pipfish newby

hi what is the smallest and easiest pipfish to take care of I have a 30 gal tank with a flame angle, clownfish, and longnose hawkfish please do not tell me I have to manyfish I just want to swap one fish out for a pipfish.

 

You can't have any pipefish. Please do not add any. They are difficult to take care of, need expert care, a bigger and more established tank than what you have.

 

Two other things:
One, check out liveaquaria.com anytime and just search for what you are interested in. That site will tell you pretty quickly whether or not you have the experience and tank for the fish/invert/etc you are interested in.
Two, can you post a picture of your tank please? You had a firefish you were trying to catch, a clown you were trying to sell, a yellow wrasse, a flame angel, a hawkfish, and an algae problem. To help you we'd like to see what is actually in your tank now and how it is looking.....

 

Banded pipefish are considered the easiest but they require a larger tank (50+ gallons) and all pipefish are expert only animals. I have kept both Janss' pipefish and yellow multibanded pipefish, and they will not survive in a tank with fish that are aggressive since pipefish are so shy. Flame angels, clowns and hawkfish are all very unsuitable tankmates for pipefish in a smaller tank. I kept my pipes in a 90, and they do very well in a reef tank, but they need a lot of space, and you can't have a lot of other fish in there with them.

 

Your current tank and the inhabitants you have listed are not compatible with pipefish, even 'swapping one of them out' would not work

 

as my camras eather have no batteries or not good quality at this point in time I cant show you a photo of my tank.

 

Josh can I be your friend lol

 

I have 2 banded pipe fish in my 55g and they used to be in my 30g just fine but they were only with seahorses. They now live with all very gentle community fish and have proven to be much hardier than the seahorses actually.

They are very shy and need good swimming room to be really happy.

I would not recommend you get any with the fish you already have though sorry especially since all the other fish have been there longer they will just beat them up.

 

I think you could keep blue striped pipefish. They're small enough for a 30, tolerate reef conditions, and are feisty themselves. They do have some specialized needs, but they're probably the best reef pipefish.

First, if you want more than one you want a male/female pair. Otherwise they'll fight. The males are distinguishable by the spikes on their nose, though you might need a magnifying glass to see that.

They might require live food to start, I'd plan on getting live brine shrimp (adults) and hatching brine shrimp to start. Most switch to frozen pretty quickly though. Mysis and nutramar ova seems to be preferred. I've had mixed results with cyclopeeze.

You will have to protect any intakes and overflows so they don't get sucked up into them. They can fit in very small crevices. They also can't be kept with stinging corals (most LPS), anemones, or claims.