BTLDreef,
I did want to address your own comments as well, and it seems that it may be I who needs to defend myself. I'm sorry this discussion became so adversarial. I only hoped to stop you from making more mistakes in the future by highlighting the ones you made this time around.
Regarding my earlier tone in earlier discussions on these fish, my tone has not changed. The thing is, you weren't breaking
so many of the rules at that point (i.e. https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/forum/thread/373118/orange-spotted-filefish-anyone-own-one/40), and you were having success, so why would I say "hey man, you did X Y and Z wrong"? You had a female and it seems she learned to feed well. Now, you have 2 males together, and it ends with one dead and neither very interested in feeding. Someone other than me even muses that maybe this was a bad idea, and I come on and say, YES, it WAS. If I had seen this thread sooner, I would've said it sooner. You own experience reiterates and reinforces my own "rules" if you will. My rules are not born solely out of my own experiences with 20+ WC fish, but also with everyone else I know who's worked with them.
From my standpoint, *why* you broke the rules is somewhat irrelevant...you they're still the cumulative "rules" I've unearned and you still "broke 'em". You're still the one who put two males together for training, but the truth is that things may have gone better had you resisted the second male. I understand where you're coming from, I really do (go back and read my MOFIB thread - My first "stupid purchase" of a Filefish was a "maybe I can save it" type purchase). Still, why you broke the rules doesn't change the outcome - another aquarist friend of mine wound up with SIX Harlequin Files and placed them in a 50 gallon frag tank for QT. The ONLY ONE that learned to eat was the dominant fish. It also happened that ALL the fish were MALES, and they were all constantly stressed, most all hiding constantly, just a very, very poor situation.
I certainly may not be "gawd" as Cranbery suggests, but I do have more experience with the species than both of you combined, and pile on all the observations of my fellow aquarists with my own in order to come up with the rules and guidelines I reference. I'm NOT saying there are things we cannot learn, but I am saying that the last 2-3 years have given me a great deal of insight on the species. Cranberry, most of those are in the article you say you never read, but at the same time, I bet if you DID read it, you might find that you did more or less the same things I was outlining. I mean...this image of you training your files - http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll73/hixphotobucket/Our%20Fish/orangespotcheckingitout700.jpg - where do you think that technique came from? Did you get it from Umm Fish? Where do you think HE got it from (especially since he and I are friends)? Me perhaps? And where did I get it from? A 1950's book by Straughan. Or maybe you came up with that all on your own? Bravo...it's not like multiple people can't have the same idea.
Thus, my commentary was, as I originally intended it - advice coming from someone with more experience. Advice based on my own experience. Advice further bolstered by other people's experiences. My rules were not put out there as solid, irrefutable FACT, but as working theories (with very strong experiential backup) - they might be the cummulative insights from 50 or 100 individual Harlequin Filefish captive records. Furthermore, I explicitly started off stating "this is not a flame" so that you all knew this was not a condescending post, but one meant to be insightful and helpful. I looked at the situation and saw several things "wrong", and thus, listed them out and explained why.
Let's talk about success rates. For the record, I INCLUDE 1 fish that jumped, and 2 fish that were "too far gone" as "failures". 3 fish that arguably, you don't include when you say you have a 50% succcess rate? So I skimmed a little more because I want to draw a real comparison and consider numbers that mean the same thing. It seems like you started with 1 female and got it well trained. Success. You mention above a second female that died but you brush it off as "too far gone". In my numbers, I take that responsibility for that loss. Then this latest go 'round, 2 males together. One male that just died (again, apologies, as I read it, it looked like the one died, then the other did), and you currently have 1 male that's nipping at salmon today? Is this an accurate picture? If it is, this means you've had 4 fish. Using the same "take responsibility" numbers I used when calculating my own success rate (again, which includes jumpers and fish that were "way past the point of no return), this puts you at 33% (1 out of 3), with a possibility to go to 50% if this male makes it, or 25% if it doesn't. You'll be looking for a female still, which will give you the opportunity, if she's solid and males it past a couple months, and eats, to push your success 60% if this male makes it. But we're now counting filefish before they've weaned
Currently, my numbers to yours, 70% to 33%. Again, not a flame, just giving you an apples-to-apples calculation to compare. Most of my losses occured fairly early in my own experiences as well..as I learned what the pitfalls were (i.e. keeping 2 males together!) I didn't repeat those mistakes. For the record, I think Sanjay wound up at 40% success rate with the 5 he did, and the Steinhart is at 71%, and Andy Berry (Umm Fish, mentioned in another thread somewhere) has us all beat at 100% training success (I think he only had 2, and got 'em both through).
And one last thing...the reason I only pop-up here time to time is that ordinarily I don't use this forum. The EXCEPTION being when following discussions about Harlequin Filefish. I will go where ever those discussions happen if I can. Of course, being chastised for my contributions really isn't inviting either.
