Show off your ANGLER FISH!

Justsomedude · Oct 22, 2018

Yea so far so good no signs of aggression towards each other what so ever I doubt they will mate but you never know

jasonrusso · Oct 22, 2018

Justsomedude said:
Yea so far so good no signs of aggression towards each other what so ever I doubt they will mate but you never know

If they did, it would be a slow motion fight.

Justsomedude · Oct 27, 2018

Superdad4 · Nov 30, 2018

randyBRS said:
Hope you don't mind if I post, but here's the Wartskin Angler from my NPS tank. He's such a ham!

Randy,
How big are these guys supposed to get? I have been doing research, but I am finding answers all over the book from 3” to about 12”.

jasonrusso · Nov 30, 2018

Superdad4 said:
Randy,
How big are these guys supposed to get? I have been doing research, but I am finding answers all over the book from 3” to about 12”.

Wartskin about 3." Painted about 4."

If you get an "assorted angler" on Live Aquaria or an orange angler, those get big. I've seen a 10" angler, and I could probably fit my fist in it's mouth.

Tmm87 · Dec 6, 2018

Haven't seen him in person yet, but here's the Diver's Den photo of the little guy I picked up last night. He'll be here tomorrow morning.

Brittany Marie · Dec 6, 2018

Tmm87 said:
Haven't seen him in person yet, but here's the Diver's Den photo of the little guy I picked up last night. He'll be here tomorrow morning.

You will love him! I miss my little guy. My painted was slightly bigger than the warty and started picking on him a lot. He’s no longer swimming the reef. But I couldn’t part with him, too pretty! So he’s preserved in a jar now

jasonrusso · Dec 6, 2018

Tmm87 said:
Haven't seen him in person yet, but here's the Diver's Den photo of the little guy I picked up last night. He'll be here tomorrow morning.

Awesome!! He looks like a baby (no warts yet) so he will likely be tiny. I suggest ordering (or buying at the LFS if they have some) live brine shrimp. You can keep them in a fishbowl with an air stone. You just scoop out a bunch and put them in. He will do the rest. It's hard to stick feed them when they are that small as there is nothing small enough to feed them!!

Tmm87 · Dec 6, 2018

Brittany Marie said:
You will love him! I miss my little guy. My painted was slightly bigger than the warty and started picking on him a lot. He’s no longer swimming the reef. But I couldn’t part with him, too pretty! So he’s preserved in a jar now

Looks like he was beautiful when he was swimming. I wonder if you could get a replica of him made.

Tmm87 · Dec 6, 2018

jasonrusso said:
Awesome!! He looks like a baby (no warts yet) so he will likely be tiny. I suggest ordering (or buying at the LFS if they have some) live brine shrimp. You can keep them in a fishbowl with an air stone. You just scoop out a bunch and put them in. He will do the rest. It's hard to stick feed them when they are that small as there is nothing small enough to feed them!!

I plan to try and get a couple small ghosties or some guppy/molly babies to give him initially. I was planning to buy some live brine next week from Live Aquaria. Once he's bigger the plan was to feed live marine feeder shrimp.

I don't think I want to switch him over to dead foods. I've read they don't do well after the switch and I want to retain as much of his natural behavior as possible.

Any recommendations on what to gut load with?

jasonrusso · Dec 6, 2018

Tmm87 said:
I plan to try and get a couple small ghosties or some guppy/molly babies to give him initially. I was planning to buy some live brine next week from Live Aquaria. Once he's bigger the plan was to feed live marine feeder shrimp.

I don't think I want to switch him over to dead foods. I've read they don't do well after the switch and I want to retain as much of his natural behavior as possible.

Any recommendations on what to gut load with?

I'd buy the brine from someone like livebrineshrimp.com. You get a lot and it's pretty affordable.

I was buying the grass shrimp (ghost are fresh water) from them, but I was getting a lot of losses. I recently ordered from a guy on eBay, and I have been very happy with those.

As far as gut loading, I was putting vitachem in the brine shrimp and I feed the grass shrimp (in their own 10 gallon) NLS small pellets an hour before.

