine. Its my most peaceful inhabitant, big and curious, always come to see whats happening outside the tank. Never touched a coral, never bullied anybody, and nobody ever bullied him (well, he is big). When he's bored, he like to breath air at the surface and blow out bubbles out his gills...
Along with foxface. .
Orange shoulder tang and mata tang also breath air and pass bubbles through their gills on a regular basis .

odd but apparently all rabbit fish do it
 
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BaghdadBean

BaghdadBean

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Along with foxface. .
Orange shoulder tang and mata tang also breath air and pass bubbles through their gills on a regular basis .

odd but apparently all rabbit fish do it
That’s really cool, I had no idea. I’ve had many reef tanks over the years, but the largest was only 100 gallons so I’ve never had experience with larger fish. I’m still concerned my build might be a little too small for a rabbitfish, but I’m definitely looking at them hard. They seem like such pretty, utilitarian type animals.
 
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BaghdadBean

BaghdadBean

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My Scribbled Rabbit. Had for about 8 months. He was about 3” now about 7”. Fast grower and a hog!!
Beautiful tank you have there! Thank you so much for sharing. What size is that? You’ve got a whole lot of awesome packed in there.
 

JumboShrimp

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1632454372474.jpeg Just a heads-up... these Gold Lined Rabbit Fish cam from Algae Barn this year— presumably a middle-seller from Biota. They are alive and well (MUCH larger) in my two 150s now, but their tiny size upon arrival made me feel as if were touch-and-go at first. Be sure to have “baby” brine to feed as they grow.
 
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BaghdadBean

BaghdadBean

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Be sure to have “baby” brine to feed as they grow.

That’s really helpful. Did they eat any of the tiny pellet foods? Did you hatch brine shrimp or feed frozen? I always had phytoplankton reactors (aka mason jars with bubblers in front of a cheap fluorescent fixture) and grew my own brine shrimp for my old tanks, but I wondered if the aquaculture claims of everything eating pellet or prepared were true.

Out of curiosity how much does their color change as they grow?
 

JumboShrimp

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This photo is 90 days out; the colors are actually much more vibrant / nicely iridescent. They did eat right away, but the smallest pellets I had (the tiny ones) were still a bit too big at first; Mysis shrimp would have to be cut so small it would have been a pain. But these fish grow quickly, and so it went “baby” Brine, Brine, tiny pellets and Mysis fairly quickly. (Flakes were good at first too.)

BADDDC10-8270-48DC-95E7-8B8F99842A56.jpeg
 

Markhoh3

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Beautiful tank you have there! Thank you so much for sharing. What size is that? You’ve got a whole lot of awesome packed in there.
Thanks. It’s a 180. Didn’t think the Rabbit fish would grow that fast!! I like the bigger fish. Gettin a 10’ or 11’ tank in a year. Move everything over to that.
 

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I had a gold spot for 5 years or more. Around 8 inches it started eating gorgonians, button polyps and other softies rather quickly. Never rude to other fish, and always had plenty of food, but one day it decided to eat alot of things that cost more than it did... lives in a friends fowlr since a year ago.
I do miss it and want another rabbit. Very fun fish. Fast and intense color changes, good personality. Great at eating algae of all sorts.
It did get a habit of following my hands too closely for my comfort though. Worried i would get poked every time i scraped the glass or moved things around. Friendly, but with poisonous spines
 
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BaghdadBean

BaghdadBean

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It did get a habit of following my hands too closely for my comfort though. Worried i would get poked every time i scraped the glass or moved things around. Friendly, but with poisonous spines

Yeah, I can see where that would be disconcerting. Kinda like “friendly“ rams or bulls.
 
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