The Frogfish Files

[Reefcherie]

Originally posted by smoke15
I had a brilliant greenish-yellow one that I bought at about 3/4" long. Unfortunately, like many anglers, he turned brownish grey to match the live-rock
Anyway to "reverse" the brownish gray color change?

Fuggly, my A. pictus, has had many color changes in response to whatever I've done with his/her tank. He has been bright red, dark black, reddish orange, salmon, bright yellow and is now a greenish yellow w/ pink coralline-looking patches. The latest color appears to be his best attempt to turn green to match the Chaetomorpha ball he's so fond of hanging upside down from.

It appears certain species of angler are much more prone to color changes than others and I suspect the ability varies between individuals as well. Unless you have the right environment to support a brightly colored sponge, my advice is not to try to go that route. It is unfair to the sponge and possibly problematic to your water quality if the sponge starts dying.

I've thought about trying some of the new brightly colored artificial corals that are now for sale to see if I could encourage a color change. If your angler is like mine, he'll rotate ambush positions throughout the day, so you'd want all his favorite spots to be the same color you were trying to encourage for your best shot at a color change. Tank background can matter as well. My juvenile went from bright red to dark black quite rapidly because he was being held in a small critter keeper inside my 180, right up against the black back wall.

[Reefcherie]

Originally posted by Newflee
Some have suggested that adding a sponge of your color chice might help but I have had no luck.
My "meatball" died recently from drying out after a tank rupture. He was a pictus and I never had any problem with him eating the head half of a frozen sardine. I had him for over a year...maybe close to two, and would have been for many more years I'm sure if not for the dryout.

Seems the key is a tall, species only tank with large bi-weekly feedings.

Newflee - sorry to hear about the demise of Meatball and your tank rupture!

I'm curious why you believe a frogfish tank should be "tall."

[Newflee]

Reefcherie,
I guess I wouldn't want to overemphasize the tall tank theory because it is anecdotal, but after keeping my pictus in several tanks I found that he seemed to like the tall tank the most. One consideration for me was that because he needed his own tank, the tall offered more useable room for him as I found he moved up and down the vertical coral/ rockwork. When in a standard type tank he seemed to move around less. I'm assuming that moving around is a good thing here and since I couldn't ask him, I'm guessing that he enjoyed the tall better. He also fed more readily in the tall but that could be for any number of other factors.
Clearly a large tank is not needed as Meatball never lived in a tank larger than 5 gallons except for the experimental period that he lived in my reef. This was an expensive experiment that my ornamental shrimp would have rather not experienced. Actually I'm sure that was Meatballs favorite home untill he ran out of shrimp.

[uberfugu]

New little Antennatus tuberosus. Little fellow comes out of Hawaii. Living in a little minibow for the time being.

[Newflee]

VBery nice.

[Reefcherie]

Awesome! I haven't seen that species before and am out of town so no access to Scott Michael's book...how big do they get? I heard there is a dwarf frogfish that lives in Hawaii and am wondering if this is it.

How big is it now?

[uberfugu]

The Dwarf Hawaiian frogfish is usually Antennarius randalli. It gets to about 3 cm long and its most prominent characteristic is that its second spine is connected to the dorsal by a membrane. I've never seen one for sale.

Antennatus tuberosus is pretty rare too. I tried to get one out of a Canadaidn LFS but the paperwork was too involved. This one came in as a pair bit I lost the other. It has a much wider range than the Randalls frog but is very uncommon and usually found at depths (this one was collected at 120 ft). The tuberculated frogfish gets to about 3" and is characterised by a minimal or absent esca.

He is in a 5 gal minibow, 75ºF, sal 30 (1.022), pH 8, 25% w/c weekly, HOB filter with polyfilter, phosban, and de-nitrate. He eats a few ghost shrimp twice weekly.

Fishbase

[uberfugu]

Originally posted by Reefcherie
How big is it now?

He's is around 1-1/2" (3-4cm)

[Mr. Ugly]

Nice!

You're moving him from the minibow after a while? What kind of setup will he be in?

[uberfugu]

Originally posted by Mr. Ugly
Nice!

You're moving him from the minibow after a while? What kind of setup will he be in?

Don't know yet. BTW - Norman, you missed the brown one at New Alameda. I had to pick him up to keep the orange fellow happy:

[Mr. Ugly]

Dang, I saw that one, but he was hiding. Steve told me it was coccineus, so I didn't go for it!

[Reefcherie]

Wild coloration! I wonder what that guy was trying to blend in with?!

You put the two tuberosa's together? How do you do that and know you won't get one attempting to eat the other one? Do you just wait and watch closely or do you have some kind of a divided tank at first and look for signs that they will get along?