Before you condemn stick feeding, I stick feed primarily, and feed live as a treat to my lion, puffer, and angler. The angler is actually always active. He swims a lot and never really stays in the same place. Watch my videos earlier in this thread and you can see how poor of a hunter he is. He would be dead without stick feeding. He does get live shrimp from time to time.

lion king · Dec 6, 2018

Tmm87 said:
I plan to try and get a couple small ghosties or some guppy/molly babies to give him initially. I was planning to buy some live brine next week from Live Aquaria. Once he's bigger the plan was to feed live marine feeder shrimp.

I don't think I want to switch him over to dead foods. I've read they don't do well after the switch and I want to retain as much of his natural behavior as possible.

Any recommendations on what to gut load with?

I had them that small before, you can find ghosties small enough or guppies or molly fry like you said. He'll really have to pack away some brine shrimp.

Tmm87 · Dec 6, 2018

jasonrusso said:
I'd buy the brine from someone like livebrineshrimp.com. You get a lot and it's pretty affordable.

I was buying the grass shrimp (ghost are fresh water) from them, but I was getting a lot of losses. I recently ordered from a guy on eBay, and I have been very happy with those.

As far as gut loading, I was putting vitachem in the brine shrimp and I feed the grass shrimp (in their own 10 gallon) NLS small pellets an hour before.

Before you condemn stick feeding, I stick feed primarily, and feed live as a treat to my lion, puffer, and angler. The angler is actually always active. He swims a lot and never really stays in the same place. Watch my videos earlier in this thread and you can see how poor of a hunter he is. He would be dead without stick feeding. He does get live shrimp from time to time.

This guy (He's already named Reggie) will be the only fish in the tank. I've got a 10g nano reef set up just for him and will be upgrading him to a 20L that I plan to plumb into my main 60g down the road. Would being the only inhabitant change the outcome of hunting or are they just that poor at it?

As for the shrimp, I had seen that site and had planned to order from them. The ghosties and fry were temporary as that's what I have available locally. I didn't want to shell out money on food in the event that there's an issue in transit. It is cold as hell here in the Northeast right now. Fingers crossed that nothing will happen, but I like to play it safe.

Tmm87 · Dec 6, 2018

lion king said:
I had them that small before, you can find ghosties small enough or guppies or molly fry like you said. He'll really have to pack away some brine shrimp.

According to the Diver's Den listing, he's 1-1/8". So he's pretty tiny.

jasonrusso · Dec 6, 2018

Tmm87 said:
This guy (He's already named Reggie) will be the only fish in the tank. I've got a 10g nano reef set up just for him and will be upgrading him to a 20L that I plan to plumb into my main 60g down the road. Would being the only inhabitant change the outcome of hunting or are they just that poor at it?

As for the shrimp, I had seen that site and had planned to order from them. The ghosties and fry were temporary as that's what I have available locally. I didn't want to shell out money on food in the event that there's an issue in transit. It is cold as hell here in the Northeast right now. Fingers crossed that nothing will happen, but I like to play it safe.

I'm in Massachusetts, so I know how cold it is, lol.

These are the grass shrimp I bought. Like I said, very few losses and they are a good size. Some small ones as well. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/163339454818

If he is alone, it may help, but shrimp are fast and smart. The lion fish is a MUCH better hunter and doesn't miss.

lion king · Dec 6, 2018

He was an inch when I got him, I would turn off the pump, find the tiniest ghostie I could find, and used a feeding stick to corral him towards the warty. They can handle guppies easily and baby mollies with no problem, I used the feeding stick to corral them as well.

Tmm87 · Dec 6, 2018

lion king said:
He was an inch when I got him, I would turn off the pump, find the tiniest ghostie I could find, and used a feeding stick to corral him towards the warty. They can handle guppies easily and baby mollies with no problem, I used the feeding stick to corral them as well.

Beautiful frog. I'll keep that in mind.

Tmm87 · Dec 7, 2018

So here's Reggie. UPS was a little late showing up, box was a bit chilly but he seems none the worse for wear.

I missed his first fishing attempt on video. Thought I was recording but was to excited and fascinated watching him do his thing to hit the button. I did have it recording the second time (during feeding time).

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4kQtQsV5YRydRYrU9

He took two small guppy fry that I fed some Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef Flakes and some Formula 2 flake to. Gave them about 45 minutes to chow down then in they went. He had absolutely no interest in live adult brine or ghost shrimp.

Also, the small yellowtail blue damsel (who is 1.5x his size) is afraid of him.

His first fishing attempt was very classy. The second (in the video)...not so much.