Got a new moorish idol

[Dakotamay]

Ok guys, before you go off and freak out that this fish should never of been bought and will never survive etc, etc....   I know this. I read up about them.   I decided to try and keep one.  He's only been in the reef since yesterday afternoon.

I've moved sponge covered rocks from my sump up to the main tank in hopes he'll pick at those.  Also hoping he'll take the many foods I feed in a day.

They are.
New Life Spectrum pellets
H2O LIfe mysis and spirulina mix, oyster eggs, blood worms
PE Mysis
Cyclop-eeze
Julian Sprung's Sea Veggies

All of these are fed in small amounts throughout the day.

Is there anyone else on here that has kept or is keeping a moorish that can suggest a food I don't have that theirs likes.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[kole18]

Oh boy this fish is worse than Achilles, I tried one small of this fish in my 90g before it did ate for a while & 1st food been taking it was mysis, brine . after couple of months doing ok in my tank. All sudden it start picking on my clams, nipping all my sps frags 1 by 1 & decided not eat again later that day I knew something is wrong with this idol, I've got feed this fish to get going do wouldn't bother corals. It didn't stop anyway I gues it did died causes of not eating prep food I've lost a few sp. frag but not my clams. It's going to be very tough to keep this kind of fish your tank, maybe a bigger tank would probably best just reduced stress & space to swim around. I would say on reef system 50%50 safe good luck if you having a M'idol nice fish but it's a challenge though:)

[JetJumper]

All I can say is I wish you the best of luck with the fish.. its an awesome looking specimen.. but a PAIN to keep alive.

[Hookup]

I will be adding those as well...  I have a 125g in the basement that will be used to get them eating my foods before adding them to the display... That amd a copper banded butterfly...

Best of luck...  IMO they were impossible but now they are just hard if you don't feed foods like mysis, ova, brine, bloodworms, etc...  Get them eating and your home free...  Flake and pellets would be my last choice...personally.

[Darth]

I will be adding those as well...  I have a 125g in the basement that will be used to get them eating my foods before adding them to the display... That amd a copper banded butterfly...

Best of luck...  IMO they were impossible but now they are just hard if you don't feed foods like mysis, ova, brine, bloodworms, etc...  Get them eating and your home free...  Flake and pellets would be my last choice...personally.

my copperbanded butterfly will only eat frozen mysis, I put a mix in of mysis and other frozen and he will hunt down and eat only the mysis drives me nuts

[kole18]

I've got lucky for my ccb eating well, but he decided to take a pcs of my hydropora so he ended been thrown out my tank heehe

[kole18]

I mean sold to 1 our co-ovas here:)

[Darth]

I've got lucky for my ccb eating well, but he decided to take a pcs of my hydropora so he ended been thrown out my tank heehe

yes my hydropora is gone bye bye as well but am not sure if its the cbb or the file fish

[Dakotamay]

So far so good. I've gotten the moorish who we've name Maury to take a few NLS pellets and some mysis shrimp yesterday by about 6 pm. He is also happy to nibble the sponge off of a rock that I moved up from my sump. I did this as I read that their main diet in the wild is sponges.  I've now asked Jim of Forty Fathoms to order me in some non ornamental cheap sponges to offer up to Maury lol. Whatever it takes to keep him fat, happy and healthy. Going to try blood worms and mysis again this morning.
I turned the powerhead off yesterday morning but left it on last night. Maury seems to prefer it on. It seems that if it wasn't moving with current he didn't show any interest in it.

We do have a large enough tank for this guy. We have a 180g. His only other larger tank mates are a blue tang and a vampire tang. He also has a small right now (1 inch) long horned cow fish tank mate who will get larger in time. The rest are all small reef dwelling fish.  The largest being a dispar anthias.

[Hookup]

Any photos?

[Dakotamay]

I'll take some today and post.  He or she is a beauty. Very long top fin.

[Dakotamay]

Here's our experience so far.

Day 1 in the reef was marked by small encouraging signs as he adjusted to his new home. He picked at the live rock and the sponge covered rock that I moved up from the sump for him. I'd read in the wild they mainly feed on sponges. He also tasted the NLS pellets. Didn't really go crazy. Mysis, cyclop-eeze and finely chopped oyster were ignored as was also the marine grazer from new era and sea veggies.

