and slimey

I have to agree with this. He bought this fish knowing that it would eat his sps. It looks like he has provided enough sps for the fish to eat with hopes that the sps corals will withstand the damage done to them. I believe that is what he meant when he said he was planning for the best.

:lol: I have to agree :wink:

ahah not all of them are sharp

It's okay, I don't mind being beat up for being on the fish-hugger side...I'd hate to be on the fish-abuser side :lol:

But remember, I've been there with SPS eating fish, my Moo, the Pakistani butterfly...trust me when they eat the polyps out, they don't grow back....

So where would the fish go next?

Anyway....that's just the way I see it...:razz:

I have a polyp eating regal angel, the polyps on my sps grow back. It takes awhile though

I have the tassled version of filefish in my aggressive/predator tank..they eat anything and are doing great...you have a real pretty fish there though, hope it does as well as mine are....keep the updated pics coming.

Attachment 3430

Interesting... I would of thought some would grow back. If his polyps don't grow back I'm guessing he'll need to eventually buy some more sps.

Did your angel only eat sps or did it eat other food as well? Just curious as to why your sps grew back while EmilyB's didn't.

Very cool fish, I don't think I've ever seen one before.

I have 2 of them and although they are not very colourful they are very cool looking..Not for reef tanks at all though. I was told this when I got them at King Eds..they were really small but they are growing well..one of my favorite fish's...:biggrin:

Not "did"...does. I still have her :lol:
She eats everything. Her mouth is getting big enough now that when she takes a bite of an sps (actually just the acros) she can remove 2 or 3 polyps, tissue and some of the skeleton. I do have a lot of corals though and she doesn't just pick on 1, she roams the tank picking on them all so there is time for the coral to grow back before she comes visiting again

Emily, if the SPS are not replaced with more SPS, the fish gets flushed or starves.
But in the meantime they are beautiful pictures, arn't they?

Oops :redface: sorry I knew you still had her not sure why I wrote did instead of does. Thanks for the info. I'm glad she spreads it out so your sps have a chance to somewhat recover before the next bite.

okay naesco, we got your point the first time you posted. It was a perfectly valid point, but I don't see the point of your posting again unless you actually something else useful to add to the thread.

I can't believe anyone thinks this is cruel...jeez.

People get sooooo hypocritical in this very, very selfish hobby. Every single person on this board is selfishly keeping creatures, some of which are in rapid decline worldwide, in small glass boxes for their personal pleasure. Give me a break. The wasted energy and water in this hobby is embarrassing at the best of times and your worried about a single fish being kept in a tank set up specifically for it?

He has grown several colonies of sps for this fish to eat. He has a great tank size relative to the fish and is obviously dedicated to giving this fish a great chance.

Half the people here keep tangs in 65 or 75G tanks and this is a problem?

I think its great what you are doing sphelps and this is exactly why the hobby has come so far and we have the knowledge to keep some delicate species.

FTS

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...S/DSC_1709.jpg

Thank you, I was going to post almost the same points. It's laughable how some people judge who is cruel and who isn't while they sit at home looking into their own box full of life taken from the wild. Get over it, we're all puting animals into a small home for our own pleasure. Do you honestly think you're better than the next guy because your tang is in a 6' tank and his/hers is in a 5' tank? How many fish die to get one that will survive in captivity? I'm guessing with some species, you wouldn't want to know.

There is one reason I DO think this is a bad idea though... :)

That tank is beautiful! Hope he doesn't devastate those nice sps. Even if he does though, it will be a great experience trying to keep this fish.

Ahh, I'd rather have my SPS tank devastated by that nice looking file fish than AEFW's!!!! Seriously, you could loose it all tommorow with a pump failure or something. Might as well enjoy it!

:biggrin: I see the file fish! you have a gorgeous tank steve, I sincerely hope it can keep up. is the file always up and about like that or does it tend to be reclusive?

edit: thought just occured to me. If down the road, the SPS are obviously not keeping up and are receding, would you consider changing your lighting spectrum to 6500K or so to get increased growth? Obviously at the cost of losing the brilliant colours in exchange for brown sticks, as well as a likely horrendous algae bloom. you could probably control the latter with biological control (army of snails and a foxface maybe?)

Wow is all I've got to say about your tank, it looks great in there. I hope the file fish works out for you and that the SPS keeps looking so good.

I was just thinking the same thing. The best growth I ever had for SPS was with Iwasaki's, ... might be worth setting up a tank with quicker growing SPS under optimal PAR lighting for the sake of growing out the "food grade acros." :lol: Hey why not, there are plenty of things we do for the sake of favouring certain animals...

I think this is a great idea. A frag tank of sorts with 6500K bulbs for growth. Figure out what he is eating the most and what is growing the fastest and grow as much as you can as fast as you can.

Interesting ethical discussion.

GSP/Fishmaster
Some non reefers are critical of reefers who keep fish and coral in glass boxes.
But reefers all agree that we than have an obligation to provide the optimum conditions for the fish and coral in our care. Nothing less is acceptable. Most reefers resist the urge to buy that colourful purple nudi or whatever because experts have already told us the survival liklihood. To attempt to justify such purchase for the purpose of improving the hobby IMO is nothing more than an attempt to justify a wrong purchase. The fact is that the advances that have been made in fish and coral care are not made by us on this or any other board. The advances in care are being made by scientists and fish and coral experts.

