Orange spotted filefish feeding questions

[Perpetual Novice]

so I have two tanks. One established and one that’s just coming out of fallow.

About a week ago I was at my LFS and saw they had gotten in some orange spotted filefish. I have always wanted one but read they are very hard to feed because they naturally only eat acropora milli.

I asked them to feed the filefish to see if they were eating and to my surprise, although they had only just arrived at the store, they began picking at the frozen mysis. I had finally found orange spotted filefish that were eating! I thought.

So I quickly bought the one that was the best eater and acclimated it to my established tank. It seemed to do ok in there for two days but wasn’t eating the mysis I fed the tank. I have a couple acropora frags in that tank but no millipora (hope that’s spelled right). But day two I saw it picking at my acros! So I quickly transferred it into quarantine with my other fish.

The filefish did not seem to be doing well in quarantine so after a couple more days I moved it into the tank that had been in fallow.

No surprise it still didn’t seem to eat for a day (I had heard they may also pick at copepods and amp hopped but it wasn’t doing that either).

Yesterday I grated some raw shrimp onto a dead acropora skeleton so that it was covered in a thin layer of ground shrimp slime. I added that to the tank. I was relieved to see that the filefish quickly started picking at the skeleton I added.

So right now the filefish is the only fish in the tank. I think it was eating the shrimp but I don’t know if it was actually eating or just would have picked at the skeleton anyway.

The quarantined fish are scheduled to be added in a couple days.

So two questions I have.
Do you think the filefish was actually eating the shrimp off the skeleton or just picking at it out of instinct and not eating it?

And does anyone have recommendations on how to make sure it gets food once the other fish are added?

I had hoped the filefish would accept free floating mysis like at the store. And the tank I had planned to add it to did not have competitive feeders. If the filefish will only eat from the skeleton I’m not sure it will be able to beat out the other fish. Should I postpone adding the fish in quarantine? What is a good plan to make sure this fish can get the food it needs? Will it eventually pick at copepods. There are lots of hose and no other fish that eat them?

Please let me know what you think or any experience you have keeping this fish.

Thanks a ton in advance for any advice. Even if it’s negative feedback. I know this fish may be controversial.

 

[jx fang]

Here is my experience with orangespotted filefish.
In the years I've tried about 6-7 specimens.
All of them waste away, getting thinner even they eat, can't compete with other fishes.
I'm about to give up on this fish, leave them in the ocean I thought.
A few month ago, I saw this tiny little fish, less than 1" long, never seen a orangespotted filefish this small that survived the trip to the fishshop.
Put it in the QT with liverocks from the DT, try to get it to eat.
This fish picked at those tiny rocksnails on the rock.
So I stick some Masstick food to the rocksnails.
The fish start to pick at the food.
At the same time I feed frozen pods in the tank, let the food broadcast floating in the watercolumn.
I do this 4 times a day.
A few days later the fish start to eat floating pods.
You can see in the picture that the fish's belly is thicker(the fish was still thin at that time), full of food, that's the sign he is eating well.
It takes over a month to get the fish properly fattened.
Putting it in the DT is the real challenge.
I have quite a lot aggressive eaters, tangs, angelfishes and others.
To my surprise, this fish don't even care about other fishes.
Because he is so tiny, other fishes also don't bother him.
He just find the food he likes in all those chaos feeding times, even takes flake food.
Now he is a fat and healthy fish.
I hope I can keep him longterm successfully, but only time will tell.

 

[Perpetual Novice]

Here is my experience with orangespotted filefish.
In the years I've tried about 6-7 specimens.
All of them waste away, getting thinner even they eat, can't compete with other fishes.
I'm about to give up on this fish, leave them in the ocean I thought.
A few month ago, I saw this tiny little fish, less than 1" long, never seen a orangespotted filefish this small that survived the trip to the fishshop.
Put it in the QT with liverocks from the DT, try to get it to eat.
This fish picked at those tiny rocksnails on the rock.
So I stick some Masstick food to the rocksnails.
The fish start to pick at the food.
At the same time I feed frozen pods in the tank, let the food broadcast floating in the watercolumn.
I do this 4 times a day.
A few days later the fish start to eat floating pods.
You can see in the picture that the fish's belly is thicker(the fish was still thin at that time), full of food, that's the sign he is eating well.
It takes over a month to get the fish properly fattened.
Putting it in the DT is the real challenge.
I have quite a lot aggressive eaters, tangs, angelfishes and others.
To my surprise, this fish don't even care about other fishes.
Because he is so tiny, other fishes also don't bother him.
He just find the food he likes in all those chaos feeding times, even takes flake food.
Now he is a fat and healthy fish.
I hope I can keep him longterm successfully, but only time will tell.