Day 2 is showing much more improvement. He now takes NLS pellets. Has greedily eaten himself some mysis and is now taking algae sheets from the clip. He also really liked the finely chopped oyster today. I'd say that was his favorite. He's still grazing his sponge rock as well.

I've asked Jim to order in some non ornamental sponge for Maury's pallet lol.

I'm confident if we can keep him eating like day 2 on a daily basis then he should do well. All dietary needs should be met. I'll try and keep this thread updated with information and progress as we go along. This way if anyone else wishes to try one but wants more first hand experience information first. I'm happy to provide what I can.

I will note that he is not an aggressive feeder. I feed the rest of the tank first so they are busy and then feed him. I watch him closely to make sure he is getting food.

I'll get a pic up asap. If anyone on the forum has any experience and knowledge to offer. I'd sure be glad to hear it.

Here's hoping I'm updating this thread for a very long time 

Small day 3 update. I've just used the cheese grater and grated up oyster. Making a really stinky mess lol. However, Maury was much appreciative as the pieces were small enough for him to eat.  I am seeing that he will eye ball the piece first and if it's too big he won't even try to eat it. Tiny morsels are his preference.

The things we do for our fish lol.

[Dakotamay]

Here are some pics for everyone that would like to see them. Going to take pics of him every couple weeks or so to document his growth, color etc....

He's not overly fond of the camera lol. So these were the best I could get. He can dart away pretty fast.



Of course the blue tang and vampire tang are camera hogs.









This last one is of Maury's sponge rock. The little longhorned cowfish was investigating it at the time. The cowfish is eating well too. Loves his blood worms. Haven't seen him take any pellets yet. Just meat.

[Cheebs]

That is one gorgeous fish... Good luck!

[Dakotamay]

That is one gorgeous fish... Good luck!

Thanks Phil for both the comment and the good luck.  We'll need it.  From what I've researched you can't consider yourself out of the woods with this fish until you've had it at least 2 years.   

[jimskoi]

I'm glad he is doing well for you guys. We do not get them in very after. In fact. I don't think we have had them in for 4-5 years.

I will have some sponge for you this week.

Please keep us all posted.

[kole18]

Wow amazing fish selection that tang & idol beauty:)

[Dakotamay]

I'm glad he is doing well for you guys. We do not get them in very after. In fact. I don't think we have had them in for 4-5 years.

I will have some sponge for you this week.

Please keep us all posted.

Awesome Jim. Thanks for the quick ordering.  I'll certainly keep this thread updated. Hopefully for a long time. No bad news.

[Dakotamay]

Day 3 full update

Today has been successful. Maury has ate very well. This morning consisted as I said earlier of grated up tiny pieces of oyster. Maury devoured this.

Later in the day I fed NLS pellets. Which he had a few of.  Not overly fond of them. But ate a few.

Around this time I also put in a New Era Mini Grazer disc. Maury very much likes this as well. Has made many trips to the grazer to munch. What's really surprising is the vampire tang is very possessive over the grazer disc's and usually chases everybody away. However, he's actually allowing Maury to be on one side of the grazer while he is eating from the other side of the disc. 

This evening the tank was just fed blood worms. Maury scarfed a couple of those as well.

He has also continued to graze his sponge rock throughout the day along with the rock work itself.  We have a long way to go with this guy. But first days are encouraging that he will settle in and eat enough to meet his dietary needs.

[Hookup]

Awesome!!  Looking forward to getting my own soon..

[az]

I know few people with moorish idols, often it could be eating and fat today but very much dead tomorrow, dont think they are 100% reef safe though.

[Dakotamay]

I know few people with moorish idols, often it could be eating and fat today but very much dead tomorrow, dont think they are 100% reef safe though.

I do know that you are never really out of the woods with these fish. They tend to die mysteriously.  I've read some people say if you can keep it 2 years you're out of the woods. Really though with any fish you're never out of the woods they can die at any time for any given number of reasons.

We however, are willing to give this beautiful fish a try and see if we can't provide him what he needs to thrive in our system.

I also know they are not considered to be really reef safe. So far he doesn't nip anything in the tank except the sponge he's allowed. We'll see  how he does.


Hookup : Yes they are beautiful to watch. Hopefully my experiences listed here will be helpful in your journey when you do get yours.

[shaheed]

Never realized how beautiful this fish is...!  Best of luck, will be following to learn something!

