Longnose Hawkfish

[Ashurbarnipal]

I'm really keen on turning my tank into a reef tank eventually, and especially on having inverts like fire shrimp and the like, and I'd also really like to keep a longnose hawkfish, but I'm aware they have a reputation for eating shrimp.


My question is, how much can that be controlled and through what means? If my shrimp are all large enough, will that help, for example? At present, I only intend cleaner and fire shrimp, though there'd also be snails and other inverts.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

There's nothing you can do about that one. About the only shrimp that is likely to survive a Hawkfish is a Coral Banded. I had a Flame Hawk with mine and it was just fine. A longnose is going to take out a Skunk Cleaner or a Fire Shrimp. Even keeping them well fed is not likely to work very well.

[Ashurbarnipal]

:( I has a sad, but I'll defer to your judgement.

As much as I utterly love the hawknose, I love inverts more.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

It is a sad thing that they do not do well together. They are a fascinating fish and the Fire Shrimp are among the most beautiful available.

[Ashurbarnipal]

I presume the same would prove true of a valentini puffer, right? Just making sure.

Honestly, I'm planning mostly benign species (chromis, blackcap basslet, six lined wrasse), but puffers are pretty tempting.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

A puffer would take out that shrimp faster than the Hawkfish would. lol

[Ashurbarnipal]

That's what I figured. I guess I'll have to play it safe. Only reason I asked is in both cases, I'd heard people saying it was possible, but I learned from freshwater to ask around.

[smaug]

If you get corals that you would like to feed meaty stuff to,you will want a fish to eat the damn shrimp! I know I do.

[labnjab]

We've had a falco hawkfish for 3 years. He leaves our coral banded and tiger pistol shrimp alone but I have a sneaking suspicion he is the one eating our peppermints. I never caught him in action but I recently added a dozen peppermints to the display and 10 were gone in less then a week. The 2 that survived only did because they made it to the sump.