Moorish Idol Issues

[Dakotamay]

Well, here's the low down guys. The reason I say possibly is because I will not let him go to just anyone with a tank. This guy has been with us in our mixed reef for about 2 or 3 months now. He was a baby when I got him. Not anymore. He's grown extremely fast and has now decided to take a liking to eating clam, gorg polyps and Australian Donut Brain coral. This has left my husband, son and I stressed right out trying to keep up with his food requirements and keep him full.
I really think despite the fact he's very happy here. He needs to go into a FOWLR (Fish Only With Live Rock) set up. With someone who understands and has the budget and time to feed this guy. I'm a stay at home Mom. I feed him all day long.
Here's what he eats, no devours in a day lol. Before 9am he gets a new era grazer disc. At the same time he gets a frozen cube of either mysis, 50/50, blood worm, mysis and spirulina mix. Whatever I grab for that time. At this time an algae sheet also goes in. Red or green I alternate. He likes red better. Eats the green as well though,  just not as fast lol. He also grazes on his natural sponges too. He goes from thing to thing sampling lol.
At 12pm noon he gets NLS pellets along with the rest of the crew.
By mid afternoon say 2pm another new era grazer disc goes in. Along with another frozen cube.
7pm is pellets again.  I should also mention that I elastic a piece of meat to a rock as well in the morning for him. He may or may not depending on his mood for the day touch it.

Here are my conditions for considering someone:

1.If you're new to the hobby please don't say you'd like to have him. I won't even consider you. These fish are way too fragile.

2.If you have anything less than a 180 gallon 6ft long tank. Please don't bother. He is going to get a lot larger yet.  

3. If you're barely home and can't feed him as much as he requires (as listed above) same as above. I won't consider you.

4. As rude as this might sound. If you don't have the budget to afford to feed him. He's not the fish for you.

Please don't try to pull the wool over my eyes either. I will be checking up on who ever I am considering to find out from others what they know about you.

If all of this sounds harsh or anything I'm sorry. This is a rare fish to have do well in a tank. He is doing well. Active, happy, fat and eats well. He's just eating things we'd like to keep. As mentioned above clams, gorg and brain.

I'm not sure yet what I'll be asking for him. You will have to buy the sponges I have here for him as well as I don't need them once he's gone.  He also is used to them and will help him transition as well.

The beauty this guy brings to your tank is very rewarding but you must be prepared to make the commitment to caring for him long term.

Thanks for reading guys. Anyone out there interested after reading this?

Edit:
here's his pic. Taken 2 days ago. That is a 2250 gph Koralia that he is beside. So you get the idea of his size.

[Hookup]

sorry you have to sell... AWESOME POST!   You had me right up until it started to nip at your LPS... otherwise i'd have been all over him...

Best of luck...

[Dakotamay]

sorry you have to sell... AWESOME POST!   You had me right up until it started to nip at your LPS... otherwise i'd have been all over him...

Best of luck...

Yup. I'm not going to mislead anyone and I would hope as I mentioned that the prospective owner will not do the same. I want the best for this guy. We're just not willing to give up our mixed reef for 1 fish.

[Dakotamay]

Oh one more thing about Maury. That's what we named him. He will look at your like you're a complete moron if you feed him cyclop-eeze lol. He will eat a few. But clearly isn't fond on the idea of expending so much energy for such small morsels lol.
I feed this for the corals and the clown fish loves it. So do the other fish really. Well the tangs kind of look at it like the MI does.

[Dakotamay]

Well with little interest other than and thanks to Joe for putting a thought in my head.

We've done some thinking, measuring and furniture re-arranging and we're going to put in a 60*30*20 tall FOWLR tank just for Maury. It's going to be plumbed up to the 180g we have now as they will be side by side and share the one 50g sump.  So in about a month Maury will move to his own tank with an urchin of ours that I want to move as well.  I say a month because it'll take that long doing 25g water changes to get enough into this new tank to be able to add about 50g of new salt water without causing any problems to the entire system. Lord knows I never want to live through that again.

[Hookup]

wow... nice choice... cannot fault MORE TANK!

amazing!

[Dakotamay]

wow... nice choice... cannot fault MORE TANK!

amazing!

Thanks Hookup. We did buy this guy knowing he's not considered reef safe but that people have done it successfully. This guy is true to his description and likes coral lol.  Also in deciding to buy him we made the decision to care for him come what may. That now means setting him up his own tank.
The fun side to doing this. I no longer have to go to Jim's (Forty Fathoms) and see the FOWLR fish and say "oh if only I had a FOWLR tank, you'd be coming home with me" lol.
He has an absolutely gorgeous golden puffer there right now along with a harlequin tusk. They'll be mine lol. So he will be sharing his tank eventually.

