Prior to lunch......



After a feed of finely chopped mysis, brineshimp and Rod's Food. Check out the belly bulge.

Very nice looking fish

That's a gorgeous fish!

Nice. It's definitly thin-looking, but if it's eating so well, I think you'll be all set. Gorgeous fish.

It just started eating this well. Her weight should go up from here. It was a long hard month converting her.

Beautiful fish and pic! How is the male doing. Were you able to coax him into eating?

He died yesterday :-(

I'm sorry you lost the male. Good luck with the next one if you end up trying another male.

I'm going to look for a male that is fat fresh from the wholesalers. The last was a little skinny to begin with. Hopefully in the future these will be available CB because of the different people that are starting to try.

Sorry to hear you lost the male and hope you have success acquiring a healthy male. How cool would it be to get CB of these?

Not to get off topic, but my LFS got a shipment of ORA fish and corals and I was surprised to see some of their Yellow Assessors. Apparently ORA is breeding them again. This is great news because, for a once, the CB are actually cheaper than the WC ones! BTW, I picked one up for my tank.

you do know they eat sps. that is their diet

Good luck try to keep them. If you haven't already, check marinebreeder.org for care help. The site admin there (mark pederson?) is trying to breed them.

You do know that you are behind the times and that peeps have now kept them for over a year in the absence of corals. Umm... we've also successfully bred them... without the presence of SPS. They are evidently NOT obligate SPS consumers like everyone originally thought. They are quite sustainable on prepared foods. I just converted one of the "impossibles" over to frozen food... at least give me a little credit that I've done my research and I know what I'm up against to have accomplished such a task.




Ya, I've been closely monitoring others threads. They've been a great source of help. Anything ya read, keep pointing it my way :-)



I am SO ticked. They are super cheap right now and I have always planned on a harem of them. I just said so about a month ago in another thread. But I absolutely don't have a QT set up right now for them. I have way too many QTs on the go. Really bad timing and I'm sure I could squish another tank in here, but I feel I'm at the brink of juggling too much and don't want to risk it all. They'll be available again... I hope.


Last night the filefish ate PE mysis, brinshrimp and shaved fresh salmon.

Long story but Matt Pedersen is no longer associated with MOFIB. But yes, he has bred them.

Beautiful fish. Too bad about the male. Really clear photos by the way!

It is old news. Lots of people are keeping them with and without SPS corals, and they don't seem to damage the SPS corals. Some people think they don't actually eat the polyps at all but are targeting small crustaceans within the colonies. Makes sense since they seem to have that tunnel vision where they only recognize very small things as food when you first get them.

We stuck 5 (2.3.0) in a tank with LPS and softies and they are big and fat. Surprisingly they went right after a green Nephthea as soon as they got into the tank enough that we had to remove it...so, moral of the story is they are a bit unpredictable with their tastes!

The female is doing wonderfully. Loves most everything I put in the tank. She now recognizes me as "The Food God" and assumes the position when she sees me coming with a bowl in hand. Great fish!

nice fish renee! i am sure it found a good home. i have had my eyes on a fringed filefish lately, (waiting until I have the time to devote) but yours look nicer. Are you going to try to breed them?

+1 about the breeding

Also, you should take some more pics of it. I they have a really neat collor combo, I don't think there are any other fish with those shades of yellow and blue.

That's something I would like to look into when we move the beginning on next year.... I'll finally get my fish room! Thanks John.




Figured ya find em boring after awhile... QT tanks aren't that exciting. New pics the weekend!

Oh wait now...... this isn't the thread with all the pics in it. I do have other pics.... somewhere on here.

I love Harlequin Filefish.
We have looked into setting up a breeding project with these guys.
Still hoping to do it next spring when we move into a bigger space.

Other pics... page 2 if that doesn't come up automatically.

I need to work on colour balance or something.... everything looks washed out.

Eating.

youtube has been acting really strange for me, how about you guys?

I like the new (I guess?) pics haha. The colors are amazing and you took some really nice shots!

In the video, those were mysis shrimp right? They looked kinda alive, I couldn't really tell. Were they?

There's some maintenance going on with youtube.... I remember reading about it earlier.

That's actually BS.... Next comes the mysis chopped up.

Awesome photo!

Thanks. She looks pretty good? It looks to me like she's filling in, but I stare at her everyday.

I still lurk in other places too...lurk being the operative word. I'm surprised there wasn't more of a flamefest on this thread And yes, not only "bred", but let's be clear, raised them to the juvenile stage more than once, and the longest baby to survive so far made it to 6 months before getting whacked by Amyloodinium (and the other long term baby jumped while we were on vacation...talk about a frustrating end to the first chapter).

If you have legitimate filefish questions I'm always happy to help...the last thing I ever want to be accused of is publishing the article that increases demand and mortalities on a WC fish that I still very much consider expert only. They take a LONG time to fill in if they're in poor shape when you get them. I'm watching a female waste away that I've had for almost 2 years now??? Hoping I can get her back on the right track, but also acknowledging that we don't know the lifespan on this species, but 4-5 years in captivity seems to have been the most to date...which might reflect a naturally shorter lifespan in nature. Tough call...still much to learn!

Matt

She's started to seriously look at the pellet. Oh I hope I can get her to take it. I suspect she will, because this is the way she usually acts when about to accept a new food item. Ignores cyclops and anything that size or smaller. I tried her with some BBS shrimp and she was like "WTF....?" I love the Rod's food because it has fish eggs in it, but where she ignores the cyclops, it creates too much waste. When she gets put with the anthias maybe I'll use it again. The anthias will love the cyclops.

Gonna keep trying her with BBS too because that will mean another meal for her throughout the day.

So right now she is eating:

• Shaved fish flesh.
• Rinsed Rod's Food.
• Hikari mysis.
• PE mysis.
• Frozen Brine Shrimp.
• Flake Food

Still working on:

• Pellet Food.
• BBS.

Gonna try:

• Live Adult Brine (so I can get some Beta Glucan in her)

BINGO! She's taken pellets!

congrats on pellets. your the fish food changing master haha i have heard of tons of stories of people not being able to do it and have yet to see them on pellets. Congrats

This is reminding me of the days of training WC seahorses and breeding fry.

She just ate a Spectrum pellet that was floating on the surface. She ignored them in the water column. It's like she gets all excited with the smell of food, but can't see the tiny pellets. She's definitely liking larger food items now. But if it is too hard she can't get it in....

add *hates krill* to the list. I think I heard her say "POOEY!".

Any updates?

I have been throwing the idea of trying one out. When I say tryout I mean successfully get one to change over to frozen.

-Dave

She's doing very well. Eats like a little pig.

Just be sure you are willing to sacrifice some SPS... possibly for life.

Funny to me in the video how she will gobble some right up, then others she will follow with her snout and then just pass them up. Same food in the vid right? Not a mixture of things.

Nope. I believe it's all brine in that when I was looking at it again. Most times I put in her least favorite first and then top her off with her fav.

She prefers the slightly smaller pieces first, then the bigger and ignores the really small stuff.

Doing well.

update yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thanks seahorsedreams all ways look forward to your pics.
how are the anthias doing.

One of the anthias has either lock jaw or beat their mouth on something dislocating it. It's been like it for awhile now and they don't seem to care. They can still eat, but they look awkward. The other 2 larger ones beat this one up constantly. I still haven't figured out who the male is... they are not abiding by the trio rules.

A little then and now shot.



I can't get good pics of the anthias anymore because the tank they are in presently has totally bowed in the middle. I wish all my tanks were starfire glass.