Pairing Morish Idols

Getting started on pairing my Idols.. Has anyone ever done this or heard about someone doing it. I was just going to do it much like pairing angels.

 

You will need a much bigger tank! They look great and would love to have one some day and good luck on your pairing.

 

I would love to hear how it goes! I would love a second one.

 

yeah, they're going to need a lot more space to be comfortable, and certainly if you want a shot at either of them surviving longer than a couple months. A 125 at least would be the best suggestion. idk if you have a larger display tank elsewhere and this is your qt set up or what? One benefit is that they do generally do better in pairs, despite some obligatory quarrelling in the beginning.

Their pairing and mating habits are unknown, although they are almost always found in pairs or schools in the wild. Their family and genus is monophyletic so biologically speaking there is little basis to infer analogous gender systems and habits.

One piece of advice I have read is to collect and blanch dandelion greens and pack inject them with thawed slurry of frozen food. That way the dandelion greens resemble their natural diet: sponges, and they get an appetite for prepared aquarium foods.

Fair warning, although there are some documented success cases among MANY MANY failures. One author documents that in the course of 3 years, keeping tabs on 100 moorish idol keepers, there was a body count of over 380 moorish idols and not a living one or success among them. That is generally why keeping the moorish idol is a touchy subject.

 

I have had one since last summer. Eats like a hog! He did eat all sponges that were within reach of the beak. I feed a mix of foods and angelfish mix that contains sponge. It has never denied any food that i have offered the tank. It evens eats flake from the surface. The autofeeder hits the tank with a small dash of algae and flake a couple times a day, and feed frozen in the morning and evening. The fish has grown since i bought him from the LFS a year ago. This is the only Idol i have ever attempted. Does fine with the PBT, Pygmy angel,anthias, cleaner shrimp, clowns, and the neon/sharknose gobies are always cleaning the idol. It lives in a 150deep. I did see the fish eat pelet food at the LFS before i bought him. The PBT and Idol were not too keen on each other at first, but now ignore each other. http://www.greateriowareefsociety.org/Forums/tabid/78/aft/28132/Default.aspx It healed right up, and since the event everything has been peachy.


Also, the long dorsal fin gets really long over time. I have seen it get caught in koralia 8 power heads, and cut it short. This happens every couple months or so, but always grows back. I have never seen my other fish nip it or chase it.

 

i know john coppliano (not sure on spelling) when he spoke at one of our frag fests said that he tried to pair them several times and it always ended in disaster. he said a friend of his even tried in a 1000 gal tank and it didnt work. basically he said in his experience that its not possable in a home aquarium unless its a massive reef tank like 5000-10000 gal might have a chance

 

interesting, John is a great guy to listen to. And has a LOT of experience.

 

I'm not keeping them long term in a 40 gal breeder guys.. They will be going into my 140 reef once they are not trying to kill each other and lessen the chance for ich.. I plan to use john copllions methods and observe closely.. They are both very healthy and are eating rods food or anything else in reach

 

well in my opinion you have a 99.9% chance one will kill the other but its your call good luck

 

In regards to what Copplino said and what most have observed, those who are successful keeping moorish idols is mostly just dumb luck that they got an adaptive specimen.

 

keeping a morish idol in a home aquarium and trying to pair two of them in a home aquarium are two different things keeping one alive and healthy is very hard to do keeping 2 alive in a tank together is basically impossable unless you have a huge huge aquarium. from my understanding you have a better chance at winning a powerball jackpot cause its never been done before


so if you really do have 2 idols in seperate tanks already and both are eating count yourself very lucky and keep them apart dont put them together

 

Matt, that is actually true of all moorish idols "keeping one is basically as good as your odds of winning the powerball" But there are more documented cases of pairs surviving "long term" (2 years) than there are documented cases of single moorish idols surviving. Survival 4 year an put is basically impossible, analogous to winking the lottery twice and then getting struck by lightening and surviving.

 

I had a pair at the store & they did great together. They are a schooling fish, but they need a large tank with plenty of swimming/grazing room.

Mine ate the crap out of the LPS though.

 

Matt, that is actually true of all moorish idols "keeping one is basically as good as your odds of winning the powerball" But there are more documented cases of pairs surviving "long term" (2 years) than there are documented cases of single moorish idols surviving. Survival 4 year an put is basically impossible, analogous to winking the lottery twice and then getting struck by lightening and surviving.
I think you might be confused in thinking that were talking about pairing as in courtship and spawning. I'm merely talking about social pairing.

 

After allowing them to watch each other for a week I just put them both in together and....so far not even a nip or dart at each other .. Everything looks great ill keep updating progress through out the week. Guess my chances were a little better than 99.9% that they would kill each other but time will tell ../DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/cool.gif

 

Did you partition the tank so they were on opposite sides for that week? Or did you have them in separate tanks located/butted up to each other?

 

It just happened to be that my baby clowns were in one tank and the Tangs were being moved into the Reef tank and were in the other. so i just butted up the 2 40 gallon breeders for them to see each other. Honestly i dont think it mattered, they first seen each other and got a little excited but shortly there after they were just ignoreing each other or seemed like it didn't matter..Once introuduced to each other they didn't even chase or anything negetive that i've seen (almost happier actions).. Last night i moved all my tangs and both idol's into the reef tank. Everyone swam togerther for an hour (kinda cute) then just the Idol's were together.. I'm curious to see what is happening in the tank tonight..

 

cool never say impossible