Orange Spotted Filefish my grail fish

[arking_mark]

I just wanted to share my journey with these great fish that are very hard to keep.

I've only ever successfully kept an OSF once before, but I am fairly confident with the pair I have now.

My interest started back in 2016 after reading Matt Pedersen's article about keeping these fish. I read everything about these guys and came up with my own protocol to adapt and ween these fish.

My 1st try came from Blue Zoo Aquatics where I included other fish in the order and before I was doing any QT. Long story short the OSF was successfully weaned only to die from what appeared to be velvet brought in by of the other fish bought from them which wiped out my whole tank.

The 2nd, I got from a local who had the fish weaned to Panta Nouri Polyp, a pellet food for polyp eating fish. Unfortunately, the fish was paper thin and did not eat pellets or coral from my tank. It was RIP in 1 week. I suspect that the transfer and acclimation to a new tank was too much for the OSF who probably needed So more time to fatten up.

The 3rd was an order from Divers Den. It was DOA.

The 4th was an order from DD as well. It came basically eating and lasted several months until I went on an extended vacation and my tank sitter failed me.

Over the years, I tried to get these from established tanks. I got one from NJ that was supposedly in great shape. It was paper thin and died shortly after I got him.

I had one shipped from a reefer in Ca only to have FedEx deliver a day late.

I finally broke down a month ago and ordered 3 from Blue Zoo. One came DOA, one did not wean and died during TTM. The 3rd is still alive in my observation tank and eating Masstick. It's very thin and still may not survive.

However, when a reefer in FL was breaking down his tank with a pair of these he had for over two years, I made a 30hr round trip to pick these up.

I now have a pair of fat and extremely healthy OSFs that eat everything I throw in the tank.

 

[arking_mark]

In case anyone is interested these are my collected notes from 2016:

Research:

• http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/new-future-harlequin-filefish

a. Get the fish eating on live acro

b. Introduce coated acro once they start nipping at the live acro (Rods & Ocean Nutrition Pygmy Angle Formula)

c. Within a week or two the OSF should be accepting prepared food

d. Now you can try withholding live coral feeding; at this point the OSF will be thinner.

e. If you have not had success, you need to reevaluate efforts and continue to offer live coral.

f. At one month, the OSF should be accepting prepared food and you can introduce other foods to vary diet and see what else works.

g. By 2 months the OSF should be adding back body fat

• http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/250948-harlequin-filefish-orange-spotted-filefish/

a. give these fish routine feedings several times per day

b. isolated quarantine is a must

c. have a huge diversity of foods to offer. I.e. it might be that Nutramar Ova, or Live Blackworms, are the first food that "does it".

• http://aquanerd.com/2010/08/feeding-your-harlequin-filefish.html

a. The usually finicky eaters were then coaxed into taking prepared foods. This was achieved by adding Instant Ocean gel food to a dead stem of a green Slimer Acropora coral skeleton.

b. fish seemed to prefer one or two colonies and that it wasn’t a voracious eater. The corals were obviously not too pleased with the new resident, but there didn’t seem to be any tissue loss or death.

c. Additionally, the filefish would take up residence in the branches of the larger Acro colonies at night, further adding to the fish’s intrigue.

• http://www.captivereefs.com/forum/marine-fish/harlequin-filefish-5272/#.VuUEyFNFxEI

a. there is a working methodology of it's adoptation to substitute foods (including fresh, frozen and even dry). I've tried it and developed a bit for my particular fish. As a result - this reef beauty is living (and demonstartes healthy behavior) in my small reef tank for more than 5 months already

• http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f...acanthus-longirostris-weaning-log-231094.html

a. Day 1: Once the tank was set up and the file had had time to relax, I threw a barrage of food at her, Mysis, cyclopeeze, brine shrimp, and of course the coral frags in the tank. She showed no interest in Mysis. I think they may be too large for her mouth. Cyclopeeze got some results. She attempted to pick a few out of the water column but gave up shortly. Brine had similar results and she hasn’t yet noticed the coral.

b. Day 3: When cyclopeeze is added to the tank, instead of trying to pick it out of the water column, she scoots her mouth along the bottom of the tank to collect the fallen food.

c. Day 4: Break through!! Some Mysis shrimp landed on the acropora colony and the filefish began eating those! She also pecked a bit at the ocean nutrition covered skeleton.

d. Day 5: I left the colony in the tank for the first half of the day to let her fill up a bit. I decided to take the colony out around 2 pm though and give it a break in my main tank. I replaced it with the beached skeleton full of enriched brine shrimp. She hasn’t taken much notice of it yet but did eat two shrimp that floated off of it and something she found on the tank’s bottom as well as a few more nips at the hair algae. I think I’ll give the acropora a 24 hr break and see if I can’t coax her into eating some more non-coral foods.

e. Day 6: She is avidly eating enriched brine that have been soaked in selcon off the bottom of the tank and anywhere else that they happen to fall.

f. Day 8: she eats mysis. I found a pack of small ones that fit in her mouth and she gobbles them like candy right out of the water column.) The acro colony is still in the tank, so she still has the opportunity to graze on coral if that is her preference, but it's not. She prefers a food that has been soaked in HUFAs and consists of more meat

g. Day 9: She is reliably eating enriched brine shrimp, small mysis, cyclopeeze, and even flake food. She's starting to put weight back on as well.

