Multibar Angel Success?

[Steve and his Animals]

One of my dream fish since I started keeping saltwater has been the multibar angel, Paracentropyge multifasciata. I had a few back when they were cheap, but I was inexperienced and disease got one, starvation got the other. From the look of things, it seems they rarely (if ever) eat in captivity. Is there anyone here that has had long-term success with them? I'm willing to give a couple more individuals a go, but I hate condemning such a beautiful fish if it's basically impossible (which it can't be, Biota breeds them, right?)

 

[Steve and his Animals]

Bump. Nobody?

 

[Tamberav]

Dream fish for me too but the ones I see at the LFS don’t eat so I never purchased one. Hoping some come in stock from Biota.

 

[albano]

I had a pair for more than a year, in a 450g tank with approx 70-80 fish, including 2 dwarf angels… lost when tank seam split …
Good luck finding some, haven’t seen any in awhile, have orders in with a couple of vendors. They do require a more ‘experienced’ reefer.

pretty sure that the pair came from Divers Den

 

[o2manyfish]

I have kept them for years. They need a tank with enough live food in it for them not to have to worry about what you drop in the top. They do really well in my outdoor frag tanks where they can just pick pods off the frag racks all day long. I have had them pair up but not see them spawn. They also seem to do well in groups of 3 or 4.

Dave B

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I have kept them for years. They need a tank with enough live food in it for them not to have to worry about what you drop in the top. They do really well in my outdoor frag tanks where they can just pick pods off the frag racks all day long. I have had them pair up but not see them spawn. They also seem to do well in groups of 3 or 4.

Dave B

I read that they like to be in groups awhile ago, but when I tried to get 3 at once they absolutely shredded each other, and that was in a 5 foot tank. Maybe I just got unlucky? Of course that was when they were the same price as most common dwarf angels. Looking for them on websites, the cheapest I found was around 150...

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I had a pair for more than a year, in a 450g tank with approx 70-80 fish, including 2 dwarf angels… lost when tank seam split …
Good luck finding some, haven’t seen any in awhile, have orders in with a couple of vendors. They do require a more ‘experienced’ reefer.

pretty sure that the pair came from Divers Den

I actually got one through the store I work at this week, and even though it wasn't cheap. As luck would have it, it appears to be one from the Marshall Islands, with faint yellow bars between it's black ones. From what I've read, they seem to be treated the best in transport and are more likely to survive. Wish me luck.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I actually got one through the store I work at this week, and even though it wasn't cheap. As luck would have it, it appears to be one from the Marshall Islands, with faint yellow bars between it's black ones. From what I've read, they seem to be treated the best in transport and are more likely to survive. Wish me luck.

Also, how did you go about getting them to eat prepared foods? Any tricks/specific foods?

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I have kept them for years. They need a tank with enough live food in it for them not to have to worry about what you drop in the top. They do really well in my outdoor frag tanks where they can just pick pods off the frag racks all day long. I have had them pair up but not see them spawn. They also seem to do well in groups of 3 or 4.

Dave B

So you never had any take frozen foods?

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I had a pair for more than a year, in a 450g tank with approx 70-80 fish, including 2 dwarf angels… lost when tank seam split …
Good luck finding some, haven’t seen any in awhile, have orders in with a couple of vendors. They do require a more ‘experienced’ reefer.

pretty sure that the pair came from Divers Den

Any tricks for getting them on prepared foods?

 

[albano]

Any tricks for getting them on prepared foods?

I started them in a separate frag tank, filled with pods…feed some live brine, and eventually they ate frozen brine and mysis.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I started them in a separate frag tank, filled with pods…feed some live brine, and eventually they ate frozen brine and mysis.

Live baby brine or adult?

 

[Ro Bow]

how big of a tank for them? Could i keep one in a 65 gallon?

 

[Ro Bow]

they seem pretty small...

 

[albano]

how big of a tank for them? Could i keep one in a 65 gallon?

Have you seen them available for sale?

 

[Steve and his Animals]

they seem pretty small...

If you can keep one alive in the first place sure, but I'd go bigger.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

how big of a tank for them? Could i keep one in a 65 gallon?

If you can keep them alive, from what I've seen only 1 in 10 eat. Bad odds.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

I don't want this thread to encourage people to try to keep this fish if they aren't prepared for it by the way, the fish is definitely one of the most difficult I've dealt with in terms of acclimating them to captivity, having had about 5 of them and none of them eating anything. Think twice about it.

 

[jaganshi066]

I don't want this thread to encourage people to try to keep this fish if they aren't prepared for it by the way, the fish is definitely one of the most difficult I've dealt with in terms of acclimating them to captivity, having had about 5 of them and none of them eating anything. Think twice about it.

Old post but wondering what’s the longest people have kept this fish. It’s a dream fish, I’ve got 3, two were eating frozen and fresh clams but passed after a few months. Seems way harder to keep than a copperband butterfly. I also have a venustus but all he eats is live brine.

 

[Montagne]

@Steve and his Animals

I’ve only attempted one multibar and was able to get it to eat within a few days of arriving by cramming frozen mysis or brine into the caves of a small piece of live rock that it began to recognize as its feeding station. This has also worked for me with the one and only leopard wrasse I’ve ever had, so I’ve either been unusually lucky or it was important for these benthic feeders. Having another gentle benthic feeder in the tank to spur some competitiveness may be helpful too depending on temperament. The multi bar was a Philippines or Indonesian specimen purchased off of reefbeauties.com that arrived with good weight on it.

Unfortunately, I lost the multi bar and several other (including some captive bred) fish about 6 months later to some sort of wasting disease. Unconfirmed, but I think it was probably a fluke variety too small to be seen in a freshwater dip before I had been using a quarantine protocol.

With my lfs’s supply disrupted during COVID and handling/condition seeming to be so important, I'm wary of spending the money on an online vendor and haven’t tried again. Hopefully Biota or my lfs come through and I can add a more successful update in the future, but for now my experience is consistent with them not making it long term, though maybe due to a treatable disease rather than refusing to eat.