Moorish Idols, real experience??

[BCOrchidGuy]

Does anyone have real experience with these fish, how difficult did you find them, how large did you find they got, fav foods etc??? Would a 155 gallon be large enough for one...

Doug

[EmilyB]

Basically all I would say is you can't do it Doug. Call me crazy.

Sam??

I only have three months experience in a 230g with an Idol in captivity for about two years.

I feed continually, have a Euroreef skimmer I empty often, and water change large amounts.

Let's see, they eat spirulina flake, tabs, pellets, sheets of nori, mysis, homemade food....

[BCOrchidGuy]

Emily, I know they are difficult to keep.... but wow, beautiful.. the LFS just got 3 in about 3-4 inches tall... $22 each.. gosh.. I just don't want to buy a fish that I'm going to kill, but at the same time I know someone is going to try putting them in a 30 gallon reef.... arrggggg.... they are beautiful.. wow...I wonder if they'd do better if they grow into a tank.

Doug

[EmilyB]

Well given you know they eat continually and you feel you can deal with that......good luck and make sure you have super oxygenation

Taken from a previous thread, this is what I have done to keep them and it has worked great for me.

Ive only had one Morish Idol die on me out of about 15 I have gotten in, and it didnt ship very well, died in a day... Get your blender out and mix up some clams, mussles, squid, spirilina, nori, mysis, and any other stinky fish food you can find, blend it till its mushy with some chunks, get out some dry small pieces of base rock around the size of your fist, and smear the stinky crap all over 1 side of the base rock, now you dry it in the oven with the oven on really low, once dry, put various food rocks in freezer bags and throw them in the freezr. After your morish idol has been in the tank for a day, drop one of the food rocks in and they usually go to town in a short time. If they still dont seem to be eating enough, I usually pull them out of the tank and put them in a water tray, similar to a baking pan, and I put a plastic syringe down their throat and pump them full of yogurt, mysis, and appetite stimulant, once Ive done that, I have never had another problem with one... After all that has been done, they get used to normal feeding procedures.

In addition to this I have had good success with feeding hikari mega marine angel, and mega marine algae

[reefer_11]

Originally Posted by BCOrchidGuy

Emily, I know they are difficult to keep.... but wow, beautiful.. the LFS just got 3 in about 3-4 inches tall... $22 each.. gosh.. I just don't want to buy a fish that I'm going to kill, but at the same time I know someone is going to try putting them in a 30 gallon reef.... arrggggg.... they are beautiful.. wow...I wonder if they'd do better if they grow into a tank.

Doug

hmm more dead Idols... Nice to see we place our own satisfaction above the life of the animals in our care..


These fish belong in the Ocean.. SamW's was an exception.. Don't count it as the norm..

ie.. let them die in the stores tank. So they won't bring anymore in. Tho I guarantee someone not knowing will buy them. Or someone knowing will buy them and think they are above the inevitable.

[sumpfinfishe]

Here, Here
I agree with reefer_11
Sam's or now Deb's "Moo" I think is an exception, some fish simply remain in our natural oceans and not our man-made ones.

Other than Kyles stats, I would wonder how many Morish and Angels for that matter don't make it

[Van down by the river]

I agree with reefer 11 too, I've seen these tried by many people, even in a 300 gallon reef and apart from Sam's I've not seen any survive longer than a few months(With the exception of public aquariums).

Hey Kyle maybe you can post a picture of all these Moorish Idols for us to see?

[StirCrazy]

Doug, leave them at the store and save the 22 bucks for other things. Sam's wasn't the exception, it was the luckey one (there will always be lucky fish that for some reason survive) and it isn't because of any meracoulous fish keeping seacret but just because you got lucky.

Steve

[Aquattro]

Ya, I agree with Darren also.