As a quick FYI, I've been stung by rabbitfish before and it hurts far more than what you'd feel being stung by a lionfish... Or a really mean wasp for that matter.

That does make me nervous . . . I won't be stickin' my hand in the tank without gloves anymore.

Excellent name :mrgreen:

I also felt bad keeping our Smudge in a 20g QT for 15 days, and we are probably risking some kind of future DT infection
He was doing well in the QT but paced a lot
Once he was in the DT he stopped pacing and started to eat even more than before
He's now the biggest piggy we have
He eats NLS pellets, mysis, brine ( 'cause of the PJs ), Nori and now HBH super soft spirulina pellets ( thanks for the tip Myka )

Hope Shade settles in quickly :smile:

Have you tried hand-feeding yet ?
Smudge will come right to me when he sees food in my hand and eats nori out of my fingers
He also scares the hell out of me as he follows me around the tank when I'm doing other stuff :lol:

You'll get used to it ...
As I said, Smudge makes me nervous but, as long as I don't make any sudden movements, all is good :mrgreen:

When I'm doing things that may surprise him, I just corral him to the other end of the tank

BTW, I don't think they will purposely 'poke' us
I would think we'd have to 'grab' them to get stung

If you look at how Shade reacts to things, you'll see they only flare when they are still or hiding/sleeping, so I find it hard to think we'd be stung by a fleeing fish :lol:

This guy was ramming into the glass in the QT. It was actually quite alarming. It would happen when the tank light was on and the bathroom light was off, or vice versa. Hubby kept forgetting this, and kept turning the bathroom light off. He'd swim very erratically at times, too. He wound up so worn out from ripping around the tank that he wound up stuck to the canister filter inlet.

Hand feeding? Nope. Lol. I'll let him settle first.

Bah, it's easy to hand feed :razz:

Just hold some nori in your fingers and only have your tips in the water
Next time show more fingers, and so on

Next thing you know, he'll be picking at your hand :smile:

My Foxface is an awesome fish! Spends most of the time out in the open and is a PIG! Eats everything and anything. Great for algae control. He even ate cyano a little once... I don't think we will ever do that again though! His belly showed some red through it and he was acting erratically. Once it passed through, he was back to normal.

I don't think they would ever intentionally sting you, however, catch it off guard and you never really know... I have never been close to it happening but I am all ways aware of where he is and making sure he sees that my hands are in the water so that it stays away.

As for disease, most Rabbitfish are very hardy. I had ich once at the start of my tank and he was able to battle through it with no harm done. Much hardier than most tangs, etc.