Heniochus bannerfish

[marinelife]

How many you think would work in a 120gallon Fish only with Live Rock and a maroon clown and a rabbitfish. The LFS has 4 of them. I want to add one but was reading that they are social fish so I am here to ask how many I could add.

 

[ScottC]

I've kept them singly and in groups of four. Singly it did fine and lived for about 3 years for me, the group of four has been going strong for about 2 years now. I can see which one is the "alpha", but for the most part they are easygoing. They eat like pigs, and I feed them everything from spectrum to prime reef.

 

[Garry thomas]

As you know banner fish are a shoaling sps in the wild, so i reckon you could have at least 4 or 5 but remember they do grow large. And which sps do you want to keep, as there are quite a few heniochios sps .

 

[marinelife]

here is what I did, now there is an LFS that has another one so I could have 5 but not sure since they want double the price

 

[teevee]

agreed, get a few. i've heard three as a minimum. if you have corals you'll want to get h. diphreutus, as they are the only species i know of that doesn't eat corals.

i would check into keeping them in your tank, as they do get quite large (another species for the tang police i'd say). i am setting up a 150 and am concerned about keeping 3 in it.

 

[Garry thomas]

M life you got a bit of aiptasia my friend :roll: as far as i'm aware there are 8 differant sps of banner fish they are ALL Heniochus
ACUMINATUS
DIPHREUTES
INTERMEDIUS
CHRYSOSTOMUS
MONOCEROS
SINGULARIS
PLEUROTAENIA
VARIUS

 

[texman]

Marinelife, I agree with Gary on the aptasia - I thought that heniochus were suppose to eat them! I have even thought of getting some myself for that purpose, however it doesn't seem to be working for you!

 

[Will C1]

was that a pic from the lfs or your tank? if that was your tank owould invest in some clean up crew or someting to make it look cleaner firts before you go and spend all that money on fish.

 

[Leopardshark]

Man!! you got to be investing in a VERY good clean up crew, injecting those aips and improving the overall condition of your tank before thinking of adding another fish in there!!!
Probably getting rid of all your rock and replacing it with new one could be your best bet IMO
Marco

 

[teevee]

i've never heard that a heni would eat aptasia.

 

[Leopardshark]

some will, mine ate a small in my refugium