Justin, in fairness, I chose not to reply to his repost.

Sphelps, your tank is beautiful and your photography outstanding, but I would like to know what is happening now as you have had the fish for a few days.
Is he eating? SPS? Significant damage? Is he eating any other food?
How are your SPS reacting?
Would appreciate an update when you can. tks
Wayne Ryan

wayne, I am glad you're not getting all up in arms with me; my goal was not to incite anything. flame wars suck.

steve, one more thought, if you do decide to set a 6500k food-acro grow tank (doooooooo iiiiit :D), Maybe present some brown sticks to the filefish without changing your display tank's lighting. I'd be interested if there might be a preference to slower growing polyps rather than fast growing polyps or vice versa. Wish we could somehow do a nutritional profile on the two to compare if the filefish does exhibit a preference.

I think some DIY people would disagree. I've seen a lot of randoms come up with new and innovative ideas that I think you could easily argue to having improved coral care

Plus who says scientists and fish/coral experts aren't on forums??

Plus the market demand, which is in part influenced by forums, is likely a reason why some scientists do research and likely how, in part, people become fish and coral experts.

No one is justifying the wrong purpose. The wrong purchase would have been me if say I bought this fish and put him in my soft coral dominated tank. I actually do have one acro though, so maybe it would have been fine? THAT would be justifying a bad purchase.

Are you actually serious about advances in the hobby being made by scientists? There are relatively few biologists doing anything for this hobby unless its to make a profit. Most marine biologists are not working in the commercial aquarium hobby. Many of the advancements in this hobby have come straight from reefers. These boards are proof of it everyday.

Not to mention, a majority of retailers/manufacturers are on these forums and many, many of the advancements in equipment have come from OUR advice/needs/observations, ect...all from these kind of boards. ;)

No this particular filefish will just turn around and start eating frozen mysis like most other orange spots do. It's not exactly an easy fish to keep but it's not really difficult either.

Get better information before you start whining Wayne.

Demonstrably false, see www.marinebreeder.org

Are you actually serious about advances in the hobby being made by scientists? There are relatively few biologists doing anything for this hobby unless its to make a profit. Most marine biologists are not working in the commercial aquarium hobby. Many of the advancements in this hobby have come straight from reefers. These boards are proof of it everyday.

I am absolutely serious. There are marine scientists on marine scientific forums who do nothing but study fish and coral
There are expert marine fish and coral aquarists. I don't have to tell you who they are. We all buy their books. The advances come from scientists to experts and than to us. We should be guided by their advice.

That is not to say that members of this board do not learn from the advice and experience of others on the board. That is its function and the board is doing a great job in educating us all.

I never said there were no marine biologist working to advance the hobby. I simply said it was very false to state as you did, that we do absolutely nothing for the hobby.

You know what you should do though if you want to accuse someone of mistreating fish...go to Youtube and look for the nano cube (I think its around 20G) with the Porcupine Puffer, Snowflake eel and Triggerfish. Oh and think there was a damsel too if I remember correctly.

So am I still cruel? Or are we all over that? I'm a little confused with all this talk about scientists and biologists :lol:

I think the fish is still adjusting, it seems to stick to one area of the tank and doesn't venture very far, when it first went in it took a few bits from some SPS but I haven't noticed anything since. Not sure how often this guy needs to eat but so far no noticeable damage, it's far too early for that. My one hope is that the fish is not species specific and will only eat polyps from one type of SPS, if it is not I have no concerns.

I will post some macro pictures of some of the corals I find him eating the most, this should allow for some good before and after analysis.

I don't think I will be switching my lighting, I've gone through a lot to get it where I like it, there are 6 39W T5s with reflectors and 2 250W DE halides. I can increase growth and coral vitality with zeovit additives and maintaining high calcium and alkalinity.

I would like to change my setup a little and make room for a larger frag tank and a dosing system which is in my future plans but I can't do it right now. I like the fish but I'm not going to go too far out of my way, if that makes me a bad person so be it, but I'm not any worse than the rest of you.

sphelps, just wondering is it taking other food?

Nope

FWIW, my suggestion for the 6500K lighting was for a different tank, like a frag growout tank. You would not want to use that lighting over your main display as you have it now. The worst case scenario would be that the fish would have to be removed from this display and moved into that one. :)

Fwiw??

For what it's worth

Does naesco actually own a tank or does he just tell people what fish they should not keep. Don't want to start a war just wondering as I would like to see some of his tanks if he has any.

Some stats on what we are all part of just to put this file fish in perspective.
This hobby is not environmentally friendly but if it was not for us there would not be the captive breeding and aquaculture that we have today and hopefully at some point we will be able to sustain this industry.
http://www.aaas.org/international/af...eefs/ch4.shtml

ohhhhh...... thanks

FWIW I think it's a beautiful fish and a LUCKY one at that, most don't go into the proper setup and starve, sphelps' can actually feed it :)

I love my corals but I don't kid myself that they have much feeling - or I wouldn't be able to live with myself when I cut them up and glue them to rocks!! If it came to choosing between the fish and the coral I'd sacrifice the coral.

So would I...I am more of a fish person than a coral person though. Corals are just there to decorate the fishes home. No different than putting a painting on the wall :)


But I don't eat my paintings.