Orange Spotted Filefish Adventure! Follow along!

[arking_mark]

I have one confirmed mille. It definitely grazes on other acro including red Monti and pink polyp Monti.

[s2nhle]

wow, that's an expensive fish. He has a very good appetite.

[arking_mark]

For all following along.  Spots on fins yesterday = maybe ich.  Not looking good.  Sorry for the bad news. :(

[arking_mark]

Based on a recommendation, I also tried sticking the frozen food to the glass.  Couldn't stick around to see if that worked...but early on the OSF was picking at live snails.

[arking_mark]

Not looking good. :(

[YHSublime]

Ich may not be a problem, if it's eating. I suspect it's probably not, and stressed. How does its belly appear?

 

 

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[arking_mark]

The aftermath...

 

So weaning may not have been a failure. It appears that along with my OSF order I received marine velvet. Of the 4 fish I ordered the Yellow watchman goby was the sole survivor. Of my long established fish, only my clown fish and spotted mandarin survived (being released from QT tomorrow).

 

2/27 OSF to acclimation box in DT

3/7 Rainsford Goby goes missing

3/8 Notice spots on OSF dorsal and bottom fins

3/13 OSF Dead

3/19 Helfriches has spots

3/20 Clown Goby goes missing

3/25 Helfrichi goes missing

3/25 Clown Fish has spots

3/28 Tore down DT and caught and transferred all fish to 20gal QT

3/30 DW Goby Jumped out of tank despite having a light grate

[AlanM]

I'm not sure of the life cycle of MV or ich or whatever they had, but if you're putting them out of some medicated treatment tank tomorrow and back in to the same display do you think a month is enough time for the infected tank to stay fallow?

[londonloco]

Wow, so sorry.  I only order my fish from Marcos as he Q all fish before selling.  It does take some time from order to door, but it's well worth the wait. 

[arking_mark]

Alan. DT will be fallow for 9wks. Fish are moving to Observation tank.

[arking_mark]

For those interested. Here is my OSF research notes:

 

Research:

• http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/new-future-harlequin-filefish

a. Get the fish eating on live acro

b. Introduce coated acro once they start nipping at the live acro (Rods & Ocean Nutrition Pygmy Angle Formula)

c. Within a week or two the OSF should be accepting prepared food

d. Now you can try withholding live coral feeding; at this point the OSF will be thinner.

e. If you have not had success, you need to reevaluate efforts and continue to offer live coral.

f. At one month, the OSF should be accepting prepared food and you can introduce other foods to vary diet and see what else works.

g. By 2 months the OSF should be adding back body fat

• http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/250948-harlequin-filefish-orange-spotted-filefish/

a. give these fish routine feedings several times per day

b. isolated quarantine is a must

c. have a huge diversity of foods to offer. I.e. it might be that Nutramar Ova, or Live Blackworms, are the first food that "does it".

• http://aquanerd.com/2010/08/feeding-your-harlequin-filefish.html

a. The usually finicky eaters were then coaxed into taking prepared foods. This was achieved by adding Instant Ocean gel food to a dead stem of a green Slimer Acropora coral skeleton.

b. fish seemed to prefer one or two colonies and that it wasn’t a voracious eater. The corals were obviously not too pleased with the new resident, but there didn’t seem to be any tissue loss or death.

c. Additionally, the filefish would take up residence in the branches of the larger Acro colonies at night, further adding to the fish’s intrigue.

• http://www.captivereefs.com/forum/marine-fish/harlequin-filefish-5272/#.VuUEyFNFxEI

a. there is a working methodology of it's adoptation to substitute foods (including fresh, frozen and even dry). I've tried it and developed a bit for my particular fish. As a result - this reef beauty is living (and demonstartes healthy behavior) in my small reef tank for more than 5 months already

• http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/orange-spotted-harlequin-filefish-oxymonacanthus-longirostris-weaning-log-231094.html

a. Day 1: Once the tank was set up and the file had had time to relax, I threw a barrage of food at her, Mysis, cyclopeeze, brine shrimp, and of course the coral frags in the tank. She showed no interest in Mysis. I think they may be too large for her mouth. Cyclopeeze got some results. She attempted to pick a few out of the water column but gave up shortly. Brine had similar results and she hasn’t yet noticed the coral.

