The Moorish Idol Thread

[zfunk007]

You guys are all right. QT is extremely important in just about all fish cases. However if you are planning on introducing a Moorish Idol to your system (or Regal Angel) I think you have to take the risk and just introduce them. Otherwise it could be detrimental to the fish. I guess I got away with it because I have such a large system (over 500 gallons running through it) so not QTing one fish didn't seem like a big deal to me. And I haven't had any ich problems in my 210.

I know this is a touchy subject and there are a multitude of opinions about it. That just happneds to be mine. QT all fish except extremely delicate ones that need to be introduced to a reef enviroment right away.

On the flip side however, I made the gigantic mistake of introducing a fish without QT into my 110 FOWLR 3 months ago and every fish in that tank came down with a fungus. I moved them all into QT (luckily the fungus didn't make it into my 210). And today after a long fight with the fungus my beautiful queen angel that I caught a few months ago perished....

So yeah, QT is important!!!

[KDodds]

I have to agree with zfunk on this. When acclimation or transport is a cause for severe stress in a species that can and does result in its death frequently, I would forego QT.

[traveller7]

May I ask what folks consider quarantine procedures that they are/recommend foregoing?

[zfunk007]

My QT procedure is as follows:

-55 gallon QT tank
-Dim light (45 watt regular light bulb)
-Hyposalinity (Specific Gravity of 1.009)
-Keep them in for 1 month

It seems to work well. If any fish has ich they lose it within a week or so of being in hypo. If they have any kind of fungus or bacteria infection I treat them with Mardel Maracyn Plus. Which has worked well for me.

My french angel was completely covered in a white fungus and now after 2 weeks of treatment he is completely recovered. Unfortunatly my Queen didn't have that luck. But for the most part I have had success in my QT situation.

[Paul B]

I have a theory on this. I believe fish in breeding condition almost never get ich. I know very few if any people will agree with me on this but our fish are hardly ever in breeding condition. Fish in the sea are always laying eggs, every few weeks for small damsels and maybe two months for larger fish. If they are not in that condition, then they will be prone to every disease in your tank. If any of you SCUBA dive (and I know a lot of you do) you will notice on close inspection that wild fish look much better than the fish in our tanks. Most of this is not our fault. It is caused by stress. There are no tangs (that I know of) that live alone, they are schooling fish, if they are alone, even for a few minutes, they get eaten. Schooling fish are in a school for a reason. Moorish Idols are not schooling fish but they do form bonds and I have almost never seen them alone. Fish also like to swim in a certain depth of water, none of them are found in water 18" deep, this is a cause of more stress. Fish also eat all day and have a huge ocean where they can sprint away from danger. We keep them confined in tiny spaces. Anyway if you see what I mean, even though we try to give them the best conditions, it is not even close.
Fish in our tanks may not lay eggs often because of other factors like lack of a mate, nesting site or water depth but they still can be in breeding condition.
I myself do not quarintine anything (but you should) and have not in over 20 years. I can only hope my fish do not get sick because of the condition they are in. My goal is to let them die of old age.
Take care.
Paul

[fppf]

I QT with just a tank big enough for the fish with a good filter.
I don't do any treatments unless something goes wrong.
They stay there for 10 weeks and then if nothing shows up they get moved into the main tank. If something shows up then I will treat accordingly.

[Shawnts106]

WOW! sorry to hear about your loss, I guess the extreme stress of Mr. Powder Blue kinda got to them

Mine isnt lookig so hot all of a sudden either, dispite his well eatting now, ICH has returned!... this time 3 times worse... with probably 15 ich spots... Im afraid this time he will not make it!.. I will keep everyone posted on it as best I can, but with my busy schedule its very hard to find time!!!


Sorry to hear about your Idol eatting the corals too!... I suspect that when they dont get enough nutrition they resort to eatting anything they can.... this is sad, and unfortunate!!!


