Sargassum fish

[Sea-agg09]

Took a few pics of my sargassum fish today while he was out.









And the others while I was at it.

Shrimp;


and the nudi

[BassTank]

Crazy fish. This is why I'm getting into saltwater.

[Darbex]

Interesting where did you get him?

[Nickintex]

Interesting where did you get him?

I think he said Galveston on another thread. You can prolly get some at the GHAC trip to Freeport next month.

[cichlid1409]

thats cool! you dont see a setup like this everyday :emt_thumbs:

[myjohnson]

+1!

Extreme WC and biotope set up!

[Nickintex]

+1!

Extreme WC and biotope set up!

I MAY let you do this kinda biotope for me.

[Ca Nguyen]

do you have to make constant run to galveston for Sargassum? that's really cool

[fishlady]

that is a very cool fishie......thanks for sharing...is that a wild caught fish or did you purchase it?...

[Sea-agg09]

Member daddy found these guys in galveston, and graciously gave them to me. They are all over the place, so you should be able to find them on your collecting trip. Just go deeper into the water because they "abandon ship" when they sense that the large wave action near the shore" Hint; younger ones (smaller) are much easier to care for, and take to captive care much better than old farts. They are sensitive to over-feeding and all the like. Because I have time to work with this guy, he will probably end up taking frozen mysis easily.

I will be letting the nudibrach go, they will ONLY eat the bryozoans that will ONLY live on LIVE sargassum... way too much work, not to mention the whole sanitary aspect of putting wild sargassum into the same system as a reef tank. He is also very well camouflaged, and I can never see him. If I were doing a true sargassum tank (/drool) that would be fine, but not in this situation. The shrimp will be let loose into the main tank. When they get berried, I will probably put them back into QT to try to keep the babies. The fish will go into a large in-tank refugium.

I'm tracking down some very realistic fake sargassum for the fish to hang out in. All the stuff I found so far looks terrible and is just one twig of the stuff. I'm having a friend at moody track down where they got their fake sargassum, as it actually looks real. As for now, I'm picking up some live stuff off the beaches. My girlfriend lives in galveston, so I am down there quite a bit anyways.

[Alterna]

I've collected a few of these guys in Galveston. They will make short work of the shrimp, also love ghost shrimp and piggy perch fry. Caught mostly at the tidal pools @ the end of the seawall. Sargassum will float over the rocks on calm am high tides without losing the fish. As long as the surf is calm, the fish/shrimp/crabs/nudi's/snails will stay in the sargassum in the pools and crevices between the rocks. When seas gets rough, at high tide they'll swim out. Just be careful, as the rocks can be very slick at times.

I've got a few bait traps left out in Tiki to collect food for him and my oyster toadfish. If I don't check my traps very often I usually only end up with one overfed oyster toadfish in the traps. My toadfish loves nudis too-To be honest, he'll eat just about anything.

[Darbex]

Will the sargassum not grow in the tank?

[Alterna]

Mine has grown.
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Here is a typical blenny I catch as well.

[Sea-agg09]

Will the sargassum not grow in the tank?

I think he means the actual sargassum algae. And in most cases it doesn't. It needs really good lighting (5+ watts per gallon), but even still it usually just falls apart and rots. I don't want to put it in because of the whole quarantine thing. Because my native is connected to my reef tank, I don't want all those micro-inverts getting in and eating y coral.

[Alterna]

I still have a couple collected Saturday. I had 6, but my large Sargassum fish ate 4 of them. They are small 1"-2". If anyone in the area is interested in them let me know soon, otherwise they will be fodder.