Longnose, Pixy Hawk or Neither

[falconut]

I have been trying to decide if a hawkfish is OK for my tank. I have been looking at the Longnose Hawkfish, but they get up to 5". I was wondering if the Pixy/Spotted Hawkfish (Cirrhitichthys oxycephalus) would be better since it only gets 3"?

Are the Pixy Hawks actually aggresive as listed on Liveaquaria.com? Would I still be better going with the Longnose Hawkfish (Oxycirrhites typus) listed as semi-aggresive on Liveaquaria.com?

I currently have 2 - False Clowns, Coral Beauty, Yellow Tang, Male Lyretail Anthias, Longfin Fairy Wrasse, Two Spot Candy Hog, Royal Gramma, Pink Spotted Goby, 2 Skunk Cleaners, 30+ BL Hermits, 30+ Astrea Snails, 10+ Cerith Snails & 20+ Nasarius Snails.

Any opinions from experience would be helpful.

[DaveC]

I had both, long noses are great for jumping out of the tank, so after two I switched to the pixie....the pixie is not aggressive toward other fish, but my ate all my peppermints, cleaners, would go after crabs if he decided he was hungry....and even though pixie's mouth is small he downed some good size cleaner shrimp...so out he came....that is my experience with hawkfish..

DaveC

[falconut]

Thanks. Definitly no Pixy Hawk!

[DPanasis]

It depends on how big your shrimp are. I have a flame hawk and I absolutely love it. He's so fun to watch, and very colorful. However, my skunk cleaner is big enough that the hawk won't mess with it. The flame hawk will get about 2.5" I think.

[Red_Roadster]

Loved my long nose, had a pixy and hated it. It harassed all the other fish big time... and it was the smallest!

[ozadars]

Both of these hawks have ability to eat shrimps, hermits or snails when full grown. If you do not want to loose your shrimps, then you should search for some other fish.

[falconut]

Thanks