Meet Prissy

M

michad

We have a long haired Chihuahua named Prissy and my wife decided this would be what she looked like if she was a fish.

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Shaggy Angler, acquired 7/11/2007

*if you know anything about the anglers (i've read as much as I could find) feel free to help me care for it best.

At the LFS they told another interested buyer that it had to be fed live shrimp ever 3-4 days. Is there a chance to acclimate it to frozen foods?
Can I place a breeder box in my sump and store ghost shrimp there for feeings?
I fully expect any dumb fish currently in the tank to disappear.
 
Great picture. Our digital camera has issues or I'd post some of mine. :x

You can expect anything that isn't as big around as the Angler to disappear. From what I understand a lot of people lose their Anglers by over-feeding or by allowing them to eat something too big, that digests too slowly and rots inside them.

They tend to adapt their camouflage to the dominant sponge in the area.

I fed mine saltwater acclimated live Molly's for the first couple of weeks, occasionally offering a frozen silverside on the end of a wooden skewer. The Molly's never lasted longer than a day. I stuck one of the Molly's on the skewer and it was accepted instantly. After that, feeding my Angler thawed silversides wasn't hard at all. I now feed her every other day.

Feeder shrimp will be fine for a little while, but I don't think you could keep enough to nutrionally meet its needs in the long term.

Good luck with your new friend! Tis a beautiful specimen!
 
So should we try and remove the fish that are smaller than her mouth? I'd hate to lose any fish to the angler but it would be worse to lose the angler to it's own appetite.
 
Well, better safe than sorry is probably the best approach.

I thought maybe I could keep some sort of scorpionfish with mine, but after further research apparently Lionfish is a common meal for an Angler. Unfortunately they seem to be most successfully kept in a "species only" tank.
 
The tank ours was in had about the same variety of fish in it as I have in ours. The PJ Cardinals and Gramma are smaller in our tank....so maybe those should go....now here's the real question...if the angler is well fed; is it going to 'chase' down it's tankmates or just eat anyone dumb enough to get near it's mouth?
 
Being well fed might slow it down, but I wouldn't put money on any one of the other fish co-existing for the long term.
 
Ditto that.

It's weird, we normally watch Rescue Me but last light it was like "there's only 35 minutes of tanklight left" and we watched the tank for a half hour.

The gramma had been 'unseen' for an hour+ so we started to assume...then about 5 minutes before bedtime it darted out of the rocks and went back. I dont think we've been that excited in along time....
 
Well today was the first feeding attempt. I got a bag of ghost shrimp from the LFS (I gotta find another food type) and acclimated them into a glass of my tank water. I flaked the tank on the opposite side from where the angler was sitting and poured the mixture of ghost shrimp near the angler.

Score: Marine Betta 3.5 Angler 5 unseen 1 and .5 to a blue legged hermit.


The Betta was a shock, since he's been rather reserved since we put him in the tank and he ate a bunch of frozen yesterday. Man, he hunted and engulfed the shrimp today!

The Angler absolutely lived up to his name, stalking and luring his prey. The last one he ate was hide in a corner and Prissy moved around for like five minutes until she was practically in front of it....then sat there for over 5 minutes. I know because I stood there the whole time.

Incredibly cool stuff!


Picts at www.michad.org under The Fishes
 
So it's been almost a month and Prissy seems to be doing well.

Since I replaced my 7420 Tunzes with 6100s she's taken to swimming....very cool to watch, wish I had had the tripod handy.

Last night we offered her a piece of shrimp soaked in warm saltwater and she took it! Very excited that she might take a prepared food instead of a diet of (freshwater) ghost shrimps only.

What would I look into for soaking her shrimps in before serving? I've read about reefers soaking foods (but of course cant now find those posts).

Most interesting member of our reef community!
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Well I just pulled Prissy the wet out of the tank. She was purple on her left side and quite dead. Not sure if there was a fight or maybe it wasnt such a great idea to feed her frozen shrimp the other night.

First death in the tank :(
 
Awww man. I'm so sorry about that. Prissy wasa very cool looking fish. In fact, I was thinking about upgrading so I could have something as wierd and cool as that!
Here's to hoping that the rest of your little swimmers stay healthy.
 
Sorry to hear about your loss. I was very intersted in your thread and seeing how things went. Good luck to you and the rest of your reef inhabitants and hopefully you have better luck next time!
 
Well poop. :cry:

Very, very sorry for your loss.

There is an article in Coral Magazine (edition dedicated to Anglers/Frogfish) about harmful bacteria found in frozen foods. Might have been that. Any way you slice it, it sucks man.
 
We're fairly confident in our husbandry....tankwise. I've read several articles today on how these guys go out and there's no doubt that we didnt do the proper research before giving her frozen food.

We'll do it again, but man it's hard to find a shaggy for sale....anyone sees one, pm me.
 
Will keep an eye out. LiveAquaria.com gets them occasionally. You might sign up for their waiting list, or check out their Divers Den section, they had some Warties and "Asst. Angler" in stock last I checked.
 
I saw those but we're shaggy folks here. I'll get on their list.

After a couple of days to think about it, she was swimming strange for the last week, by that I mean swimming as opposed to walking. We only had her three weeks so this may not have been the shrimp that took her out.

We'll continue to mature the tank and when we find the right angler, we'll have one again...and then I'll only use approved frozen foods...or hell 2.38 a week to feed her wasnt a strain on our budget.
 
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