Orange spotted filefish

Areeflover

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Has anyone had any good experiences with orange spotted filefish? Or are they always a lost cause in the home aquarium?
 

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I believe they only eat acropora polyps in the wild. I saw a guy on reddit who got one was attaching frozen food to acropora skeletons to try and get it to eat frozen. Never recall seeing if it was successful.
 

vetteguy53081

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They are expert level and a beautiful fish that is near impossible to get to eat and must have ideal water quality
They’re very peaceful and therefore cannot be around hyper or aggressive tankmates
 

arking_mark

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I’m interested in hearing your protocol

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.
 
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Areeflover

Areeflover

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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.
Wow. I definitely can’t do that at this time in my life
 

arking_mark

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great tips . . . love these fish. do you qt?
I didn't, but my updated protocol will be using tank transfer method. Long story behind this, but due to a ick outbreak in the observation tank with last batch of OSFs, I successfully weened one through a TTM. The survivor was later lost to a rookie mistake that led to an ammonia spike. So sad. It was so fat and healthy.
 

recreative

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I didn't, but my updated protocol will be using tank transfer method. Long story behind this, but due to a ick outbreak in the observation tank with last batch of OSFs, I successfully weened one through a TTM. The survivor was later lost to a rookie mistake that led to an ammonia spike. So sad. It was so fat and healthy.
Thanks, sorry for that loss! gonna wait to try these guys again till my new tank is nice and stable for a while. Probably the coolest fish in the hobby in my opinion.
 

NJDragonet

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I have had mine for 2 years now, again nothing is impossible in this hobby but these are expert only fish mine has been eating brine and mysis since I got him but it depends on each fish. Besides that I have found that any type of pods this fish will take a nip at. When it comes to getting other tankmates nothing to worry nothing to crazy i have kept these with angels and tangs no problem at all. This fish is quite easy to care for when you got everything down.
 

PatW

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I saw one at World Wide Corals. They had the fish in a big tank with wall to wall acropora colonies. I guess one little file fish did not eat enough from any one colony to be a problem.
 

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I saw one at World Wide Corals. They had the fish in a big tank with wall to wall acropora colonies. I guess one little file fish did not eat enough from any one colony to be a problem.
they actually do not eat the whole coral to death, they eat one polyp and leave it alone for a long time, the corals are more of a living larder. there are also new speculations that they eat the animals on the coral. they only seem to target millies if they do eat coral. anyway, satisfying them with mysis snd other food should fill them up well
 
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Areeflover

Areeflover

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they actually do not eat the whole coral to death, they eat one polyp and leave it alone for a long time, the corals are more of a living larder. there are also new speculations that they eat the animals on the coral. they only seem to target millies if they do eat coral. anyway, satisfying them with mysis snd other food should fill them up well
I would really love one
 

jx fang

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I have a pair of them.
One is almost 2 years and other about 1 year.
Once they start to eat, they are very hardy in my experience.
My water quality is not very good, never done a water change in years, nitrate around 25.
They are doing fine with many bigger and aggressive fish in the tank.
They eat everything, pellets, flakes and frozen mysis, brine and everything else.
I think, I just got lucky with these 2 specimens.
Before I got these 2 guys, I killed about 5 specimens in the previous years, they never eat and starved to death.
IMG_20200729_115148.jpg
 

MarineFinatic

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Hi All,

I saw this post and thought id register to give me two cents worth.... I hope my personal experiences with the OSFF/Harlequin Filefish can assist at least one of you.

I have seen many write ups on the OSFF but I'd like to add what I consider a key-point when it comes to the original intro of your new OSFF to your tank... Unfortunately, these amazing fish are sometimes caught with chemicals and as you can imagine arrive very stressed out... When you add their natural feeding habits into the mix this means that from the get go (in the majority of scenarios) you are fighting an uphill battle. These fish are very slow feeders and are well known to be better housed with other slow feeders such as seahorses, even when they do transition to frozen you will notice them taking the good bits and spitting the rest out... You will notice that the majority of the OSFF available in your LFS may have pinched stomachs due to their lack of natural diet (coral) and indeed stress - people see them eating a pinch or two of mysis/brine shrimp and assume that they will just continue to do so with no issues... here is my personal recommendation,taking into consideration I have unfortunately had a previous fail and currently have a fat,greedy fishy that was originally very underweight and not looking strong at all... When you first add your new fish to the tank, TURN THE PUMPS OFF!! leave the wavemakers off for a few days. the fish is more than likely at a weakened state and it will get dragged around in the tank just like a seahorse would. I believe this results in the OSFF burning up even more energy thus allowing less time to train into its new feeding habits.There is ofcourse no problem with turning them on occasionally to clean things up but try and keep them off as much as possible!! Also, try and start off by offering mysis/brine shrimp once they're in their own little part of the tank so the other more dominant fish do not sweep up every bite whilst your filefish is slowly staring at it.

I like to keep a tank full of very awkward feeders, this includes a Mandarin, CBB and a Fu Manchu Lionfish in the same tank as the OSFF. My purple tang I would say on average eats approximately 80% of the food I put into the tank so it was a very frustrating, long winded process trying to figure out how to distract her long enough to get food to the filefish. All other info is readily available in the abundance of posts written about the OSFF but turning off the pump is my two cents worth and will buy you extra time to train your fish to eat frozen foods whilst conserving as much of their energy as you can in the beginning stages. This in my opinion is a very valid point that can give you the extra valuable time that you may need to get your new fishy settled in properly.

Best of luck!!

J.
 
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sunken3

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the trick is .. getting lucky... i've had one for about 1 1/2 years... he eats mysis, brine, and nori... (i am sure other stuff)..

if you can't get them on mysis (which seems the easiest), then yes, they may be doomed without sps.
 
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