That is really inspirational! Also how do you tell I’m it’s stomach is fat? Can you send a clearer picture of your fattened fish so I can look at mine to compare. Also, now that you have your filefish eating well, do you still have to feed it many times a day? Or does it get enough food from just one daily feeding?

Also what are rock snails?

And finally I would like one more bit of advice.

There is decent flow in my display tank. Can your filefish pick up food as it blows around or do you have to turn off all the pumps for him to have a chance to catch the pieces?

 

[jx fang]

Before feeding the belly is flat streamline with the fish body.
After feeding, you can clearly see the belly is so much swollen with a lot of food.
I'm feeding twice a day, pellet, lori, flake and frozen, all together at the same time, so all fishes have the time to get there favorite foods.
Just did research, those are called vermetid snails.
I don't have a lot of flow, I have sand bottom.
I never turn off the circulation pumps during feeding.
I only turn off the return pump to prevent food get into the sump.
It nighttime here in Asia.
Will try to take some pictures or video of the fish eating tomorrow.
I'm not very good with filming fish tank, will try my best.

 

[jx fang]

Not the best images, but it does show the belly is full.
Hope this helps.

 

[Perpetual Novice]

Not the best images, but it does show the belly is full.
Hope this helps.

Thank you. That’s really helpful. Now I know where it’s stomach is and can look for signs that it is underfed. In the meantime it seems to have decided that montipora and a dying candicane are food

 

[lion king]

Try smashing some masstick or ocean nutrition formula one with the gel binder into the corals he's nibbling at. You guys were already on the right track, sometimes you have to give them a live mille coral and then smash foods into the coral skeleton. This gives them enough time to start to eat other foods with the help of other fish showing him what food is.

You love difficult fish huh. I deal with difficult fish as well. The obstacle is that they just don't recognize what food is in captivity. So initially you need to simulate what they feed on in the wild. You keep that up until they start to recognize what food is in captivity. Most of the time these guys starve because people don't get that simple explanation, they just don;t recognize it as food.

These are fish if you qt or are in a tank alone need to have dither fish to show them the ropes. These fish definitely do best with other fish in the gtank, but I still prefer qt with dither fish over direct to the dt. You really have more control in a qt, and if you have aggressive eaters in the dt it can cause a problem,

 

[Perpetual Novice]

Try smashing some masstick or ocean nutrition formula one with the gel binder into the corals he's nibbling at. You guys were already on the right track, sometimes you have to give them a live mille coral and then smash foods into the coral skeleton. This gives them enough time to start to eat other foods with the help of other fish showing him what food is.

You love difficult fish huh. I deal with difficult fish as well. The obstacle is that they just don't recognize what food is in captivity. So initially you need to simulate what they feed on in the wild. You keep that up until they start to recognize what food is in captivity. Most of the time these guys starve because people don't get that simple explanation, they just don;t recognize it as food.

These are fish if you qt or are in a tank alone need to have dither fish to show them the ropes. These fish definitely do best with other fish in the gtank, but I still prefer qt with dither fish over direct to the dt. You really have more control in a qt, and if you have aggressive eaters in the dt it can cause a problem,

Thanks a ton. I really appreciate the advice.

Also let me illuminate you on the whole situation.

I have a 100 gallon tank that was set up about 5 weeks ago. It’s an upgrade from a 30 gallon I had so all the contents of the 30 were moved to the 100. Just before the 30 was taken down I had an outbreak of velvet and so I took the opportunity to go fallow and hospitalize all the fish that had been in the 30. Since then the original fish have been moved out of the copper medicated hospital tank and into a 20 gallon observation tank. I don’t want the hospital and observation tanks to be set up long term so I decided to double down and purchase the rest of my planned display tank fish and get them through quarantine at the same time as my original fish were recovering.

