Which fish are the "jumpers" that require a mesh top...?

[vetteguy53081]

Fire fish goby for sure, many wrasses and dartfish

 

[MPS]

I will add that an eggcrate top will NOT stop gobies from getting out.

Yeah, I can second that. Couldn’t believe it when I found a Midas blenny, dead and crispy, laying on top of the egg crate lid. Shortly after that I built a cover made out of window screen mesh.

 

[RichReef]

Fish that I've had jump.

Yellow Coris Wrasse. X2
Coral Beauty.
Foxface.
Blue Chromis.

Since my cover. Zero.

 

[Koh23]

Well, that really depends do you have mesh or open tank.

If you have mesh, then no fish will ever attempt to jump out. At least, they wont tell you about it.

If you have open tank, they all are jumpers. It only matter of time.

They know.... Evil fishes....

Kidding of course, on first tank i had no cover, nothing ever jumped out. Now i have mesh, its ugly, it bothers me, but....

I think that tank height had some role, jumps occur more often on shallow tanks (below 50cm), at least i heard that from fellow reefers, higher tanks (60cm or above) are usualy safer.....

 

[Nate Chalk]

All.

Nothing sadder than coming home to fish jerky.

2 clowns for me. Bought the top and haven't lost a fish due to jumping since. Limit the low hanging fruit for losses. The hobby comes with enough on it's own

 

[ReeferHD]

i know most are unfamiliar with this fish but for me it's the humpback turretfish.. i don't know why but these fish are so jumpy, when i got my 2nd one (1st one jumped out) i bought a lid because it almost jumped out the acclimation bucket 3 times.

 

[Vsnutz]

I second that all fish will eventually take the leap of faith. But, every Diamond watchman gobie I've had has been a habitual jumper through a tiny hole in the corner of the mesh top. I also had a clown for years and he decided to leap for no reason.

 

[Nemo&Friends]

All the fish can be jumper. Even though I have a cover, I found a clown on my tile years ago. Clowns are not known to jump.
dartfish and wrasse are known fir it.

 

[DaveyB]

Diamond Gobies. I had three of them jump out of my tank. One even jumped while being acclimated. I looked down into the bag and jumped into my face!

 

[joe_franco]

i know most are unfamiliar with this fish but for me it's the humpback turretfish.. i don't know why but these fish are so jumpy, when i got my 2nd one (1st one jumped out) i bought a lid because it almost jumped out the acclimation bucket 3 times.

Hey ManWithAClam! Could you tell more about keeping a humpback turretfish? information online is basically non-existent and i have never heard any long-term success stories on keeping a boxfish. For how long did your boxfish live? would you consider it too hard for the average reef keeper? and how did you do it? been thinking about adding one to my 125g. Thanks!!

 

[ReeferHD]

Hey ManWithAClam! Could you tell more about keeping a humpback turretfish? information online is basically non-existent and i have never heard any long-term success stories on keeping a boxfish. For how long did your boxfish live? would you consider it too hard for the average reef keeper? and how did you do it? been thinking about adding one to my 125g. Thanks!!

Hey! mine lived about 7 months before tragically jumping out, if he hadn't jumped out i know he would still be with me. i'd say their care is intermediate/difficult just because its hard to find a healthy specimen, but once adapted to aquarium life their care becomes much easier, my current one lives with a Cubicus boxfish and they don't bother each other.
if you were to get one here are the things you'll wanna do

1: Make sure the fish is active, eating and showing no sign of stress at the store (they will turn pale when stressed)

2: a smaller specimen will most likely adapt to captivity easier

3: Make sure to feed it a lot, similar to Filefish and Anthias, they have high metabolisms and are constantly grazing in the wild, a varied diet of clams, krill, squid, mysis, and nori is recommended.

4: Make sure his tankmates aren't too aggressive, (fish like Basslets, Cardinals, smaller Wrasses and even some morays of the Echidna genus will be fine with these guys, make sure he cant fit in their mouth)

5: be aware that he may nip your corals, the only damage any of mine did was a single torch head, but so far they haven't nipped anything else.

if you get one or have more questions feel free to PM me, i can give you plenty of tips on how to care for these guys and i'd love to see more of these in the hobby.

 

[zoomonster]

Short answer is any fish can and may jump given the opportunity. Before I got my tank top sealed tight, I lost wrasses, a hippo tang etc. I swear if there is the smallest of openings a wrasse will find its way to the floor. My cleaner wrasse sometimes jumps into my hand at feeding time and some have found a way into overflow. One made it into overflow through baffles and I found it in a filter sock in sump still alive. A few I saw or found in time and some not found until salt dried fish on the floor.

 

[mww00ds]

For me the its only been Aptisia eating Filefish. Everyone has managed to randomly jump after weeks of being happy in the tanks

 

[joe_franco]

Hey! mine lived about 7 months before tragically jumping out, if he hadn't jumped out i know he would still be with me. i'd say their care is intermediate/difficult just because its hard to find a healthy specimen, but once adapted to aquarium life their care becomes much easier, my current one lives with a Cubicus boxfish and they don't bother each other.
if you were to get one here are the things you'll wanna do

1: Make sure the fish is active, eating and showing no sign of stress at the store (they will turn pale when stressed)

2: a smaller specimen will most likely adapt to captivity easier

3: Make sure to feed it a lot, similar to Filefish and Anthias, they have high metabolisms and are constantly grazing in the wild, a varied diet of clams, krill, squid, mysis, and nori is recommended.

4: Make sure his tankmates aren't too aggressive, (fish like Basslets, Cardinals, smaller Wrasses and even some morays of the Echidna genus will be fine with these guys, make sure he cant fit in their mouth)

5: be aware that he may nip your corals, the only damage any of mine did was a single torch head, but so far they haven't nipped anything else.

if you get one or have more questions feel free to PM me, i can give you plenty of tips on how to care for these guys and i'd love to see more of these in the hobby.

Thank you very much! I will definitely look into it, your fish look awesome. I suppose the turretfish would be fine with my pair of ocellaris and a scopas tang? Also I have read that the horn nosed boxfish seems to be much hardier than the rest.

 

[Enderg60]

If its shaped like a torpedo its gonna end up on your floor.

 

[ReeferHD]

Thank you very much! I will definitely look into it, your fish look awesome. I suppose the turretfish would be fine with my pair of ocellaris and a scopas tang? Also I have read that the horn nosed boxfish seems to be much hardier than the rest.

the fish you have should be fine with him, and horn nosed boxfish are definitely less likely to nip corals than the turret but i'd say care is about the same, the important part is finding a healthy specimen of any type really, another plus with the turret is max size is only around 9 inches including the tail so you are less limited with tank size. but all boxfish grow pretty slowly and in captivity will stay a little on the smaller side.

 

[exnisstech]

I just found my sail fin Molly on the floor. I didn't think mollies were strong enough swimmers to make the leap. That's what I get for thinking.

 

[Tired]

Oh, yeah, any fish with that upward-turned surface-feeding mouth will jump. Many species are even more likely to jump, since fish that live and feed at or near the surface come with an instinct to jump to avoid predators. Works great in a pond, and not so well in an aquarium.