my new dragonfaced pipefish

just got these guys and i thought i would share some pics from my crappy camera!

 

i got them from blue zoo,and i put them in my mixed reef. i know they say they should be in there own tank but i have seen alot of people put them in there reef tanks and they do real well. i got them yesterday and so far the other fish in the tank seem to care less. i have many different sized pods in my tank and have seen them eat some of them. i hope to get them to eat some frozen also. my main concern is my two anemones and my korila 4s. so far they seem to some what like the current at times and have the the power to swim away when they get to close to the korilas.they seem to also avoid the anemones!!! i don't know how to sex them but they seem to have paired up. one is brighter than the other one and they seem to be side by side in everything they do.they are already becoming one of my favorites!!!!!

 

come on over,but i do work second shift,home about 11,so unless you are a night owl like me,the weekends after 3 are best!

 

they are doing great and the male is holding his second set of eggs(he was holding more eggs just a few hours after releasing the first batch)they are like sea horses(every couple of weeks they mate)i can now sex them since the male carrys the eggs and i have seen a blue spot with little orange claspers under him and the female doesn't seem to have them.i have seen the female eat some cyclopeeze but they seem to mainly live off the pods in the tank. i have surfed the web quite alot and have not found much info on them and it seems that no one has had any success in raising the young.i havn't seen anyone that can sex them but i now know there are differences in them just from my observations. they are one of the coolest fish i have ever owned!!!

 

yes the male is still eating and you are correct about a contained enviroment.i am not even thinking about being able to raise the young because the young are much smaller than sea horse babys and i don't have a tank set up that is full of pods like my 90.everything i have read suggests that no one has ever raised the young of dragonfaced pipes,i have seen that some guy in australia has had some success on some of the pipes that are out there but it would take alot of work and when the young are born they are the size of the food that the adults eat.i know that they are related to sea horses but i noticed at the zoo that they had a sign on there sea horse tank that stated that sea horses are the only ones that the male gives birth.that is incorrect kind of. again the pods that the adults eat are already very small and i would have to have a few differnt cultures of life forms (rotifers and baby brine are to big i think) but on an ending note i still think it is cool that they feel comfortable enough to breed in my mixed reef!!!!!!!