Yellow Spotted Boxfish?!?

jacknjill

jacknjill

Active Member
I was at my LFS last weekend and they had this adorable 1" yellow spotted boxfish. I think thats what it was, it was labeled as something else. But my questions are:
Are they reefsafe?
What size tank do they need?
What are their feeding requirements?
Is this that type of fish that if it dies it poisons the whole tank? ( I thought i remembered reading something like that a while ago...)
Anything else i need to know?
 
karenj

karenj

Member
Aren't they just the cutest things!!!! I bought mine about two weeks ago and I am so happy with him. He eats out of my hand and is so friendly. Now for the down side. If they are stressed or frightened they can also release poison and they can grow quite large. This one was living quite happily with a seahorse and a pipefish however. They also need low flow rate in the tank. Mine is in a 25 gallon at present that I set up for seahorses. I have a 75 that he will eventually own I guess. If anyone knows of any other fish I could put with him I would be happy to know that also or if it would be okay to put a second one in with him. He was eating Mysis when I first got him but now he won't eat anything but brine shrimp and the pods that have migrated from the refugium.
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
They grow to 18" and need at least a 6 foot tank. It is a very fragile fish and needs perfect conditions. If it is attacked by another fish or thinks it is being attacked it may release a very potent toxin that will kill all fish in the system including itself.
 
emperor11

emperor11

Active Member
Originally Posted by Bang Guy
They grow to 18" and need at least a 6 foot tank. It is a very fragile fish and needs perfect conditions. If it is attacked by another fish or thinks it is being attacked it may release a very potent toxin that will kill all fish in the system including itself.
The toxin of the Blue Spotted Boxfish is quite potent (as you said), but not nearly as bad as say, the Longhorn Cow, or the regular Spotted Boxfish. If it were to be harassed by another fish, or stressed in any way, and it did release its toxin, as long as you have carbon running all the time...it will remove most of it, and the rest won't be strong enough to kill anything, except maybe a TINY bit of bacteria, and that leftover will be removed with your next water change. Although they reach 18" in the wild, according to several books I've read, they only get 8-10 in an aquarium.
 
sleasia

sleasia

Active Member
Ok...I love boxfish...I had a female hawaiian spotted boxfish, about 3 years ago...loved that fish. watched it everynight sucking up water and spitting it out over the surface of the tank...then one day it got stressed, sick or something, let out its poison I assume, and anihilated my entire tank!!! And yes, it died too....I kid you not. so my punishement is that I can't get any more boxfish...good comes of bad. I have a new larger tank etc. etc. but I still want my boxfish
I read somewhere that seahorses and boxfish would be good tankmates because they are both peaceful so I am tempted to start another tank with this arrangement. I might be wrong...but I think the yellow spotted boxfish are also of the poisoning type.
 
sleasia

sleasia

Active Member
Also, I might add that I had carbon filtering the tank...but when I added another fish it died within a few days...this happened a few times despite water changes and carbon filtering...in the end beleive it or not I emptied the tank, threw out all the sand and live rock, and started completely over. it seemed there was no way to get the poison out of the tank... the weird thing was the seastars were unaffected. they went into the qt tank and waited for the new set up.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
In general this group of fish are not reef safe though they may not bother corals (though I would be wary).
I personally would not count on carbon to remove this toxin as in general your carbon is "distant" from your tank and you are counting on the amount of time it takes your tank to turnover, and that you have fresh carbon, etc, etc.
The toxicity of some is worse than others, but I would personally take the worst case scenario into account when making a selection.
 
sleasia

sleasia

Active Member
Thats funny. I was just going to answer Bang guy to say that when this happened Ophiura told me that the inverts had some type of immunity to this toxin...that it only effects the fish...and now I see ophiura has already answered...
 
jacknjill

jacknjill

Active Member
Wow! Thanks for all the replys and information. I may just think about starting a seperate tank for seahorses and boxfish. I dont know though, we'll see. Anyways, thanks again
 
B

billb

Guest
For what it's worth...
I owned one (once..) had him in the tank for two days... woke up one morning and found half my fish dead, including him...
Don't know if it was his fault...but from what others have said...I'd be suspect, and avoid ever buying another one...
B.
 
sleasia

sleasia

Active Member
I still don't know if it is safe to do that...put the boxfish in with seahorss...Someone suggested it once, but I don't know if anyone has done it with success. I would imagine seahorses are just as suceptible to boxfish toxins? What do you think Ophiura? If anyone would know, I would think it would be you... :notsure:
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
I don't know specifically, but I see no reason why it would not work on something like seahorses.
 
sleasia

sleasia

Active Member
BillB...the link comes through fine and its a good article thanks. It looks like you have the same risk in putting boxfish together with seahorses as you do with putting boxfish together with any other fish...so it looks like that's out...If you want boxfish, I guess they get their own tank...I don't think I'm going to lift my punishement any time soon...I'm still going to ban myself from getting any more boxfish.
 
emperor11

emperor11

Active Member
Originally Posted by JacknJill
Wow! Thanks for all the replys and information. I may just think about starting a seperate tank for seahorses and boxfish. I dont know though, we'll see. Anyways, thanks again
I'll have to look for it..but there was actually a boxfish article in an Aquarium Fish magazine about a year ago that advises against boxfish and seahorses. In fact, they actually talk about how cool they'd look together..but how they won't work. It has something to do with how in the wild boxfish feed on tubeworms which have a hard outer "casing" as do seahorses. They have a hard body...which makes them very appetizing to a boxfish. If I find the magazine, I'll type that information up on here. HTH
 
B

billb

Guest
Emporor11,
The link I posted above was/is a reprint from:
Reprinted from Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine MAY 2000
is it what you were looking for?
Bill
 
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