Moorish Idol feed. Sponge??
 

Someone told me
Moorish Idol have to eat sponges or it will
Die soon is it true??
He's in my new tank about week now eating pellets and nori. What else should I feed him??

I have one live for 5 years on nls pellets, and nori, the only reason I lost him was due to a velvet/ich issue.

Are they reef safe?

Reef Safe
 

In my exp. NOT if you like your reef. Mine ate pellets flake and frozen but in his spare time he would rip wedge shaped holes in my sps. You would not believe what he did to my Chalices.
Keith.

Moorish Idols are not reef safe. this is the reason I don't have one.

Also they don't tend to live long because most times you don't get them eating pellets or nori or anything, so they die. If yours is eating pellets and so forth, that is great and I wish you luck. They are a beautiful fish.

Wow it is a long time since I had heard of an lfs bringing in a Moorish Idol.
They die in LFS tanks because somehow even newbie reefers know they have no chance of success.

Yours has no chance of success despite the one post posted here.

Return it to the LFS for a full credit and politely comment to the lfs management that it is simply unethical to import them.

I believe those who own lfs or knowledgeable people who work there will agree with me 100%

Haha Nice! I would bet most would actually disagree.

Hawaiian Moorish Idols can actually be fairly easy to keep, I would stay clear of Indo ones though. If it's eating already you're in fine shape. I don't really believe they need to eat sponge since many have kept them for years without. Pellets and Nori sounds like a good diet, you can soak them in various vitamins and additives for added nutrition.

I also had one for about a year in a fish only until I sold the tank, I experimented with corals and in my experience didn't work out so generally probably not reef safe.

I also disagree... I don`t promote keeping any fish that will most likely die, but if it can be done and done properly then all be it. Here in Calgary I know of a couple LFS that have them, sell them and are quite successful with Moorish Idols. The thing with the LFS I am speaking of, they will not sell the fish unless it is eating, so this is good, and they are quite successful at it. If you can get a Moorish Idol to eat pellets and other things, then the chances of survivol do increase.

If you want to look at it this way, then do any of us have the right to take wild caught fish or marine life from the wild? We have no right what so-ever, so if we are going to do it, at least try to do it right! Put it another way, if we were to take you and put you in a glass box, do we have that right, same goes for any living creature.

Funny, how we want to satisfy our own cravings and desires at the expense of others and other living things. Things that make you go HMMMMMM.....

fish
 

Well I would also disagree. I know of two others who keep this fish and have had theirs for well over a year each. Maybe not a newbie fish, but hardly a, "no chance" fish.
Good luck with yours, beutifull fish.
Too many Parrots on this sight sometimes!
Keith.

I neither agree nor disagree with naesco's comment. I subscribe to the philosophy that "buy fish that excites you, not the other people", but at the same time I also know that some fish have a lesser chance of surviving in an aquarium long term than other fish. Until we know more about those fish, I am not going to keep the fish. Moorish idol is one.