Baby (1 1/2") Frogfish Care!

[Chriss Fishes]

Hey!

 

I came across a very small frogfish at my LFS yesterday. I had been wanting to do a predator tank (75 gallon) anyway, and frogfish/leafish/scorpions/lions were all on the list. I already own a small (3") Volitan Lion who's been doing very well for me, and hope to get a few other interesting predators to round out the tank. The Volitan will be rehomed if/when he begins to outgrow the tank, but for now, he's very comfortable.

 

 

This frogfish seems healthy - it was eating small ghost shrimp in the store, and I've been able to feed it the same at home. He's settled in well, and seems to be pretty active, for a frogfish. I do have a few questions on this guy:

 

1) Can someone help me ID his species? I tried to do it myself, but it got overwhelming fairly quickly. If he's going to get too large to be kept in the 75 or is going to be too small to live with the lion, I can move him to one of my other tanks no problem.

 

2) From what I understand, feeding these guys 1-2X a week is plenty, correct? The ghost shrimp he's eating are gut-loaded, and are easily 50-75% his size - are these too big/too much? Should I feed him twice a week? Once? More often since he's so young?

 

3) Is net-training him the best way to feed? He's not afraid of the net, and that's how I delivered him food today. He strolled right onto it once he found out that's where the food is. Any tips on feeding in general?

 

4) He does have a ton of small spots on him that do resemble ich, That said, after doing some online research, it seems these are common in frogfish and are known as "spinules", and are a side-effect of their camo mechanism. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Thanks for all the help! I've done quite a bit of reading on these guys in the past, but he wasn't a planned addition to my tanks yet. Just happened along him in my LFS, and he was getting picked on by a bi-color dottyback... I felt sorry for him!

[Tired]

I unfortunately can't help you with any of that, I've never kept frogfish. Just had to say, he's adorable! 

 

If he's already willing to eat out of a net, you might consider seeing if you can teach him to eat frozen. Maybe off of tongs. Frozen food is much easier to keep readily available than live food, after all, and doesn't escape, stress itself out, or harass/attempt to injure a full-stomached predator. If he'll reliably go into the net and eat a shrimp inside, maybe put a frozen shrimp in the net instead and see if he just takes it. 

[Chriss Fishes]

2 minutes ago, Tired said:

I unfortunately can't help you with any of that, I've never kept frogfish. Just had to say, he's adorable! 

 

If he's already willing to eat out of a net, you might consider seeing if you can teach him to eat frozen. Maybe off of tongs. Frozen food is much easier to keep readily available than live food, after all, and doesn't escape, stress itself out, or harass/attempt to injure a full-stomached predator. If he'll reliably go into the net and eat a shrimp inside, maybe put a frozen shrimp in the net instead and see if he just takes it. 

That was actually what I tried first - I tried frozen krill, gulf shrimp, mysis, brine, and a piece of clam. No luck - from what I've heard these guys don't tend to survive when fed frozen foods (even when they eat them readily), although I don't know if there's any truth to that.

[Tired]

Ah, too bad. At least he'll eat live readily. 

 

From what I know of predatory fish, pretty much anything that gets a suitable food to them, with a minimum of shenanigans, is a good enough way to feed. Do you have any complaints about just feeding him out of a net for the rest of his life? Probably a good way to help keep his food to him, instead of it being stolen. 

 

I would suspect that, if it's true that they don't do well on frozen foods, it might have something to do with lack of variation and lack of internal organs in the food. If you give a cat nothing but muscle meat, and no organs or bones, you won't have a very healthy cat. Which is why "animal by-products" is actually something you want to see on pet food! That's the organs. If you give a predatory fish just the meaty parts of a shrimp, without the organs, I expect you'd get a similar result. Possibly the frozen shrimp weren't gut-loaded before being fed, either, which may not help even if the organs were actually included. 

[Chriss Fishes]

2 minutes ago, Tired said:

Ah, too bad. At least he'll eat live readily. 

 

From what I know of predatory fish, pretty much anything that gets a suitable food to them, with a minimum of shenanigans, is a good enough way to feed. Do you have any complaints about just feeding him out of a net for the rest of his life? Probably a good way to help keep his food to him, instead of it being stolen. 

 

I would suspect that, if it's true that they don't do well on frozen foods, it might have something to do with lack of variation and lack of internal organs in the food. If you give a cat nothing but muscle meat, and no organs or bones, you won't have a very healthy cat. Which is why "animal by-products" is actually something you want to see on pet food! That's the organs. If you give a predatory fish just the meaty parts of a shrimp, without the organs, I expect you'd get a similar result. Possibly the frozen shrimp weren't gut-loaded before being fed, either, which may not help even if the organs were actually included. 