QT tanks are a good Idea, in some aspects.. but others bad, because it stresses out some fish, some fish really need a reef type environment in order to acclimate well.. like scotts fair wrasses and such!

I hope that everything turns out ok with everyones Idols, as well as my own!

good luck to all!

[KDodds]

Actually, I agree with you Paul. Fish kept in breeding condition are fish kept in tip-top shape. FWIW, my Chromis, the only paired or more SW fish I have right now, besides Seahorses (also breeding, but spastic, they keep missing) are constantly spawning and have been for going on three years now. It's not unusual for me to find, in season, new eggs on a daily basis. It's to the point where they will even be ignored by most of the fish, there are so many of them. Of course, rearing is a virtual impossibility for me. I was careful to choose Centropyge that were very disimilar, or as disimilar as possible being of the same genus, in order to NOT have to worry about one growing to a large, harem-protecting male. Even still, on a couple of occassions, my original CB spawned with my Nox. Again, no reared fry to show for it, but interesting. Interesting as well is that this isn't only true in the SW facet of the hobby. "Tricky" FW fish like F0 Altums and Tetras, Chocolate Gouramis, etc. are almost always MOST successful when someone, somewhere is attempting to get them into "breeding condition".

You may be on to something bigger than most think. When I introduce a new fish, I expect it to live years, and for some a decade or more. And one of teh things that sets most of my tanks apart from others is that the fish are always breeding. I just set-up a JBJ 12g DX for FW planted. I added a foursome of Beckford's Pencils. Within two days, they had already spawned. This is the kind of thing that I take for granted at this point, like my ever breeding Brichardi colony as well.

I'm of the same miind on QT as well. Guys who have been doing this for the same number of decades as many have been doing for merely years have a certain amount of experience and knowledge that allows them to "pick the right fish". Of course, inherent infection and condition at the time of acquisition is only PART of the problem. A well balanced system, as razor thin as that balance may be, in experienced hands, will almost never generate "wipeouts" or even deaths, of introduced fish that have not been quarantined. But, there's more to it than experience too, there's a lot of art (or maybe a science of myriad variables we unconsciously calculate, like a home run hitter) to being able to not use a QT as well.

[traveller7]

"sick fish" will breed if the other biological requirements can be met.

I have breeding pairs of A. percula and P. biaculeatus, both pairs have had internal parasites for months. Definitely effects the quality of the clutch but they are not my target breeders and I won't have an available hospital for them, until December. Still breed like clockwork. (there are other examples of such are RC)

IMHO, quarantine is at full "Reef type" condition, in a complete system, that mimics a target space. Not saying you need a 300g if your fish is going into a 300g, but it is not unreasonable to use a 90gal-125gal for such duty. Fish are merely isolated to catch what they bring and allow them to recover from shipping events without it encountering latent pathogens, aggressive inhabitants, etc. Some fish take weeks, some months, or even more.

fwiw: My opinions are heavily colored by some nasty bugs clowns get, even well established, conditioned, and breeding pairs will drop in days when they encounter certain parasites as closely related specimens swim next to them oblivious to the effect. Susceptibility is quite amazingly varied, even among fish in the same Genus.

If such a QT process works for our irreplaceable delicate clowns(my QT is an 80g+55g sump), I don't see why on a larger scale it would not be helpful for you folks trying Moorish Idols.

Side note: Interesting to bring up some of the more challenging FW fish with similar wasting behavior, makes one wonder if the Moorish Idol "wasting" issues might best be tackled with a few doses of "deworming." Anyone try?

[KDodds]

Actually, the comparison is not that sick fish will breed, but that fish conditioned to breed are very often far healthier than those that aren't. Would you not say that your "breeders" are a sight healthier than what you see in others' tanks? Breeding is itself, of course, a stress. If separation weren't so problematic with hermaphroditism, I'd separate sick pairs intent on spawning.

FWIW, A. percula and P. biaculeatus are, IMO, not very fine demonstrative species. IMO and IME, they'll spawn just about anywhere, anytime, in just about any health, especially CBs.

