pipefish care - new pictures added

fishroomlady · Jul 4, 2014

Hello All: I just ordered two dragonfaced pipefish and am very excited. For those of you that have kept these beautiful creatures long-term, I would love to hear your advice - especially in regards to feeding.

Squishie89 · Jul 4, 2014

I had my pretty awesome LFS get mine onto nutramar ova. However nutramar is unavailable right now due to issues. Mine eat pods for the most part now. You need a pretty hefty population of pods for these guys as they graze all day long. They pretty much have the same requirements as mandarins.

fishroomlady · Jul 4, 2014

bump for me

NanaReefer · Jul 5, 2014

Considered a special needs fish due to their food requirements. Difficult to train on prepared foods, but not impossible. Should have a good source of Copepods available just in case. Otherwise, what Squishie said

mfinn · Jul 5, 2014

When I had my yellow multibanded pipefish, pods were a major source of food. I would buy tisbe pods about once a month. It also liked Mysis. I found that the Hikari brand mysis were smaller which seem to be better for a small fish. I bought the cube packs.

fishroomlady · Jul 19, 2014

just a couple of updated pictures

fishroomlady · Jul 20, 2014

bump - for pictures lol

fishroomlady · Jul 24, 2014

I'm shameless - another bump for pictures of the pipefish.....I really love these fish!

SeahorseKeeper · Jul 24, 2014

They are amazing fish. I'm debating getting some.

fishroomlady · Jul 24, 2014

so far, they have been eating pods and cyclops. I have also given them some baby brine and R.O.E. they definitely seem to be social with each other, they split up and then meet up throughout the evening. They also are way more active swimmers than I anticipated and handle flow very well. All of my other fish seemt to ignore them - my goby occasionally pops up and swims right near them. I love that one picture where his head is peaking up above the rock - looks like a miniature ostrich lol

Squishie89 · Jul 25, 2014

Pipefish can defy gravity

_sludgefactory · Jul 25, 2014

I don't feed mine at all. It's feeds on the pods from my fuge. It's almost 7"now. Got it around 5" about 2 years ago.

leebauer · Jul 25, 2014

I got these 2 pipefish about a week ago. Added 2 bags of algagen pods, and have been mixing Larry's Reef Frenzy, and cyclopeeze. I'd rather overdo it at this point

leebauer · Jul 25, 2014

Daniel@R2R · Jul 25, 2014

Which pipefish are the easiest to keep? I've heard dragons aren't too bad, but I have no experience.

fishroomlady · Jul 25, 2014

I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this. The reason I chose the dragon-faced is because they can seemingly handle a variety of flow and tank mates. In my researching, it seemed many people suggested that the blue-striped were hardier to keep. Paul B is an expert pipefish keeper, he's be a great resource to answer that question.