[Amy]

I've been checking this post for some days, I got a moorish idol too, though mine is more picky then yours unfortunately..
He nips at sponges, feeds on Nori no problem and some really small pieces of brine/mysis. I tried really small chopped pieces of squid but he didnt go for them.
I'll try the oysters and see how he likes it!

Thanks for the post, it gives me a lot of ideas for him

Here's some pics of mine:

[Dakotamay]

I've been checking this post for some days, I got a moorish idol too, though mine is more picky then yours unfortunately..
He nips at sponges, feeds on Nori no problem and some really small pieces of brine/mysis. I tried really small chopped pieces of squid but he didnt go for them.
I'll try the oysters and see how he likes it!

Thanks for the post, it gives me a lot of ideas for him

Here's some pics of mine:

Hey Amy,

Yes they can be picky. In my research (I should of bookmarked it) I found a fellow that dove with these fish on many occasions to study their living and eating habits. What he mentioned was that he thinks the ones that come into the trade that are very picky eaters are females. His reason for saying this was that he observed on the reef that the idols were always in pairs. One would travel ahead of the other and feed on some sponge. When the one following behind arrived the one would go ahead and find another sponge. They repeated this process the entire day. He thought after seeing this. The male might be the one to go ahead and scout for food while the female follows along and eats what he shows her. It could of course be backwards and it's the female going ahead and male following. Just his theory. However, his point was that the picky eaters might be the sex that would be the follower. Thus when they are alone in the home aquarium they don't know what to do to go find the food as they were the follower always shown where the food was.

I have no idea if he's right or not. I'm just referring to his thoughts regarding the picky eaters.

Don't get discouraged. Keep feeding and a lot. I now feed the tank 4-5 times a day small amounts. I was Maury very carefully to make sure that he does in fact take in some food.  Also try new era grazer in the same clip that he is eating the nori from. He or she might take to that.

I use the cheese grater to get the oyster shredded up small enough. I use the smallest holes on the grater. I have to get some uncooked shrimp to try. I ran out and haven't picked any up with having the oysters here.

Good luck. Start a thread about yours too. This way we'll have two people sharing their experiences. I'd say share here. But it might get confusing as to which fish is being referred too lol.

Good luck.

One last thing. Just because he didn't eat the squid the first time. Try a few more days in a row. Maury didn't eat the oyster meat at first either. Then he just started to devour it. I'm not kidding when I say it has to be tiny too. Shred it up really fine. He may take it then. Maury will inspect the piece before deciding to take it. If it's too large he passes it by.

[Amy]

Very interesting, thanks for the info!
I have a raw seafood mix bag for my tessalata eel, I'll try shredding up everything in little bowl for him/her.
The squid is just impossible on the chesse grater haha... I only got some mucusy stuff out of it

I also need to move the bristletooth tang to another tank, I'm sure it will help a lot, he's a fast swimmer. The rest of the fish are a mandarin goby, flame angel and small green wrasse.

I really hope it can work, maybe the trick with them is just diversity in food and frequent feedings, who knows.

I would also consider buying a second one that his already eating if it can help him/her eat more.

I'll start a new thread with my experiences if they are succesful! Thanks

[Dakotamay]

I don't think your bristletooth is a bother. I have a vampire tang and a blue tang in here too. Also some anthias and a wrasse. Very fast swimmers. Very competitive for the food. I try to get them all eating first and then concentrate on dropping some near Maury. This seems to work as the other pigs are busy lol.

I didn't think to ask how long have you had yours now?  We're on day 5.

[Amy]

Same as you. I'll try feeding it right now and see how it goes.

[Dakotamay]

I didn't get a chance to make the day 4 update last evening.  Not much different to report. Maury ate the same if not a little better than the days before. He finished off his white sponge on the rock in the pic above and now has a rock with orange sponge that he is eating as well. Thankfully he's not picky on sponges lol. Seems to be happy with any sponge.
Another interesting thing that seems to be happening is a bond between Maury and Dory (blue tang) They seem to be sticking together and the blue tang seems to be the monkey see monkey do of the pair. She now grazes the sponge rock as well. Odd couple? I guess so. But if it makes Maury more comfortable then hey, that works. Maybe that will provide the companionship portion of his needs that would of been fulfilled if we had 2. Which I would of bought a pair had there been 2.  Jim had ordered 2 but only received 1.

