Considering adding a pipe fish to a heavily stocked nano

HarryC · Jul 24, 2019

I have a 29 gallon display tank. This is my first saltwater tank, but it's been going well. My LFS just got some really cool pipe-fish in. My reefing buddies and LFS owner ( I trust both quite a bit ) are encouraging me it'd be a great fish in my community, but I'm not sold. Open to opinions.

Fish :
Bonded pair Ocellaris
Bonded pair Mandarins
Baby Foxface Lo 2"
Orange Spotted Goby

A bit more info about the mandarins. They were purchased 8 weeks ago from Live Aquaria un-bonded after extensive research and preperation. I cultivate them Tsibe pods, rotifers, and baby brine shrimp loaded with phyto. They also were accepting enriched frozen brine and mysis day three. When they arrived, the female was extremely skinny, but has put on considerable weight in our short time together. I've got such an abundance of pods I'm trading jars for frags, more concerned with the Pipefish being bullied than hungry.

Thanks in advance!
Harry

HarryC · Jul 24, 2019

Daniel@R2R · Jul 24, 2019

I'll bump this for someone with more experience than me with pipefish, but I think it'll work as long as you've got the food issue covered

I'm a natural blue · Jul 25, 2019

HarryC said:
I have a 29 gallon display tank. This is my first saltwater tank, but it's been going well. My LFS just got some really cool pipe-fish in. My reefing buddies and LFS owner ( I trust both quite a bit ) are encouraging me it'd be a great fish in my community, but I'm not sold. Open to opinions.

Fish :
Bonded pair Ocellaris
Bonded pair Mandarins
Baby Foxface Lo 2"
Orange Spotted Goby

A bit more info about the mandarins. They were purchased 8 weeks ago from Live Aquaria un-bonded after extensive research and preperation. I cultivate them Tsibe pods, rotifers, and baby brine shrimp loaded with phyto. They also were accepting enriched frozen brine and mysis day three. When they arrived, the female was extremely skinny, but has put on considerable weight in our short time together. I've got such an abundance of pods I'm trading jars for frags, more concerned with the Pipefish being bullied than hungry.

Thanks in advance!
Harry

Hey there Harry! My first concern would be the foxface. I had one in my reef and he could be a bit aggressive at times. Plus, he is going to out grow your tank very quickly. Clowns especially bonded pairs can be territorial as well. I don't have pipes at the moment but I do keep seahorses which are the same family. Personally, I wouldn't add pipes with that mixture and bioload but others may disagree. Good luck!