b. Day 3: When cyclopeeze is added to the tank, instead of trying to pick it out of the water column, she scoots her mouth along the bottom of the tank to collect the fallen food.

c. Day 4: Break through!! Some Mysis shrimp landed on the acropora colony and the filefish began eating those! She also pecked a bit at the ocean nutrition covered skeleton.

d. Day 5: I left the colony in the tank for the first half of the day to let her fill up a bit. I decided to take the colony out around 2 pm though and give it a break in my main tank. I replaced it with the beached skeleton full of enriched brine shrimp. She hasn’t taken much notice of it yet but did eat two shrimp that floated off of it and something she found on the tank’s bottom as well as a few more nips at the hair algae. I think I’ll give the acropora a 24 hr break and see if I can’t coax her into eating some more non-coral foods.

e. Day 6: She is avidly eating enriched brine that have been soaked in selcon off the bottom of the tank and anywhere else that they happen to fall.

f. Day 8: she eats mysis. I found a pack of small ones that fit in her mouth and she gobbles them like candy right out of the water column.) The acro colony is still in the tank, so she still has the opportunity to graze on coral if that is her preference, but it's not. She prefers a food that has been soaked in HUFAs and consists of more meat

g. Day 9: She is reliably eating enriched brine shrimp, small mysis, cyclopeeze, and even flake food. She's starting to put weight back on as well.

h. So this means that nearly half of an oxy files energy comes from lipids!! What's more, the majority of the lipids are coming from omega 3s and 6s. These fats are highly unstable and break down very easily when they are exposed to high heat. This would lead me to believe that foods containing high starch and low fats (i.e. pellet/flake) are unsuitable for oxy files. The high PUFA content required by these fish is probably the reason that they have such a bad track record. The majority of foods available in the hobby, with the exception of fresh/frozen and those soaked in selcon, are virtually lacking in PUFAs. The little fat that they do contain comes from saturated and trans fats (molecules are more stable and easier to preserve). For example, New Life Spectrum Marine pellets only guarantee a 7% fat content in their food, not listing what fats are available, which can roughly translate into all of it being saturated and/or trans. If an oxy file were fed on this diet alone they would be missing out on nearly 33% of their required fat intake and all of their PUFAs. The lack of food containing the correct fat profile is most likely the cause of these fish lasting for 6 months, but never filling out and wasting away as described by Doug.

i. Ok so, I've been talking with an experienced oxy filefish keeper. She had her pair for 5 years!

j. I've now had my file for 6 weeks and a day. Since she has been in the training QT she has started to eat the calpera algae in the tank. She will eat salmon as long as it's pressed into the corallites of a skeleton. Her favorite though, by far are live black worms. As soon as they hit the water she slurps them up.

• http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/longnose-filefish-orange-spotted-filefish-harlequin-filefish.50123/#post-701189

a. He has been in my care for almost two weeks now and he's getting healthier and healthier by the day. It hadn't been eating at the store. Yes, it was hard to get it to eat other foods but I've got it eating just about anything now. It's main sources of food are currently chunks of spirulina-laced frozen brine shrimp, and Bird's Nest Coral (Seriatopora hystrix) polyps from the ones in the tank. It also eats a surprising amount of algea off of my live rock, and lately even small particles of prepared food pellets that the other fish didn't eat.

b. So, the first week I had this guy I fed him a few bites up to 10 times a day to make sure he kept eating but slowly lowering the number of feedings. I'm two weeks into this and I'm down to three times a day without reducing the actual amount of food eaten in total.

c. Isolation / QT from the get go. I'm not sure I'd even suggest "passive" tankmates during initial establishment...some of the Harlequin Files that come in are pretty far gone, and the starvation also makes them more TIMID.

d. Offering LIVE SPS corals from the get go.

e. Frequent Feedings (feed these fish once a day and they lose weight FAST...as evidenced by recently being gone 4 days and coming back to find a fat male with a pinched stomach).

f. Some other foods to try that will help put the weight on - Ova, Squid, Live Blackworms (and yes, Tubifex soaked with Selcon). Of course, mine all eat ANYTHING now, but at this point I think all my fish have been here at least a year to 1.5 years + now.

YouTube videos showing fish eating: Flake, Spectrum Pellets, Live Black Worms, Frozen Mysis, Frozen Brine