[Dakotamay]

Same as you. I'll try feeding it right now and see how it goes.

Maury has already eaten finely chopped oyster for this morning. At lights on at noon I will be putting in pellets. Along with a new era grazer disc and an algae sheet.  Later this evening before lights out he'll get mysis and marine cuisine frozen food.

I used to feed meat every other day. Now twice a day.

[Amy]

he likes the seafood medley! I gave him a mix of squid, mussels, octopus and shrimp and he took the smallest pieces.
He didnt eat agressively, but he ate well. I have the Seaquest brand.
What's fun with this bag is that everything is easy to grate and in small pieces.
I'm gonna retry the new era discs, it didnt touch the first one, it was there for 2 days.

[Dakotamay]

he likes the seafood medley! I gave him a mix of squid, mussels, octopus and shrimp and he took the smallest pieces.
He didnt eat agressively, but he ate well. I have the Seaquest brand.
What's fun with this bag is that everything is easy to grate and in small pieces.
I'm gonna retry the new era discs, it didnt touch the first one, it was there for 2 days.

Woo hooo! Awsome! I'm thrilled he ate the seafood medley for you. If you can get some cheap sponge for him to eat I'd do that. We just got home not long ago with sponge for Maury and he's already eating it. We've trained him to go to one spot in the tank for his sponge. Hopefully this will teach him too that what is placed there and only there is for him to eat not other corals lol. A person can try can't they? lmao.

[Amy]

  I have a huge red sponge, but he hasn't touched it yet... I don't know if he can reach it or not, so I'll try to place it in the middle of the tank. He nips at stuff on the rocks but I still see so many sponges and corals intact ( I only have a few softies and GSP left in this tank)  I do have a lot of copepods in this tank, you can see them swimming everywhere, maybe he's eating those guys...
He sure loves his seaweed though, every time a chunk goes by, he swims super fast to catch it!

I'm happy to see they are not so hard to start feeding, I had so much more trouble with my copperband butterfly.

[Dakotamay]

I'd try putting the sponge in a spot where he hangs out. Our Maury hangs out in the spot where we have the sponge. We've now got a chili sponge in place and I've seen him pick a  little at it but not like he did the other sponge. Maybe he doesn't like chili? lmao. He is eating everything else going into the tank now so maybe he just isn't hungry for sponge. Time will tell.

A neat little aside. My little baby cow fish in the pic on the first page of this thread ate out of my hand tonight. Was so cute to watch him suck in the blood worms. They're his absolute favorite. He won't eat anything but blood worms and oyster.

[Dakotamay]

The weekend was crazy busy and haven't had a chance to be on the computer too much.

Here's some update on Maury. Really there isn't much to say.  He doesn't like the chili sponge. I guess it may be too hard for him. Not sure.  He eats anything I put in the tank.
New Era Mini Grazer is a favorite as is the algae sheets. He makes sure he gets his fair share of those. Pushes his way right in there with the blue tang, vampire tang and lawnmower blenny.
He's even done well with stress as we had to tear our entire tank apart to get out a fish that we were told was reef safe and wasn't. It was a leopard blenny. Only eats SPS coral polyps. He rather liked the few chunks he got out of my chalice. It is doing fine though and healing quickly.

[Dakotamay]

Another update and some pics.  Maury is doing really well. He eats mysis, new era grazer, algae sheets, NLS pellets and whatever meat I put in for the day on a new era grazer clip. Can be seen in the pics below. There isn't really much more to say. He holds his own in the tank. Makes sure that he gets his share of the food.

Here's the pics.







As can be seen in the last two pics. He's no longer camera shy lol. Coming right to the side and posing. What a fish.

[Cheebs]

Yours also looks amazing, great job!! One day when I upgrade one of these is on the top of my list!

[Dakotamay]

Thanks Phil. He still doing awesome. His streamer has grown back again. It is now close to half an inch in length.  He eats like a pig for me. I don't think I have to worry about not meeting nutritional needs of this fish. He eats his sponge in the tank. He also eats New Era mini grazer discs, algae sheets, frozen mysis, frozen blood worms and cyclop-eeze. Out of all of that he surely should be getting what he needs.

[Hookup]

these fish are sofa king awesome...  i can hardly wait..

summer is just boooo.