We are pleased to present another inaugural post today on Reef Builders, this one is by Tim Morrissey, a fish breeding aquarist who is attending the Florida Institute of Technology where he studies reef fish ecology and reproduction.
Harlequin filefish, Oxymonacanthus longirostris, are an exquisite species of reef fish who’s captive success has eluded many advanced aquarist since their primary food source in nature is corals. Andrew Berry of Boulder Colorado has managed to keep his harlequin filefish alive and happy for over a year now! Matthew Pederson and him have both gotten their pairs to spawn for them. Andrew wrote a nice article on his new website about the trials and tribulations of getting them to eat frozen food. His favorite food to feed them is Nutramar Ova, but the fish are now accepting a variety of foods. This development is exciting and very cool that now a second person has spawning, fat, and happy Oxymonacanthus. Hopefully this added success bodes well for other coralivores, and progress can be made with these tough to keep fish. It should be noted these fish are definitely not a beginner fish and lots of care needs to be put in to achieve success with this species! Andy who is better known as Ummfish on the BBs has gone one step further and written an article to document his successes on his website, Ummfish.com. Also as seen by the above picture, there was recently a pair for sale on liveaquaria’s Diver’s Den section, they have already sold though, so hopefully the new owner will have the same success with these awesome fish!