The end result is a ton of fish in the observation tank at the moment. All looking healthy without medication the last two weeks. I plan to release them into the display tank on Saturday. And the competition and lack of space in the observation tank just meant that the filefish changed to its sleeping covered and stayed pressed agains the corner of the glass all day

Basically as of now the filefish and the white ribbon eel are the only one in the 100 gallon display. In a way, the filefish is a canary to see if the velvet is still around.

As for food, the whole reason I impulse bought the filefish was because it was nibbling on free floating frozen mysis already at the LFS. And that was a day after it arrived at the store. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Since being in the display it has picked on all my montipora. But even more it has picked on the acropora skeleton. I have smeared/grated to a paste a raw shrimp from the supermarket onto the skeleton. I have also smeared frozen mysis onto it in the same way. The filefish certainly notices the skeleton and picks at it a lot but I can’t be sure it’s actually eating what it picks at. The filefish ignores the frozen mysis and shrimp particles that come off the skeleton and float around the tank. And I don’t think it’s getting much food from eating my montipora. after the filefish leaves the montipora alone for a while the polyps come back out so it seems that the fish isn’t actually eating the coral successfully.

In any case. I’ve seen the filefish eat frozen mysis in store. But I’m worried once the competitive fish in observation are released later this week the file fish will have missed its chance to learn to eat free floating food. And I’m sure the coral skeleton will be picked clean by the other fish before the filefish can get to that as well.

That’s the dilemma at the moment. Any ideas?

 

[lion king]

You are definitely on the right track. Keep smashing the food into the skeletons he's picking on, he is getting the food. When you add the other fish, keep up on smashing until you see him start to eat from the water column like the other fish.

What happens is, as with many difficult to feed species, every time you move them they have a chance of a restart. So they could be eating fine at the lfs, then you take them home, and its a restart. It happens with lions all the time, its the same with many hard to feed species.

 

[Perpetual Novice]

Not the best images, but it does show the belly is full.
Hope this helps.

You are definitely on the right track. Keep smashing the food into the skeletons he's picking on, he is getting the food. When you add the other fish, keep up on smashing until you see him start to eat from the water column like the other fish.

What happens is, as with many difficult to feed species, every time you move them they have a chance of a restart. So they could be eating fine at the lfs, then you take them home, and its a restart. It happens with lions all the time, its the same with many hard to feed species.

After all the effort putting food on the acropora skeleton every day. I found its most interested in eating flake food. It half heartedly eats a little off the acro skeleton but actually hunts down small flakes out of the water with gusto.

 

[jx fang]

Mine also likes to eat flake food, especially the orange/red coloured flakes.
He is also very good in cleanup all those foods that sticks on the liverocks.
This fish is not only extremely interesting and beautiful, but also contribute to the reef tank, a perfect fish to me.

 

[Sallstrom]

Just wanted to wish you luck. It's a great fish :)

We have had two in a large reef tank at my work for two-three years. We moved them a month ago due to a rebuild. Unfortunately we lost one after the move to a smaller tank. Might have been stress related.
When it comes to food ours ones have only eaten corals. Mostly Acropora but also Seriatopora and Stylopora. Luckily we've got lots of corals :)

 

[Perpetual Novice]

Mine also likes to eat flake food, especially the orange/red coloured flakes.
He is also very good in cleanup all those foods that sticks on the liverocks.
This fish is not only extremely interesting and beautiful, but also contribute to the reef tank, a perfect fish to me.

How long have you had your filefish? and how often do you feed it?

I've been doing more research on how to care for mine and I've been finding conflicting information. websites will often say they require offerings of live coral and at the same time specify 3-4 feedings per day. I don't see how that makes sense since one coral is a single long meal and not 3-4 individual meals.

on a different website, I read that even once they're eating prepared foods they still often waste away from not getting enough food.

If you have had yours for a while without it slowly starving I want to copy your feeding schedule and diet as closely as I can.

I went to my local fish store yesterday and saw they still had several orange spot filefish left from the original batch that mine came from. The filefish at the store have full bellies and are in a standard small 20-gallon tank without live rock coral. the copepod population in there would easily have been picked clean by now so I'm pretty sure they're all eating the same food as the clowns and cardinals that are also in the tank at the store.

I read on one website that they do better in pairs or small groups. Especially if you get a male and female. If you have had long term success with your fishI think I will get another one. Hopefully, the filefish I have will demonstrate how to eat to the new filefish.