[zfunk007]

Very interesting points everyone. Thats great that you have had such success with breeding KDodds.

Sorry to hear about your Idol eatting the corals too!... I suspect that when they dont get enough nutrition they resort to eatting anything they can.... this is sad, and unfortunate!!!

Your right Shawn!! It just occurred to me. I have been sick with the flu for the past week and got lazy about feeding my fish. I have just been giving them the spectrum pellets a few times a day. That could be the reason why my Idol started attacking all my corals this week. Can't believe I didn't think of this before...

Either way though, I am getting him out today (and my Regal just to be safe) and putting them in my 110 for the time being. Since I am diving almost every day now I am just going to keep getting sponge and very small pieces of live rock (legal size 1" square) with sponge on them and scatter them all over my 110 for him to pick at whenever he wants. Hopefully this will help him.

Right now its just going to be the 2 of them in the 110. I took the Broomtail out and put him into QT to make sure he is ich free so he doesn't infect the Idol.

As of right now he still looks great. Lets hope he stays that way.

[traveller7]

Zfunk,

You seem to have a perfect opportunity to keep your specimen in an environment that it can graze closer to a natural setting. IMHO, remove your other fish, frag your corals, and search for other suitable juvenile Moorish Idols to add to your 210. Who knows, you may be closer to breeding MI's then you think.

Side note: It was not so long ago that keeping Percs and Maroons were a challenge, much less to be considered passé when breeding in diseased condition Certainly, my WC “sick breeders� look a sight healthier then most I see in other tanks, but they do have an ailment which will eventually wear them down and possibly kill them. A “non-diseased� equivalent specimen in another tank fed merely to survival has nothing known to prevent it from living 10+ years.

PS: isopods, nematodes, flukes, etc., could also care less about the "breeding condition" of the fish and in cases of a populated environment, the size of the environment.

[KDodds]

Good points Scott, but there are hurdles that have been overcome. Mostly, that meant keeping fish at NSW levels and feeding an appropriate diet, IMO, but certainly collection and shipping methods have improved as well. Be that as it may, WC or CB, these two Clown species are a far sight from MIs or other "difficult" species.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "size of the environment" in reference to parasites. It's not the parasites that are in question, but the fishes' compromised immune systems in inappropriate environments. IOW, take a human comparison. E. coli naturally exists within all of us. Too much, and we get sick. Or maybe we don't. Maybe it takes another stressor to compromise our immune systems enough for us not to be able to handle a given organism and keep ourselves symptom-free. In this case, teh rpesence of the organism is not a disease, nor are we guaranteed to develop undesirable symptoms. We, in essence, are not sick just because E. coli is present. Same, IMO, holds true for fish, whatever the pathogen. Just because a pathogen is present doesn't mean a fish is ill. If it remains asymptomatic, it is likely thanks to care surpassing and nullifying any stressors that would compromise the immune system. My suggesting isolation for sick Clowns in a breeding pair is meant to remove the stress of breeding, which might be just enough to allow the fish to make a full and rapid recovery. But the male changing to female still remains a problem.

[traveller7]

Agreed on improvements in numerous hobbyist areas over the years Kieron. IME hurdles are easier to jump in a serial fashion as opposed to parallel.

Sizes of environment is frequently a stressor for many of our specimens, especially in relation to how we still collect, transport, wholesale, retail, improperly QT, and ultimately house them.

Studies have been done on density of population impacting effectiveness of parasitic infection down to a level the parasites are ineffective at re-infection. Unfortunately, I am not sure they have completely eliminated the variable, of developed fish "immunity" within the host species, which has also been demonstrated. Aquaculture facilities have been the best source I have found for such studies.

Presence of pathogens is precisely the issue I am concerned with in regard to MI's. We have yet to confirm required diet, system size, innate susceptibility, etc., and have no basis to assume "stress" elimination has been achieved. Certainly cannot asssume such by adding them to a pre-populated reef tank.

