Candied hogfish experience

[ponokareefer]

I got a pair of them a while back. After the larger one grew up, my cleaner shrimp dissapeared. I can't say for sure that they ate them, but I didn't add anything else and the cleaner shrimp had been there a couple of years. I thought maybe I had a crab or something in there, so bought a pest trap that I baited for a couple of weeks and didn't get anything.

I tried adding a pair of firefish, and they killed them both, never letting them come out from the rocks to eat. They also harrassed a cherub angel that was added after them, and I found the cherub angel dead outside of the tank from jumping out.

I had a mandarin goby for 2 years that was always fat and healthy. The candy hogfish were constantly on the prowl eating pods and decimated my population. The mandarin eventually starved to death.

They are beautiful, but I really regret getting them as I would rather have my shrimp and mandarin back. If you really want a pair, which are quite rare, I could see if I could try a bottle trap to get them out.