Good-bye pipefish

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by Samw

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/hcs3/index.php

"Care of pipefish is rather simple. When researched and assembled correctly, a pipefish aquarium can be remarkably fulfilling with little additional effort from the hobbyist. "

Great link That is the site that I read through before getting my blueline pipefish. It's the site that Christy links canreef to for info on pipefish.

[mark]

Having seem you fuge, can't see what more a pipefish would want.

Old age? Wasn't like you grew this one from an egg to know how old it was.

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by mark

Having seem you fuge, can't see what more a pipefish would want.

Old age? Wasn't like you grew this one from an egg to know how old it was.

Thanks! I like to think it's a pretty good home for a pipefish

[JakartaOrBust]

I would say I am a middle experienced level fish keeper, and with some knowledge rather than experience, I have been able to keep my blue stripe pipefish alive (knock on wood), happy, and very fat for 4+ months in my main system. Originally I built them their own hideaway in a HOB refugium complete with lots of macro, lots of pods and they did OK. Til one day they both "prison breaked" and entered the main system. Now they're fatter than ever and I don't directly feed them anything. They just live off whats happening in the main and no one in my tank bothers them. They even love playing in the current of my koralia 3 for some reason.

Heres the behavior though that I was wondering if anyone has experienced...
Has anyone noticed their bluestriped's cleaning other fish??? I looked in my tank this evening and both the male and female were cleaning the sides of my foxface in the open water column of my tank. at first I thought they were biting him or something like that, but the foxface was dorsal fin down and sitting there accepting it.

[tang daddy]

I have never seen my pipefish clean other tank mates.... I have kept mine for over 6 months in my main display with tunzes, for the most part he resides in the back of the rock work and comes out at night when the lights are off cause the flow is less turbulent. At feeding time I have a stainless steel stick that I use to feed though he is the last to eat he swims right up to the feed stick and does a head nod while sucking motion which usually breaks the mysis in half then goes for it a few more times. He usually eats 2-3 at one feeding and a truly awesome fish to watch almost seahorseish ways of swimming. Funny thing is I never saw him for a few months when I first put him in, but he's still kickin and I would miss him lots if he was gone.

I'm sorry to hear about your pipe fishe's sudden death.....
I have had a few different fishes eat and live for awhile then die for no apparent reason. The sad thing is you never know how they have been caught/handled upon arrival that could lead later to death.

A few lfs stores have them in all the time however they are straight up to warn you if it's a good or bad idea to keep them. I almost wanted to P/u a dragon pipefish a few times but decided against it as it wouldn't take frozen, the way I see it is if you think you can keep them and have the right enviroment to let them live then why not..... It's not like the fishes have a choice to return to the ocean once it's arrived in a store.