Pipefish Husbandry Questions

[ichthyogeek]

I'm interested in keeping smaller reef pipefish (specifically blue and red-lined pipefish) in a 20H for breeding purposes. I know they've spawned in 10 gallons before, so space doesn't seem to be an issue. Mostly I'm concerned about diet. Can the smaller reef pipefish be trained into eating frozen foods like pods (Hikari's Cyclopods, PE's Calanus, etc.) or mysis? I know there's been a lot of success with getting them to eat prawn eggs, but Nutramar Ova's not coming back into stock anytime soon. Barring that, could one treat them like dwarf seahorses and feed them with enriched or newly hatched BBS? Would they eat adult Parvocalanus pods? I have an idea on how to slowly feed zooplankton throughout the day, but frozen would obviously be the most convenient.

Additionally, I've heard the bluelined pipes can be aggressive. I'd like to keep the pipefish with peppermint shrimp (L. boggesi or L. wurdemanni), and/or tiger pistol shrimp (Alpheus randalli), but I've recently found out that tiger pistols can come in really really tiny (.5 inch or less). But would this work?

 

[rayjay]

If you join this site it will open up a wealth of information.

Marine Ornamental Fish & Invertebrate Breeders Associate

An international group of private and commercial aquarists and researchers, dedicated to increasing variety and availability of captive bred marine ornamentals by sharing information amoung peers.

www.marinebreeder.org

 

[ThePurple12]

My bluestripes are spawning in a 125g without any feeding other than pods in the tank, but I just discovered one of them eating frozen mysis without any training. This tells me that they are easy to convert to frozen either over time on their own or with training. They will eat BBS.

You won’t have any problems with them attacking shrimp. I haven’t seen any aggression in either of my bluestripes, and they’re way too small for that anyway. They can’t even eat the bigger frozen mysis!

 

[KingTideCorals]

Hello! Pipefish are some of my favorites.

Really fun fish, with some funny personality. I currently home a dragonface pipefish named Gary. He is a chunk! Gary when bought was interested in the frozen mix the LFS was feeding. In my tank Gary chases pods all day (reminds me I need to go get some) and seems to chase Zoo Med Cyclops.

I used the Zoo Med Cyclops to get my Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse to take to food and it worked. Gary seems to be enjoying life in the mangrove tank.

 

[Katie M]

I've gotten blue stripes to eat frozen mysis and reef frenzy with no issues. They were spawning in a 15 gallon. I lost the male awhile back (no obvious reason - I think sometimes their bodies just wear out from holding and birthing the babies so often) and the female is still doing great

 

[mav3rick478]

If you join this site it will open up a wealth of information.

Marine Ornamental Fish & Invertebrate Breeders Associate

An international group of private and commercial aquarists and researchers, dedicated to increasing variety and availability of captive bred marine ornamentals by sharing information amoung peers.

www.marinebreeder.org

Tried joining this past weekend and I'm still waiting for admin approval, is the forum still current?

 

[rayjay]

It doesn't get the traffic it used to get unfortunately since social media has basically wiped visits from a lot of forums.
Last posting was in April of this year but it was a thread about raising clown gobies.
Hasn't been any posting on pipefish since 2013 but at least once they get around to approving you, you will be able to check the threads and then ask your own questions as some of the old timers still check on it periodically.