[Hookup]

that's awesome... i was on a tour this weekend of fish-stores and was dreaming of FOWLR tanks... Sooo many amazing non-reef-safe fish...

/envious...

[brotherluv]

You should consider a Picasso trigger as a potential tankmate!  They are cheap but also amazing fish!  Mine let's me pet his belly...very affectionate fish!  

[Dakotamay]

You should consider a Picasso trigger as a potential tankmate!  They are cheap but also amazing fish!  Mine let's me pet his belly...very affectionate fish!  

Absolutely! I will be adding one of these guys. I tried a baby one in our reef and he within hours started to try and eat the snails and crabs lol.  Jim has a baby one there now that will be mine too lol.  I love the look of this fish.

[Hookup]

I've always wanted a pair of cross-hatch triggers for my reef-tank.... I think pairs are awesome...

[redbelly]

I have always loved the clown triggers but they are way too aggressive.

I used to have a niger for a while in one of our coral beds. If you walked by without feeding it while he was hungry he would spit at you

[bizfromqc]

I applaud your effort to try and find a suitable home for the fish. Responsible fish keepers should be applauded. I do have one question though...

You mentioned you wouldn't sell it to anyone that had a tank less than 6 ft long and 180 gallons. Looks like you'll be keeping the fish and moving it to a 5 ft long tank that is less than 180 gallons and possibly housing other fish with it. I'm curious to hear how you came to that decision.

I've never kept any fancy SW fish requiring lots of swimming room and with special nutritional requirements. I'm just an inquiring mind who wants to know.

[Dakotamay]

I applaud your effort to try and find a suitable home for the fish. Responsible fish keepers should be applauded. I do have one question though...

You mentioned you wouldn't sell it to anyone that had a tank less than 6 ft long and 180 gallons. Looks like you'll be keeping the fish and moving it to a 5 ft long tank that is less than 180 gallons and possibly housing other fish with it. I'm curious to hear how you came to that decision.

I've never kept any fancy SW fish requiring lots of swimming room and with special nutritional requirements. I'm just an inquiring mind who wants to know.

Hey BizfromQC,
Yes. I said that.
I am sacrificing a foot in order for us to be able to keep him. The 5ft tank is as long as I can possibly go. I have about 1/4 of my livingroom now all tanks lol.  The other factor in my decision on this 5ft tank is that it is not your typical 24 inch front to back either. It is 30 inches front to back and 20 inches tall. So that makes up a bit for swim room too. Though ideally yes you want 6ft for these larger fish that require so much swim room.  
He won't have too many companions. Just a few. That won't really take up his swim space.
I'll post a pic later this evening after supper to show everyone the two tanks now sitting end to end lol.
Thanks for asking and I'm glad to give the best answer I could.

[Dakotamay]

Well instead of a few pics. Here's a 3:42 video  . Sorry it took so long to upload to YouTube. Slow internet connection here  .
http://youtu.be/yuGTUpha_co

[Hookup]

Great video... that streamer is out of this world...  DAMN i'm so very excited for you... infact, if I die tomorrow I want to come back as one of your fish... great job!

[Dakotamay]

Great video... that streamer is out of this world...  DAMN i'm so very excited for you... infact, if I die tomorrow I want to come back as one of your fish... great job!

Well thanks Hookup for such a great compliment. Makes me feel good that I'm doing such a good job. That's why I wrestled so much with the thought of re-homing Maury. As you see, the decision was to get the brat his own tank lol.
Also a huge thanks to Jim Forte of Forty Fathoms. Almost all of our equipment, tanks, etc and live stock have come from him. Without his great shop we'd have none of this. Oh and I almost forgot to mention the knowledge that man has shared with me in the last almost 3 years.

[FocusFin]

Do you have any updates?

[Darth]

Do you have any updates?

I believe the fish met its demise  

[Dakotamay]

Yes Darth. Sadly you are correct. I went through a period trying to add new fish with him. Within a week they would die. I figured it was Maury. My MI. Stressing them out. Finally I added a barienne tang and purple tang. Well, the PT took over the tank pretty fast. Was pretty stressful for Maury. Then the PT started to show signs of illness. Also, did Maury. End result is that I lost everything in that 150g tank except snails, crabs a cleaner shrimp, cleaner wrasse and a baby shark.
Just tore that tank down yesterday. Since splitting up with my now ex. I can't keep these large systems going myself. So, the 150g is down as of yesterday. Once I get my little 45g cube set up with the stuff from the 180g it's going too. Just going to keep a nice little cube. With a 50g sump below it.

[Darth]

wow that is heartbreaking it sucks when things go bad in this hobby, they go bad fast really sorry to hear

[NjOyRiD]

Angie, what was then ame again we found might be the cause? the fluke?