It is merely my opinion we are more likely to find success if we divide the Moorish Idol from as many variables as possible by placing it in a well established reef tank that has been fishless for an extended period of time. Analogous to quarantine in your safe, sound, well appointed home with well stocked fridge as opposed to a "sterile" hospital room.

My apologies for beating a dead horse, obviously an experience or two has inflamed the passion. My appreciation to the group for demonstrated tolerance.

[KDodds]

Not at all. IMO, you can never learn too much and no discussion is too old that something can't be learned.

I happen to agree with you in the case of QT for MIs. IF they are to be QT'd, along with other "touchy" species. It should definitely be in a "reef like" tank, minus the inverts, should medication be necessary (still no Cu please, some fish are too sensitive, MIs included). I would not even dream of moving an Idol from a barren LFS tank into a barren QT, too risky, IMO. But I don't have a spare established 6' FOWLR laying around either, nor do I think most aquarists, even if they COULD spare the room and operating expense.

I'm still leery of the secondary acclimation out of QT, tho.

[traveller7]

Originally posted by KDodds
But I don't have a spare established 6' FOWLR laying around either

Would you or the group chance a school of juveniles in an 80gal(4 foot base)? My only experience with MI was a single specimen from '82-'85 in a 55gal. Death presumed due to waning attention of youth.

Originally posted by KDodds
I'm still leery of the secondary acclimation out of QT, tho.

Me too. My experience with A. chrysopterus after extended isolation have met with failure each time I have attempted to move them into a multi-pair breeder system. I have resigned myself to keeping them isolated permanently instead of banging my head on the ground.

[zfunk007]

Well I finally ripped apart the tank today and got the Idol out (along with the Regal Angel as well). He is now in my 110 FOWLR. He seemed fine once I put him in. Catching him was quite the challenge though! Out of the 200 and something pounds of live rock in my tank, more than half of it came out... ugh.

Anyway, at least my corals can live now in peace. And the Idol gets almost an entire tank to himself. He will also get more food because there will be virtually no competition. So we'll see how it goes in the next few days...

[Shawnts106]

Good too hear that you got him out ok... It didnt dammage his beautiful streamer did it???


Let us know how he is...

as for mine, its official.. I talked to my friend the other day and told him whats going on... he said he would take him !

so now the MI is getting a HUGE new home... of 300 gallons!!!

[Paul B]

Today while doing some maintenance I noticed my Idol has a bad case of Pop eye. As you know, they have large eyes anyway so now it is really big. I can cure it in a few seconds if I could catch him. I will try in the morning in the dark. I have always lost them when they stopped eating but in three decades I have never had one with Pop eye but there was one a couple of weeks ago in the LFS with it. I went there to treat it but he was sold. Probably very cheaply.
Have a great day.
Paul

[Paul B]

OK, I got him. I fed him like I always do with a Kind of turkey baster (almost but better) I caught him and with a hypodermic I sucked out a lot of fluid behind his eye. He looks normal now and within two minutes I fed him a clam and he is as happy as a clam.
I will see tomorrow if he needs another treatment. Don't worry, I have done this dozens of times and so far never lost one of my fish or one from a wholesaler.
I have before and after pictures I will see if I can post them soon.
Paul

[Paul B]

PS I also know that he could be dead by tomorrow, depending on the reason he got pop eye in the first place.
Paul

[Paul B]

here he is with the pop eye. Don't worry he looks normal now.
Paul

[CrazyLionfish]

how do you catch him? by hand?

[Paul B]

I fed him by hand and I had a large net ready. I got him near the surface and stuck the net under him. He is totally back to normal now, so far.
paul

[Paul B]

His Pop eye was much better today but not totally gone so I gave him another treatment. he again looks completely normal. If it comes back tomorrow i will have to inject some antibiotic behind his eye. Unfortunately I don't have any at this time. You can't just walk into a drug store and ask for some drugs for a fish although I used to be friends with a chemist, he moved away.
Paul