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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Purple firefish hiding


aerotiy

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I just got a purple firefish yesterday, spent an hour drip acclimating it and then when I released it into the tank and went to throw the bag away, it went deep into hiding.

 

I spent a while looking and finally found it deep within the rockwork. I turned out the lights early to give it lots of time in the dark to get comfortable.

 

This morning I couldn’t even see the tail anymore in the hiding spot and couldn’t see it anywhere else so I lifted the rocks a little and there it was buried deep in the rocks. I’m leaving it alone for now but I don’t know how long I should wait before getting worried about it. I’m afraid it won’t come out to eat and it’ll die somewhere in the rocks and I won’t know and it’ll mess with the water chemistry.

 

So any advice on purple firefish and if he’ll ever come out and how long it can go without food would be awesome 

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fishkeepersaltnfresh

Firefish do hide a lot. It will take some time to acclimatize. In my experience with firefish, it would hide a lot initially. But would come out to eat. After some days you will be able to see him swim more often. It depends on tankmates as well. Will do better with peaceful fishes.....

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9 minutes ago, fishkeepersaltnfresh said:

Firefish do hide a lot. It will take some time to acclimatize. In my experience with firefish, it would hide a lot initially. But would come out to eat. After some days you will be able to see him swim more often. It depends on tankmates as well. Will do better with peaceful fishes.....

Ok I will do a frozen brine shrimp feeding later and see if he comes out for food. The only other fish in there is an ocellaris clown and the only other fish I’m thinking of adding is a goby, nothing aggressive.

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Picking up the rocks will only stress it more and may make it take even longer to come out. If you were to catch it, its not like you can force food down its gullet. Nothing you can do but wait.

 

Sometimes fish take weeks to come out, others even months depending how shy and cryptic a fish is. Most seem to survive just fine without intervention.

 

With this type of fish I would say at least a few days to a week.

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I added two purple firefish about 3 weeks ago and they disappeared for the first few days. . Not a sign. Now they hang out in the open and come swimming to the front whenever I walk up.  Great personalities!  They rarely ever get more than 10" away from their hiding place though. They like to dart in and out.  Just this morning I couldn't find one of them for about an hour.  I finally noticed a turban snail had wedged in their normal hiding place so I moved him and the missing fish showed up minutes later! 

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I came home a while ago and noticed the firefish had come out! When it saw me it darted back in but I put some shrimp in there and it actually did come out to eat so I’m happy. It’s swimming with the clown a bit but it is staying very close to the cave. Thanks everyone :) I won’t worry too much

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  • 5 years later...

Ok so I just got a purple fire fish a d my tang when strait for him I've removed the tang and put him in my sump because of his aggressive behavior it's driving me nuts I've never liked a bully but hopefully after a week or so things will change will my purple fire fish ever come out?

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