Kenny's Journal

[Bigpapa]

Dude, I hate to be the killjoy here, but dang, that's a lot of fish to add in such a short period of time. Beautiful fish though. My girlfriend really wants one of those Boxfish/Cowfish but I remind her they grow to the size of a football and potentially toxic.

Hope it keeps working for you. I turned my 75 into a Frogfish tank and got some T5 lights to add some coral pieces.

Oh wow, here is a quote on some info I found about him--btw, the friggin lfs didnt tell me they grow that big or the venomous part--as well as I let them know the tank and situation he was going in..

Found this on another site on the longhorn:
grows up to 18 inches
The Longhorn Cowfish prefers a tank of at least 150 gallons with plenty of places to hide & swim.
Level of Care: The Longhorn Cowfish is a high maintenance fish.
Behavior: The Longhorn Cowfish may act peacefully toward other fish. It is a venomous fish, ostracitoxin. Warning signs include stress and concavity in the side walls.
Hardiness: Difficult to keep in capitivity

Sofar he has been the opposite of this--very docile, very easy--to me as well and very small-he is barely an inch in size.. anyway, looks like I am finding a new home for him soon--and I liked him, he interacts with me the most..

 

[Animal Mother]

Oh wow, here is a quote on some info I found about him--btw, the friggin lfs didnt tell me they grow that big or the venomous part--as well as I let them know the tank and situation he was going in..

Found this on another site on the longhorn:
grows up to 18 inches
The Longhorn Cowfish prefers a tank of at least 150 gallons with plenty of places to hide & swim.
Level of Care: The Longhorn Cowfish is a high maintenance fish.
Behavior: The Longhorn Cowfish may act peacefully toward other fish. It is a venomous fish, ostracitoxin. Warning signs include stress and concavity in the side walls.
Hardiness: Difficult to keep in capitivity

Sofar he has been the opposite of this--very docile, very easy--to me as well and very small-he is barely an inch in size.. anyway, looks like I am finding a new home for him soon--and I liked him, he interacts with me the most..

Sorry dude. I really like those fish too, they're cute and personable, and my girlfriend was REALLY trying to convince herself it would be okay to put a 1" sized one in her 60 gallon seahorse tank but I talked some sense into her. They're only poisonous if they die or if you eat them, from what I understand... but yeah, size is the main concern as long as the fish is healthy.

Once more, the ignorance and/or greed of the business strikes again.

 

[Bigpapa]

My gf and I are planning on moving into a larger place after the holidays. At that point we are going to get a larger tank for the saltwater. She is still going to convert that one to FW for her other fish and we will get the nec. size to handle the larger fish at that point.

 

[DWhatley]

MTS strikes again, love it!
Rob,
Two things you might find of interest about your mandarins.

One, if they are not opposite sexed, separate them! It is relatively easy (in spite of what is written) to determine male from female by the length of the top fin, the male's being almost twice as long.

Two, I have mine eating frozen mysis very successfully. All those pods you had will feed them for awhile but they are notorious for starving and do best in a tank where there are only other slow eaters. My female learned to eat the mysis from a particular seahorse, not the seahorses, but one special one that paid attention to her and visa-versa, really neat to watch the interaction. Dini (as in Houdini) would watch Trigger eat and Trigger (the seahorse) would watch Dini scare up live food. When we finally found the right sized male, Dini then taught Harry to eat the frozen food. I would recommend trying to get them to eat something frozen (mine will also eat Cyclop-eeze and learned that on their own) before your pod population is fully depleated. I have also tried black worm with mine but they are hard pressed to eat them. We have had Dini for over two years (maybe over three, I can't remember for sure) and Harry well over a year so they seem to do well on the food.

 

[Bigpapa]

MTS strikes again, love it!
Rob,
Two things you might find of interest about your mandarins.

One, if they are not opposite sexed, separate them! It is relatively easy (in spite of what is written) to determine male from female by the length of the top fin, the male's being almost twice as long.

Two, I have mine eating frozen mysis very successfully. All those pods you had will feed them for awhile but they are notorious for starving and do best in a tank where there are only other slow eaters. My female learned to eat the mysis from a particular seahorse, not the seahorses, but one special one that paid attention to her and visa-versa, really neat to watch the interaction. Dini (as in Houdini) would watch Trigger eat and Trigger (the seahorse) would watch Dini scare up live food. When we finally found the right sized male, Dini then taught Harry to eat the frozen food. I would recommend trying to get them to eat something frozen (mine will also eat Cyclop-eeze and learned that on their own) before your pod population is fully depleated. I have also tried black worm with mine but they are hard pressed to eat them. We have had Dini for over two years (maybe over three, I can't remember for sure) and Harry well over a year so they seem to do well on the food.

Thanks D, I did not know that about the mandarins but I think I am in luck. I got the pair at the same time from SWF.com and I had already noticed the fin difference. The one seems to raise his up almost like a sailboat mast.
As far as food, I do have the frozen mysid as well as frozen variety, slow sinking marine pellets, live black worms, dryed seaweed, shrimp pellets, Spirulina algae flake, tubifex worms, and variety wafers. I guess you could say I have a lot of choices. I rotated in and out a few of them with the different feedings each day because of the wide variety of fish in there. Later today I will be also getting the Cyclop-eeze as I knew this was also good for them, just a much more expensive food source.
BTW, I do have a bit of a success/survival story! My gf's sister works for the local Fedex. She called a few days ago to say that she had a box of live fish that was not able to be delivered and the customer said they were not picking up because they cancelled the order. Then the customer said they would still pick them up-and nevered showed. Well, these poor fish had to wait in there packaging for almost 2 days from intial shipping because of this communication. So she let me know and I took them off her and started drip acclimating(a little faster than normal because of the situation). The only death was a clam-other than that I saved a small yellow tang, some hermits, a cucumber, and a lettuce nudibranch. Oh, and that shipment came from: SWF.com!! So, just one more reason I value there shipping-these fish survived 2.5 days in there packaging. Just thought I might share that tidbit about them..