Pipefish observations.

[oceanrider]

So I have two multibanded red/yellow pipefish. I feed them live copepods and PE Mysis . They take both.

I caught one of them pooping , and the poop looked like a small filament , about 4 mm long, white , like partially digested mysis. . The poop drifted for just a few seconds before my tomato clown fish gobbled it up.

I guess this proves that pipefishes have short stomachs and cannot fully digest the shrimps that they eat, such that their excrement is ………… er……….. still edible for other fishes.
I guess that is also the reason they must eat constantly.



The tomato clown fish also harasses and makes dashes towards my pipefish, but he just evades them. Just a show of force, no real biting.


Another interesting thing I noticed, several times, was that this small 4 inch long, only a few mllimeters wide, pipefish, actually hunted and snapped at my much larger red stripped cleaner shrimp. I observed this several times....and found it funny, since the cleaner shrimp was maybe 6 times bigger than than the pipefish, and of course, could never fit in its mouth.

 

[TheEngineer]

Napoleon complex :)

 

[oceanrider]

LOL.

I want to post my video. .... gotta learn now to first.

 

[TheEngineer]

Post to YouTube and then drop the link in a post. It will embed automatically.

 

[oceanrider]

First the multibanded pipefish drifts to the shrimp behind the rock, and takes a bite /snipe at the cleaner shrimp behind the rock.
Then he drifts to the front , and takes a snipe at shrimp.

FWIW, the shrimps knows and sometimes fights back,, sometimes retreat. LOL

 

[chris85]

Is you shrimp holding eggs? It looks like that is what it is going for. I had a pipefish that would do the same thing.