Any angler fish experts?

[lion king]

Anglers will eat anything up to their own size, and try even larger. When they eat something as large as themselves they almpost always die, so tankmates have to be too large for them to eat. They will eat each other, so keeping more than one is not a good idea, the old keeping them well fed is ridiculous, nature is nature. Choice in tank mates have to be carefully considered as many fish will pick on the sedentary angler. This will quickly develop into a bacterial infection and they will not survive, treatment on anglers usually don't succeed.

Many people will want alot of action in 220g, your choices in fish may need to reconsidered. The angler and fu manchu are sedentary and will need to be fed live foods for long term success. Pay attention to how long people keep these fish when advising you on how to train them to eat dead foods. The only somewhat hardy angler that the fu manchu would be safe with, is the wartskin angler, all the other would get large enough to eat them.

Keeping a fu manchu, wartskin angler, and a dwarf hawaiian eel is something like a 40-60g would be so much more fun and manageable. Here's some that I have kept.

 

[GK3]

I am seriously considering getting a couple angler fish for a 220 gallon tank. Anyone have experience with these in a mixed reef. I was also wondering what the difference was that makes the Striated angler peaceful and the others semi-aggressive? I am really going to try for several out of the ordinary fish or inhabitants that I normally don't see in a reef tank.

Thanks for any input or help on this,

Paul

I have one in my mixed reef now. It’s him and a dwarf eel and 2 chromi. He can’t catch the chromi. Anything you put in there that isn’t 2.5x his size, he will attempt to eat once he is hungry enough. Also - I had the ambition for keeping him on live food. Doing anything other than ghost shrimp is a pain or gets expensive. My advise is to do frozen and live that way you have a backup if you can get to the store that week. Also understand that a lot of conventional remedies for issues in the tank are ruled out with an angler. Can’t do peppermint shrimp for aptasia, can’t use chemi clean for algae (killed my old angler). Awesome fish but has some special care needs.

 

[G Santana]

i have a 4 inch wartskin in my fowlr. only thing is they will try to eat anything that will fit in its mouth.mine tried to eat my red sea sailfin tang. i had to intervene or he woulda been gone. the only thing i can get mine to eat is like cromis,damsels,shrimp

Yes they will, anything coming close enough and small enough... bye lol

 

[Chibils]

Are there any issues with feeding mollies? You could set up a harem in a 20G or similar, acclimate them to saltwater, use a sponge filter, and have a near-infinite supply of free food once the fry grow up.