# Freshwater Pipefish



## KDahlin (Mar 12, 2007)

I looked in my Axelrod's Atlas and only found the Enneacampus ansorgii (African Freshwater Pipefish). It said it grew to 10 cm. I also found Microphis retzi (Ragged-tail Pipefish) and Microphis brachyurus (Red-line Pipefish) as well as Hippichthys spicifer (Black-barred Freshwater Pipefish). These grow to 11 cm, 25 cm, and 17 cm respectively. These last three are Australasian.

I wonder if freshwater pipefish are available in the aquarium trade.

Anyway, HTH.


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## CherylH (Jan 2, 2007)

Pipefish are hard to keep fed. They aren't agressive feeders, so other tankmates will eat the food before the get to it. They only eat live food--small shrimp (they'll eat both brine and, if I remember correctly, ghost shrimp) and baby livebearers IME. I've starved several. It took me months to find them when I had them (early 90s).


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## co2 (Sep 13, 2004)

KDahlin said:


> I looked in my Axelrod's Atlas and only found the Enneacampus ansorgii (African Freshwater Pipefish). It said it grew to 10 cm. I also found Microphis retzi (Ragged-tail Pipefish) and Microphis brachyurus (Red-line Pipefish) as well as Hippichthys spicifer (Black-barred Freshwater Pipefish). These grow to 11 cm, 25 cm, and 17 cm respectively. These last three are Australasian.
> 
> I wonder if freshwater pipefish are available in the aquarium trade.
> 
> Anyway, HTH.


Aqua Forest had some about a year ago.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I use to catch them in Florida, that's the only true FW species it seems.
Very hard to get them to eat. I tried a few times and even with all sorts of live local food, they just never ate that I saw.

I ought to have taken them to the lab and dissected one to see what contents were in it's stomach.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## CherylH (Jan 2, 2007)

If I remember correctly, they ate brine shrimp, new born live bearers, and stole eggs from pregnant ghost shrimp. They may have eaten baby shrimp, but didn't eat the adults.

They weren't worth the hassle. It would be easier to go ahead and set up salt water and keep seahorses.


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## AnneRiceBowl (May 18, 2006)

I did some googling about this time last year. I found a rare fish importer that had some on his "for sale" list. The ones he had were a SE Asian species that were freshwater. I am not at my computer, so I can't post the links from my research. I'll try to get them ASAP.


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## target6584 (Apr 12, 2005)

Thanks everyone for the information. The reason I was asking was I work at a local fish store and we just ordered in a pair of pipefish, so I'm trying to learn more about them. The good news is today I was able to get them both to eat frozens. I tried lots of diffrent foods; cyclopeeze, mysis, mosquito larve, bloodworms, brine and baby brine, but it was the daphnia that they went for. So we'll see if we can keep them going for a couple weeks. In the end I have a feeling I'll end up taking them home, seeing as my tank is fishless.

But thank you for the quick responces, any other information you have would be great.


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## !shadow! (Jan 25, 2010)

Wow what a old thread. I'm interested in getting some of these from my local fish store. Yes i'm lucky they actually keep em there. I'll try to see if brine shrimp does the trick. If that doesn't work i'll do daphnia.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I'd personally work on brushing up your live culturing skills before investing in these little guys- they're pretty, but can be a challenge to keep healthy as they're often picky eaters.


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## zenche (Feb 9, 2011)

gauny, did you ever get them? curious how the turned out


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## mervyn (Mar 8, 2012)

Hi everyone,

I have kept 5 for more than a month now.They are all doing well.I feed them baby ghost shrimps.They are doing well in my planted tank.


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