h. So this means that nearly half of an oxy files energy comes from lipids!! What's more, the majority of the lipids are coming from omega 3s and 6s. These fats are highly unstable and break down very easily when they are exposed to high heat. This would lead me to believe that foods containing high starch and low fats (i.e. pellet/flake) are unsuitable for oxy files. The high PUFA content required by these fish is probably the reason that they have such a bad track record. The majority of foods available in the hobby, with the exception of fresh/frozen and those soaked in selcon, are virtually lacking in PUFAs. The little fat that they do contain comes from saturated and trans fats (molecules are more stable and easier to preserve). For example, New Life Spectrum Marine pellets only guarantee a 7% fat content in their food, not listing what fats are available, which can roughly translate into all of it being saturated and/or trans. If an oxy file were fed on this diet alone they would be missing out on nearly 33% of their required fat intake and all of their PUFAs. The lack of food containing the correct fat profile is most likely the cause of these fish lasting for 6 months, but never filling out and wasting away as described by Doug.

i. Ok so, I've been talking with an experienced oxy filefish keeper. She had her pair for 5 years!

j. I've now had my file for 6 weeks and a day. Since she has been in the training QT she has started to eat the calpera algae in the tank. She will eat salmon as long as it's pressed into the corallites of a skeleton. Her favorite though, by far are live black worms. As soon as they hit the water she slurps them up.

• http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/...ilefish-harlequin-filefish.50123/#post-701189

a. He has been in my care for almost two weeks now and he's getting healthier and healthier by the day. It hadn't been eating at the store. Yes, it was hard to get it to eat other foods but I've got it eating just about anything now. It's main sources of food are currently chunks of spirulina-laced frozen brine shrimp, and Bird's Nest Coral (Seriatopora hystrix) polyps from the ones in the tank. It also eats a surprising amount of algea off of my live rock, and lately even small particles of prepared food pellets that the other fish didn't eat.

b. So, the first week I had this guy I fed him a few bites up to 10 times a day to make sure he kept eating but slowly lowering the number of feedings. I'm two weeks into this and I'm down to three times a day without reducing the actual amount of food eaten in total.

c. Isolation / QT from the get go. I'm not sure I'd even suggest "passive" tankmates during initial establishment...some of the Harlequin Files that come in are pretty far gone, and the starvation also makes them more TIMID.

d. Offering LIVE SPS corals from the get go.

e. Frequent Feedings (feed these fish once a day and they lose weight FAST...as evidenced by recently being gone 4 days and coming back to find a fat male with a pinched stomach).

f. Some other foods to try that will help put the weight on - Ova, Squid, Live Blackworms (and yes, Tubifex soaked with Selcon). Of course, mine all eat ANYTHING now, but at this point I think all my fish have been here at least a year to 1.5 years + now.

YouTube videos showing fish eating: Flake, Spectrum Pellets, Live Black Worms, Frozen Mysis, Frozen Brine

 

[arking_mark]

This is my basic weaning protocol which I now combine with TTM and use a Seneye to monitor water quality.

Here are the basics:



Prep:

1. Have multiple SPS for OSF to snack on.

2. Have multiple coral skeletons to coat with food.

3. Have several live and prepared foods on hand (live brine, blood worms, frozen gut loaded brine, nutramar ova, LRS nano reef frenzy, selcon, nouri polyp, Repashy, and Masstick)

4. Be prepared to feed 4-6 times per day

5. Have an aquarium that you can maintain high water quality with heavy feedings.



Wean:

1. Drip acclimate OSF

2. Prep a mix of live brine, frozen brine, worms, nutramar ova, lrs nano reef, nouri polyp, and selcon. Basically throw everything in but the skeletal coating stuff.

3. Dose food a couple times and see if it eats anything.

4. If it does eat out of the water column and focuses on a particular ingredient, increase that ingredient in mix and alternate single ingredient and mix.

5. If it is not eating well out of the water column, or needs to put on weight, coat portions of coral skeleton with Repashy and Masstick each mixed with selcon and nutrama ova or any of the other ingredients it seems to prefer. Make this available to the fish throughout the day.

6. If not eating well from water column or skeleton. Alternate coated skeleton live SPS throughout the day and dose the mix. Literature indicates that Millipora is the preferred SPS. Alternate SPS to maximize life of SPS...time to recover between OSF exposure.


Tips:

1. You have about 3-4 weeks to get it eating

2. Worms are the 1st food I give up on after a week if it shows no interest in them

3. Live brine worked best for me, followed by frozen brine, nutramar ova, nouri polyp, and lrs nano.

4. Once fish was eating well I reduced the live brine until it was eating frozen. Kept up with the mix without live components and after several months, it eats everything.

5. I tried many SPS types including Millipora with little success for my non-eating fish.

6. You'll spend way more on SPS and food then on the fish.

7. OSF will pick on SPS in the tank. However, I have NOT found this to be too detrimental to the SPS... SPS just seems to hide or reduce polys extension.

 

[Celestion]

Lots of great tips Here , outstanding information sir , The exquisite filefish
.

 

[Rtaylor]

Congrats on your new fish. I’ve currently got six doing great. I ordered a total of 8 in 3 different orders all from reefbeauties.com.

One was DOA and one was extremely emaciated, wouldn’t eat, and died in less than 3 days.

The 6 survivors all started eating Masstick literally within seconds of it being offered. I strongly recommend starting with Masstick, I didn’t even need to put it on an acro skeleton. From there they all began adding frozen foods, Panta Rhei pellets, other pellets, pretty much anything they could fit in their tiny mouths over the next several weeks. I’ve had 3 of them about 11 months, 1 about 5 months , and the most recent were added 5-6 weeks ago.

I’d place good odds on your one in observation. As long as it starts eating (which you mentioned it had) they seem to actually be pretty hardy. I’d keep it separate from the other pair unless you have them in a really big tank, they’ll harass him/her non-stop. My gang has started to mellow out some, but they do still chase each other quite a bit.