You may be right about the organs - I'm not sure! It'd make sense, though.

 

I don't mind feeding him out of a net at all, actually. The lion is terrified of it, so it's a good way to keep him from eating the angler's food. He's a pig! I'll probably keep the stocking down to just 3-4 predators (the lion, the angler, and maybe a couple of scorpions), so I don't think feeding will be too bad once I get everyone trained.

[Tired]

Oh, wait, they're in the same tank? Isn't it a bad idea to put lionfish with anything that's not at least as big as them? Granted, they aren't quite as bad as frogfish, but a lionfish is just a mouth on fins. Like a toad.

[Tamberav]

You can buy live clams at an asian grocery store.... freeze them and then serve. 
 

Clams are basically a huge organ and very healthy. They are fresh and way better than clams on half shell (those don’t look right to me, like some of the good stuff was washed away or removed, they are super cheap and look like shoe leather).

 

They are super nutritious for fish and a favorite of butterflies and such. I have no experience with a frog fish but I can’t imagine a fresh live clam.. would be anything but good?

 

I buy and freeze them. They are easier to pry open after frozen. I figure freezing might kill some parasites and obviously I can’t let clams die and rot so it prevents waste. It’a not processed or frozen for long periods so it should be healthy and delicious.

 

It may be something to research to try and add more variety to his diet.

[Chriss Fishes]

8 hours ago, Tired said:

Oh, wait, they're in the same tank? Isn't it a bad idea to put lionfish with anything that's not at least as big as them? Granted, they aren't quite as bad as frogfish, but a lionfish is just a mouth on fins. Like a toad.

In most cases, for sure! That said, I've kept smaller fish with this guy for a few months. He's shown no interest in them, so I was pretty sure this guy would be okay. The lion has a big mouth, but I've got a pretty good idea of what he can and can't eat - and I think this frog fish, once all is said and done, is just a bit too tall. That said, if I can ID the frogfish and learn how much/fast he's going to grow, I'll be able to make an educated decision on whether or not these guys can grow up together.

 

Plus, I keep him well-fed enough that he's usually in a food coma somewhere. 🙄

 

4 hours ago, Tamberav said:

You can buy live clams at an asian grocery store.... freeze them and then serve. 
 

Clams are basically a huge organ and very healthy. They are fresh and way better than clams on half shell (those don’t look right to me, like some of the good stuff was washed away or removed, they are super cheap and look like shoe leather).

 

They are super nutritious for fish and a favorite of butterflies and such. I have no experience with a frog fish but I can’t imagine a fresh live clam.. would be anything but good?

 

I buy and freeze them. They are easier to pry open after frozen. I figure freezing might kill some parasites and obviously I can’t let clams die and rot so it prevents waste. It’a not processed or frozen for long periods so it should be healthy and delicious.

 

It may be something to research to try and add more variety to his diet.

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to look into it.

 

After some more research, it seems that especially large meals aren't good for anglers - so I should probably feed smaller stuff from here on out. That said, I've also found some people saying they got theirs to survive on frozen. So maybe frozen foods are an option?

 

It's shocking how scarce info is on these guys! And how many people have completely different opinions and experiences with them. Some say they'll die on frozen, some say they'll die on live, others say they won't live for more than a year regardless.

 

Other than that, it's more of the same - feed ghost shrimp (or chromis/guppies/mollies) 2x a week. I'll try the clam idea, and I'll keep trying frozen foods. I'm hoping if I can get him to associated the net with food, after a few live feedings he'll take frozen from it.

[jambon]

Good luck.. I have kept probably 4 or 5 over the years... one day fine next day dead. It is beyond me why.. I have fed a variety of live foods. Any way it is still one of my favorite fishes . So many different kinds though . As far as the type you have? Maybe a giant frogfish. The problem if he does get large is the ammount of poop he will produce.. But that will be some time.

 

[Chriss Fishes]

8 hours ago, jambon said:

Good luck.. I have kept probably 4 or 5 over the years... one day fine next day dead. It is beyond me why.. I have fed a variety of live foods. Any way it is still one of my favorite fishes . So many different kinds though . As far as the type you have? Maybe a giant frogfish. The problem if he does get large is the ammount of poop he will produce.. But that will be some time.

 

I've heard they can be quite tricky! I hope to have good luck with this guy

[kekke1082]

Really gorgeous fish! I dont have personal experience so don't have much to offer. I'm hust following along bc i eventually want a predator tank or species only tank featuring the frog fish