Moorish Idol: Notebook

Doc

I don't work for anybody
So, since I made, yet another daring venture into the world of Stupid, I figure I would trace my progress on a thread. I want to give others experience with this amazing fish that they may learn what does and doesn't work with this fish.

First, I picked poor tankmates. The angels are pretty aggressive, but after two days are leaving him alone. It would have been better to place him in a tank FIRST (durh) and after it is established and eating, to add more passive tankmates. He is eating tho, and that is a good thing. They are slow eaters and don't seem to devour food in the water column.

Second, they are sponge eaters in the wild, that means they pick at the rocks. I have found a frozen food that does not thaw well and ends up being almost a paste. It is the angel formula from ocean nutrition. My goal is to soak it for a while and then mush it into the rocks, since he seems to pick at the rocks all day. To keep the other fish from devouring it, I will throw in other food at the opposite end of the tank to distract them while I smear the other food in the rock crevices. I am looking for find a hole that is only accessable to the Moorish Idol and his unique snout.

third, corals - only soft corals

fourth, I will try a variety of other foods and keep posting how he seems to eat.

My goal is to gather as much info as possible on this guy in the hopes of finding a way to keep them in a home aquarium. Gathering practices seem to bring them sick into LFS as well as not eating. Luckily my guy is very healthy, with his pennent banner in full extension. I read that they like to eat mussels as well and that by putting a food mixture into an open shell, it may influence them to eat. That is not an option in my tank as the other fish would devour it instantly. They are great eaters

So here I am, starting a diary of my Moorish Idol, probably in the top 10 favorite fish for me. Please add any useful information you can about my quest. I would love to keep this baby long term

-Doc
 
Sounds to me like you got pretty well got all your bases cover.
You may be able to purchase some sponges from your LFS.Might cost a little more because of you need it for,but It might help keep your moorish fed too.
 
I have never thought of buying sponges. Are they frozen or attached to LR? I wonder how expensive they are. Do you sell them at the store you work at? maybe not a bad idea. I bet I could make them stretch more if I blended them in with some krill and other nummies in a blender and froze them. The two foods I have had success with so far both contain marine sponge. They are:

Ocean nutrition: Angel formula

San Francisco: Angle and Butterfly Portions

I am going to try the smearing today as well as nori and a bit of krill, broken up into tiny chunks to see if he nips at them. All the websites I look at last night (for about 2 hours) indicate chopped shrimp - sounds like krill to me!

I am hoping other people have tried this fish and could lend their advice? Maybe our resident Bio-freak (Biff) has words of wisdom for this thread?

-Doc
 
they seem to eat slow and waste away in captivity. I have met a guy in Utah who has kept the same fish for 2 years - which seems like a miracle. I have tried and killed two in my career. I want to keep this one alive.

I have been toying around with the idea of skipping the shark and putting in two more Moorish Idols to see if schooling together will increase their chance of survival. What do you think?

-Doc
 
Doc, I've heard from my preferred LFS that moorish idols that are captured in Hawaii have a far greater rate of success in captivity than from other locations. I've seen fish that were only in the store for a day, feeding voraciously - and the LFS claims it's because of the hawaiian pedigree. You might want to check with your place of purchase and see if they know where the animal came from.
 
Good luck with your new experiment, Doc. I don't really have any advice, as I've never tried to keep one of those fish before.
 
My tanks seam to have an abundance of these little white sponges
1-1003.jpg


I wonder if these would help to supplement the idol?

I will ask my LFS if they can order me one.
 
great idea Lionfish, I will expect you to mail me that rock soon. I will return it to you when the sponges are gone and we can play that game for a while....Just kidding...

I have those as well and by no suprise, he is eating them happily. He spends all day picking at the rocks in the tank.

I have heard the same info about Hawaii caught Idols as opposed to the red sea. I did check before purchase and he is from Hawaii. That is the main reason I bought him. Great advice.

-Doc
 
Excitement!!!

I just dropped in a sheet of Green Nori. He started swimming wildly around the tank as if he smelled something he liked (or got spooked). The angels were hogging the sheet and he hung back for a minute. A small piece broke off from the seaweed clip and he chased it down, gobbling the whole thing up. He loved it!!! YES!!!!:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

That takes the edge off of finding something he will eat, and buys me some time while I research and test other options for food. I am trying Krill tonight as well as smearing that sponge food into the rock crevices.

-Doc
 
Doc,
I'm sure you can order some live sponges.Bermuda has ordered them for a few of the regular customers.Not to mention,some of the sponges actually look pretty good in the tank.
 
I will check into it for cost effectiveness. I am quite hopeful after seeing him chow down on the Nori like he did. I am going to drop in some krill in about 5 minutes and see what happens there.

-Doc
 
sweet. Thx Yote.

*update*

I dropped in some krill today. He did not seem interested at first. He took a few nibbles while it was floating around in the water column. He did not really take a liking to it, until....he came to rest on the sand bed and when it was lodged into rocks. He picked at it at that point and seemed to like it. He really didn't get a ton since the Koran angel chased him away. I think I need to add a distraction from the Moorish Idol. Some random fodder fish that will distract the attention of the Koran. I will see what junk fish exists for that. Maybe a volitan, they pretty much suck

-Doc
 
sweet. Thx Yote.

*update*

I dropped in some krill today. He did not seem interested at first. He took a few nibbles while it was floating around in the water column. He did not really take a liking to it, until....he came to rest on the sand bed and when it was lodged into rocks. He picked at it at that point and seemed to like it. He really didn't get a ton since the Koran angel chased him away. I think I need to add a distraction from the Moorish Idol. Some random fodder fish that will distract the attention of the Koran. I will see what junk fish exists for that. Maybe a volitan, they pretty much suck

-Doc
 
you know, I am not sure if it matters what kind. I am going to try to switch it to eat frozen fare. I figure that if I start giving it sponge, it will never change its diet. I will give up if it starts to look like it is starving and will switch to live sponge.

-Doc
 
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