Bat Fish

huntoaks

huntoaks

Member
FireShrimp,
Thanks for the complement on the cleanliness of my tank. I have my hands in that tank every day cleaning it. In fact, the fish seem to be used to me by now. Many of them eat from my hand. I bleach some of the coral every week and I leave some live rock untouched. I do water changes 30% every Saturday and I have my own Kent Maxxima Hi-S water purifier. Some folks don't like the white coral look blended with the live rock but I think it brightens up the tank. I also use a filter pad in my sump which I change very frequently to trap even the smallest particles. I also have an oversized protein skimmer. That picture is from this week and the tank has been running for 1 1/2 years. Our thing is baby fish. We love to get them small and watch them grow. When they get to large, we trade them. The hippo has been with us for 1 year and 2 months...my kids love him. We did have quite a bad outbreak of Brook in the tank about 5 months ago which claimed some fish very quickly. Thankfully, we were able to get the others through it.
 
huntoaks

huntoaks

Member
Lion, what is the theory behind the fruit?? That is not a natural food source for them is it? Seems to be working for you and I will jump on that as well for my bat. I guess it's like the garlic thing...that's not natural for them but it has been proven to be benificial.
By the way Lion...that is a REALLY nice lookin bat!! Great job!
 
fish addict

fish addict

Member
He is so pretty!! Well he/she but it seems like a he to me!

I saw one at the LFS that was only about 1 inch high! :happyfish
He was cute! But he was only in like a 10 gal tank :scared: , their thinking was that he was too small to need a big tank. But they tried to tell me a yellow tang would work in my 29 gal
 
madddmarr

madddmarr

Member
i have a 200 hundred gallon and would love an orbic exactly how finnicky are they are they at all tolerant to slight changes in the tank.
 
huntoaks

huntoaks

Member
Lion is best suited to answer that. I would say that size tank is fine. They really are beautiful fish. I don't know enough about how others have fared with them. Mine eats very well. He will eat flake, mysis, krill, angel formula etc..but he will not eat pellets at all which is fine with me. My hippo loves the pellets.
I must refer you to Lion now.....you can't argue with success!!
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
A person who I respect in this hobby a great deal told me that a batfish does very well with the fruit in its diet. I read that long ago, people use to feed their batfish banana chips. Well, I figured, why not just go all natural? I do with everything else - such as fresh garlic, as opposed to bottled garlic. Why not do it with his foods, as well? She goes absolutely nuts when the pieces of banana hit the water and I cannot really say that it is not useful. She is in excellent condition and her colors are very nice.
Thank you very much for the compliments. I have had her a little over two years now.
And I know it is a "she" because she laid eggs on the side of my glass. She laid about 15 eggs, and protected them like crazy for about a week. She constantly pressed her body against the glass so closely that a fish could not go near them if they tried (and they did try to get near her, and she would chase them away). Eventually, I guess when she realized that they could not be fertilized, she let up on them a little bit, and the current blew them off the glass.
A 200 gallon tank would be the absolute minimum that I would try a batfish in. Batfish can be a very finicky fish when it comes to initially eating, you need to choose its tank mates very wisely (no triggers, wrasses, large puffers, or aggressive fish of that nature), they are not happy with water fluctuations (and they very clearly show signs of it in their coloration), and you absolutely must have plans to where it is going to go when it gets bigger. Like I said, I have plans to build a much larger tank when I move into a larger house with my fiancee. However, if the batfish outgrows my 210 well before that happens, I have contacts with Adventure Aquarium (in Camden) and they have assured me that they will accept the fish if I need to donate it. This is a fish that grows to be very large, so you cannot take it back to the LFS when it outgrows your tank, and you cannot bank on a friend to take it off of you unless they have a huge tank.
 
S

surfinusa

Guest
huntoak and lioncrazz very nice bats, im going to have to get one someday
 
bill109

bill109

Active Member
Originally Posted by HuntOaks
Thanks Surf!! I think you will love having one. They really are a wonderful fish to watch.
are they in general a hard fish to keep. are they known for anything like the butterflys are know to be picky eaters...
they are cool i found this pic of a bat so i uploaded it as my avatar. looks fake huh
btw lion i cont mean to bother you again but can i see some pics of tht engineer goby?
-bill109
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
They are not generally easy to keep. They can be finicky eaters, and require a ton of space in a peaceful tank.
I will try snapping some pics of the engineer this weekend. He is a tough fish to photograph since he hangs out under the rocks and in the caves.
 
X

xnikki118x

Guest
I wish we had miniature batfish we could buy. The same coloring as an orbic bat but a max of 3 inches high. That would be GRAND.
 
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