looking for multibarred angelfish (centropyge multifasciata) experience
 

Saw one at the LFS today, fell in love. Are they difficult to keep? So far everything I'm reading says they're pretty reef safe but not much info on ease of care other than providing lots of rock to graze on and that they're timid. I have a fair bit of flow in my tank so I can't be putting any wishy washy fish in there that can't hold their own to the currents.

Anyone out there have one?

I've heard they are hard to keep but I remember someone on this board was successful.

Cheers,
Vic

I just happened to be looking at the Aquarium Illusions blog and seen they got one in an order or 2 ago might want to give them a call.

Hey Christy. I saw him eating but definately a timid little guy. If you decide to get it get a hold of me first.

Any Angel in a reef is risky, your sps can take it but any zoas, lps or clams may have to be removed in a worse case scenario.....I finally got rid of all my angels today :whoo:

I believe they are a very difficult fish to keep but see this advice if you are thinking of getting one.
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume...tifasciata.htm

Wayne

Thanks, I have read that one (and most of whatever else I can find on them).

Yeah, thats more the info I was looking for. I don't mind the LPS and zoas as I don't have many and they'd be easy to offload but I think I love my clams more than this fish so likely I'll be leaving it at the store :neutral: They had a lovely copperband butterfly that I would like to have too but they seem to be hit and miss as well with clams and such.

I've heard they mostly eat sps but maybe I'm thinking of a similar angelfish.

from what I've read they like to pick but apparently if you distract them with enough food they'll leave the sps alone for the most part. with my luck I'd get a total coral muncher, although I have a lot of sps for it to eat :razz:

I've moved my clams out of the 180, so if you still want to buy it, you could keep it at my house.

check out my avatar!
one of my favorite fish!

i kept one before! and i loved him! such a striking dwarf angel!
don't know if you remember, but way back in the day i had a thriving full blown mixed reef. mostly sps, some softies, mushrooms, zoos, clams. the angel was a model citizen. never saw it picking anything. ate well. i mostly fed frozen mysis. lost him when i had a tank crash.

having said that, i do remember trying a pair sometime after. and that did not fare well. if i recall correctly 1 died after only a couple days and the other followed within the week.

so in regards to hardiness, i'd say its hit or miss. my experience is no help there.

all i can say is that when doing well, and behaving well, this fish is awesome! and one day i will try again, either as a single specimen, or in a harem.

just curious, what is it priced at?

Thanks Shao! I remembered last night that you had one (or had one at some point). I'm still sorely tempted but the YMMV variability with clams sort of puts the brakes on and I think I'll go with the bellus angel pair as I had originally planned. The one at the LFS is priced at $99.

LOL, I"ll keep that in mind. Where'd your clams go?

One expired, the other is in the 50g in Elise's room.

From my experience they are hit and miss when it comes to hardiness and it is more often a miss. The biggest problem is getting them to eat. If you can do that then generally they do well, but some just refuse to eat no matter what you do.

With that being said, I do have one currently in a softie/lps tank. For the most part he seems to leave everything alone but is really hard on the big fleshy brains. Other than that, he has left the zoanthids, leathers, euphyllia, etc alone. I don't have any clams in there however.

thats a good choice.
even if the multibar is eating, as with most angels, theyre still hit or miss on being reef safe.
cant go wrong with bellus, and a pair would be beautiful!

I'm also looking at stocking ideas for my new tank, sorry to semi thread hijack but is it good general rule of thumb that the Genicanthus genus are going to be your reef safe larger angels?

hehe, you can't hijack a thread this old...

but yes, genicanthus angels are considered the most reliably 'reef safe' angels, as far as angels go anyway.

This thread was from 2012 so you aren't hijacking anything.:lol:
Generally speaking, Genicanthus angels are more reef safe than any other angels. But, I have heard of occasion reports of them nipping at LPS, including my pair of larmark that are nipping at my open brain and acan from time to time. They are trying to eat the mucus and/or the waste from the mouth of LPS. This action doesn't seem to bother my LPS.

Wow, how did I even get reading it, time to slow down lol. Thanks guys

I've had my bellus for 2+ years and she's a model citizen :)

+1. Love mine to!