The clock is ticking before all of this batch of filefish are sold off from the fish store and I doubt I'll ever see another group for sale that are eating like this so I want to act fast but also be sure that I am able to have long term success before I do.

 

[jx fang]

I have the fish only 3 months, so that's not long-term success yet.
If I can keep it alive more than 5 years, then my way of keeping this fish maybe more useful.
I can only share my current method, maybe it works, but maybe not, only time will tell.

I feed all my fish the same way, doesn't matter what kind of fish it is.
Feed twice a day, at around 10am and 7pm.
Foods includes 6 types of pellets, 2 types of flake, nori, and 3 types of frozen.
All dumped in the tank at once, let the foods broadcast feeding.
The fishes will get what they want.
This filefish eats frozen zooplankton, flake food and tiny pellets.
His mouth is still not big enough to eat normal size pellet, he keeps trying though.
My tank have no sps corals for the fish too eat, it only get prepare foods.
The fish was thin when I got it, now he is fat, health and very active swimming all around all the time looking for food.
It's a good sign, but only time will tell if it can live long term.

 

[jx fang]

Six month update, as fat as a pig.

 

[Chas J]

I just stumbled across this thread. Here's my pair that I've had 3 years 5 months. It's just the two of them in a 30 cube. They're fed 4 times a day and the male often displays courtship behavior, but the female is having none of it.

 

[Perpetual Novice]

Just wanted to wish you luck. It's a great fish :)

We have had two in a large reef tank at my work for two-three years. We moved them a month ago due to a rebuild. Unfortunately we lost one after the move to a smaller tank. Might have been stress related.
When it comes to food ours ones have only eaten corals. Mostly Acropora but also Seriatopora and Stylopora. Luckily we've got lots of corals :)

Six month update, as fat as a pig.

I just stumbled across this thread. Here's my pair that I've had 3 years 5 months. It's just the two of them in a 30 cube. They're fed 4 times a day and the male often displays courtship behavior, but the female is having none of it.

Bad news guys. My filefish died. I'm not sure what the issue was. they were fine for months with no issues. One day one of them stopped eating and hid/latched onto the rock. 2 days later it died. and the same day the other one began the same process and also died in two days. no signs of illness or stress prior to this change. no issue with water chemistry and no changes with any other fish. They just went from ravenous, active, and fat, to reclusive and fasting. I don't think they starved it was so sudden and they weren't emaciated when they died.

I was alternating between feeding spirulina brine and Mysis in my tank. my guess is that wasn't enough variety. maybe they were willing to eat foods other than coral but their bodies still needed some nutrients they weren't getting? Maybe they were collected with cyanide? I've heard that fish collected that way can seem healthy then suddenly succumb to organ failure as a result of exposure months earlier?

I was so proud of my fish I didn't want to announce to the forum that I failed in my husbandry. I've seen more filefish showing up at my LFS that eat prepared foods from time to time but I know I can't justify adding another pair to my tank without knowing what I need to do differently to care for them.

But this has revived my interest in these fish. I miss their beautiful colors and inquisitive personality and would love to keep them again. Does anyone think they can help me figure out where I went wrong? I really thought I had orange-spotted filefish figured out. It was great for about 3.5 months then the suddenly seemed to lose the will to live. Not for lack of trying but I know it's my fault I let them die. I just don't know what I did wrong?

 

[ReefDemon]

@Perpetual Novice Panta Rhei makes a good which is aimed at fish that eat coral polyps and the like which may be good for these fish. I can’t say I have any experience with these fish or know what went wrong for you, but if you do end up trying again in future maybe you should try this kind of food.

Here is a link with a bit of info about it. https://reefbuilders.com/2016/05/02/panta-nouri-sponge-nouri-polyp/

 

[jx fang]

I just stumbled across this thread. Here's my pair that I've had 3 years 5 months. It's just the two of them in a 30 cube. They're fed 4 times a day and the male often displays courtship behavior, but the female is having none of it.

3.5 years is a very good achievement, congratulations.
do you feed them live corals?
What prepared food do you feed them, full list please.

 

[Chas J]

They get LRS Reef Frenzy, LRS Fertility Frenzy twice, and PE mysis. All soaked in Selcon. They're in a tank with only soft coral which they don't touch, so only the prepared foods. I think the key is using foods that are high in fatty acids.