Frogfish

[Sanfernando]

I've been thinking of setting up a small tank, probably about 20 gallons for a frogfish. Anyone with any experience with these fish? How do they hold up in captivity? What did you feed them? Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[wombat1]

Frogfish are awesome, incredibly interesting fish. They don't do much but sit there though. I fed mine damsels until I weaned it onto frozen shrimp. It accepted shrimp for a short time but stopped. I had to buy 10 damsels or so and keep them in specimen containers until the frogfish was hungry. This guy was about the size of a cherry and could eat a damsel a week. Mine was very hardy. He actually ate while I was acclimating him.

 

[JeremyR]

We recently put a frogfish in our SPS tank. He had not eaten yet... today he was fishing, so I put a silverside on a feeding stick and made it act like a dying fish on the bottom.. the frogfish stalked it and ate it. Frogfish are easy to get to eat frozen, live is not required IME.

 

[Anonymous]

The only other thing I will add here is that you must never expose them to copper. Treat them as you would inverts, they do not tolerate copper at any levels.

I really like the cryptic predators, they're truly fascinating.

 

[Sanfernando]

Thanks for all the advice. I was planning on adding some live rock and sand, so copper wont be an issue. Does anyone know their maximum size and how long it takes them to reach it? Would a 20 gallon be sufficient for an adult?

 

[Putawaywet]

I am not familar with all members of this species but with the few animals I have encountered while working at a public aquarium I can tell you that these guys can get relatively large with quite an impressive appetite.

A few days ago I observed one of our newer arrivals take 6 restaurant grade shrimp off of a feeding stick in less than 2 minutes. His central body mass was roughly the size of my fist. Prior to this he had been acccepting only live foods.

The largest I have seen was apporximately 12" and made shrimp eating look like an art form. So unless there is a dwarf version of this animal you will be upgrading that 20gal faster than you think.

Brett

 

[Anonymous]

Actually there are a number of small species that would be fine in a 20.

 

[Sanfernando]

Anyone know which species stay smaller? And where is a good place to order some of the more colorful frogfish?

 

[Anonymous]

The wartskin stays under 4" and is really cool. There are other species too...You should ge Scott Michaels big Reef Fishes book, there is a huge section there on em.

Marine Center carries them. I'm not sure which species but ecorals has a nice one now: http://www.ecorals.tv/product.cfm?sid=5 ... 2&pid=1159

 

[Joe DeSantis]

I worked in a local fish store for a while and we had a yellow one for a while.....really cool. It ate ghost shrimp like crazy.