[uberfugu]

They are in separate systems and solitary. The orange fellow is about an inch and a half long, the brown guy is about two inches. I actually bought two orange Antennatus; they were caught together, supposedly a pair. One didn't make the shipping process.

Froggies from Genus Antennatus don't really make nice show animals. They are very cryptic and reclusive.

I have had good results keeping other frogfishes together but they need to be the same size and species group, closely observed ... and regularly fed. Don't recommend it for most people.

I tracked down a copy of Frogfishes of the World , by Pietsch and Grobecker ... bought it as a birthday present for myself ... yay! Unfortunately had to spend a bundle on it ... but worth it.

[Mr. Ugly]

Originally posted by uberfugu
I tracked down a copy of Frogfishes of the World , by Pietsch and Grobecker ... bought it as a birthday present for myself ... yay! Unfortunately had to spend a bundle on it ... but worth it.

Uber, man... you have the ultimate of everything frogfish!

Ok, so did you ever get one of those frogfish pillows?

[BlennyBabe]

I just got my hands on that same book. Although mine is just from the school library. Though its just like owning it, I get 21 days before I renew it and I can renew it 10 times. Thats the better part of a year for free. I checked and the book hasnt been checked out since 1992! Anyway, good luck with your frogs.

[Mr. Ugly]

Originally posted by uberfugu
Don't know yet. BTW - Norman, you missed the brown one at New Alameda. I had to pick him up to keep the orange fellow happy

Hehehe... finally caught up with Steve. He kept saying, "Don't worry! Don't worry! I'll get you one too!" Next one is mine

Steve said he doesn't believe in charging outrageous angler prices. He'll be open to trades for cool stuff too.

He's turning the front display tank into an angler tank. Right now he has a striatus, a yellow and purple maculatus, and a gray green commerson's(or possibly pictus)... couldn't get a ray count. Told him he'd better be careful of which anglers he keeps together.

Uber, Cherie, you guys gotta go talk anglers with Steve. He's all into it. He'll like hearing about your experiences.

[Reefcherie]

Originally posted by Mr. Ugly
Uber, Cherie, you guys gotta go talk anglers with Steve. He's all into it. He'll like hearing about your experiences.

Steve is someone at New Alameda? Where is that?

[Mr. Ugly]

Cherie,

www.newalameda.com/newcontact.htm
www.newalameda.com

Steve is the owner. He's not doing much with the website. Don't let that fool you though

[Reefcherie]

Looks like about an hour drive for me. Thanks! When I'm headed up that direction anyway, I'll plan a trip there.

[Mr. Ugly]

Cherie, I think Steve will be hosting a frag swap at his store late November. That would be a great time for you to come up and hang out if you're not up sooner. If Uber shows up that would be cool. Would be fun to turn it into a frogfish fan club gathering

[Mr. Ugly]

Cherie, frag swap at New Alameda on the 20th at 2pm. Hope to see you there

[uberfugu]

Fall is when the Antennatus are imported. This little white one kind of looks like the creature from the movie Alien

[Reefcherie]

OMG what a cutie! Did you get another one?

BTW - I love your avatar!

[uberfugu]

Originally posted by Reefcherie
OMG what a cutie! Did you get another one?

Yes, they've been popping up in the local stores. Funny thing is, as I've been working a lot and not doing my usual LFS rounds, many people have been passing them up. They're usually small, brown, and reclusive ... not the showstopper that a bright maculatus is.

But they're kind of delicate. I just lost the orange one. He had polybag burn on his jaw from transit and the infection kept growing.

I had been prophylactically treating with the old standards: formalin dips, metronidazole, nitrofurazone; these seem to knock out incoming crypto, amyloodinium, and any bad bacteria. But some recent research has indicated that frogfishes may harbor dormant strains of Mycobacterium marinum and Vibrio sp. A lot of frogfish losses within the first few days point to massive bacterial infection.

I have recently acquired some rifampin and levofloxacin but I think that I wont use these until an infection is actually diagnosed.

[Reefcherie]

Originally posted by uberfugu
I had been prophylactically treating with the old standards: formalin dips, metronidazole, nitrofurazone; these seem to knock out incoming crypto, amyloodinium, and any bad bacteria. But some recent research has indicated that frogfishes may harbor dormant strains of Mycobacterium marinum and Vibrio sp. A lot of frogfish losses within the first few days point to massive bacterial infection.

I have recently acquired some rifampin and levofloxacin but I think that I wont use these until an infection is actually diagnosed.

That is interesting info! Is the research you refer to available online somewhere?