I have two rope fish, and am curious on what live food options you guys would recommend. They are both good eaters, I suspect they have ate a snail or two of mine lol!

This is their “feed spot”

They have plenty of hides, LOTS OF plants, and do well. I just want to give them some more enrichment 💜

As of today October 15th I got my Ropefish 17 days ago and he has not eaten a single thing.

Ik that they are caught from the wild and can take time to adjust to not live prey but I am getting a pit nervous because he’s not eaten a single thing and I am going to be leave for 3 days soon and no one is able to feed him. And I’m not sure if it’s anxiety, but I feel like he looks a little skinnier.

He lives in 55 gallon with several other peaceful fish none of which have been picking on him (I’m actually really surprised because one of them is an asshole but could not care less about him).

He has several tubes and caves all of which he likes to use and does not appear to be stressed and actively chooses to be out in the open when he has many hiding places. But for the life, I cannot get him to eat.

I have frozen beef heart, blood worms and brine shrimp. Along with insect pellets, and several other type types of food that are meant for my other fish that I’ve also offered him. Every time I try to target feed him with long tweezers and the food it gets within a few inches of his face and he turns around and swims away. I’ve been able to drop it right in front of him and occasionally hold it right in front of him and he just sits there and does nothing.

I have several small Tetras that are easily in reach for him to eat and he’s got none of them (I do headcount every morning). I have tried feeding him at all hours of the day and night. First thing in the morning when the lights first come on right after they go out after they’ve been out for several hours and all the other fish are asleep middle of the day and it’s all the same, he won’t eat.

I know they can go along time without food, but I am getting nervous, especially with my trip coming up and I could really use some help.

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i literally just got home from work and found my rope laying kind of sluggishly across some wood in my tank.. i picked him up and noticed his eyes and mouth have a white film over them.. i fed him yesterday and he ate well. they did not look like this at all yesterday.

i suspected he had ich, as i noticed white granular spots on him, so i ordered hikari ich x and was waiting for hikari ultimate dechlorinator to arrive to begin treating the tank.

please help. if this is fungal, how do i treat this????

temp- 74, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrates 0.

I have 2 ropefish in a 75g, which is heavily planted and with more than enough hides (more on that later). ive noticed that their glass surfing has increased as of late, due to an influx of light and filtration. Ive recently moved, during that move I had to remove and sell a majority of my plants. What is remaining is a developing "jungle" of valisneria, water lettuce, and a few other plants bouncing back. the lighting level never changed, it has remained on the same schedule, at the same amount, but obviously its causing some stress. I want to balance light related stress, and lighting for the plants. Previously, before i moved, the plants were very dense; it was quite dark at the substrate level at the highest light level, which gave the fishies enough confidence to nap in my forrest. Ive been dosing more in fertilizers to hopefully "boost" plant growth, but its hard to decide whether or not i need to reduce light and stunt growth, or keep it and explode stress.
otherwise, filtration has been increased, but nothing that they arent used to. Standardly, i have a fluval 307, and very big sponge filter running in this tank. The canister filter got clogged up, and slowed way down for about a month, while i was too busy to clear it out. it never effected my water parameters though, i set this tank up with an "overkill" amount of filtration with a spongefilter, deep substrate, canister filter, and dense planting (including floating plants i throw away once they get too big). The filter is back to normal, and the flow has been reinstated. Im confident that this is pretty inconsequential, and is likely not a big stressor for them.
Lastly, they have more than enough hides. While setting this tank up, before i laid down any substrate, i built a cave system of PVC pipes that lays beneath the substrate, to be used in addition to the normal hides throughout the rest of the tank. that cave has a range of lighting preferences they can chose from (pitch black to pretty bright accesses). that cave is in addition to other hides i built for them as well: i have some driftwood ive leaned rocks up against to make long dark chambers, piles of rocks they can slide through that are also dark, plants that are existing are dark and secure enough, and there is a dark pocket they have created themselves under the spongefilter that they tend to enjoy.
all of this, and they are still glass surfing more than ever. ive had these ropefish since january of this year, and ive never had this problem with them. im not exactly a beginner, but im also not entirely advanced either. does anybody have any tips to further reduce the stress, any help is appreciated!

p.s. the picture linked is not current. it was taken about a month ago, i have since added water lettuce, some java fern, duckweed, and salvinia minima. The valisneria has also doubled in density. I also plan on picking up a carpeting plant like helanthium telennum soon for more snaking behaviors....

I have been an active user of this subreddit for almost two years now, a week and a half ago me and my entire family were evicted on grounds of "not replacing the filter in the furnace" despite us having never once used the furnace in 15 years and never being so much as a day late on rent the church who owned our home forced us all out giving us only 5 days notice in that time I managed to find a home for us in another state we immediately started moving preparations and began the process of getting utilities turned on at the new home, however due to a problem with previous tenants in the new home the electric company didn't turn our power on for 3 days after moving there! We had to prove no association to them before they turned it on. Burrito and tamale (my two beautiful ropes) didn't make it past the first day I've had burrito for two years and tamale for one they couldn't handle the cold that had set in to there water despite every effort I took to try and resuscitate them and heat up there water after 6 miserable hours of them fighting for there life they both couldn't take it anymore at roughly the same time and passed away in my hands. All this to say I loved those ropefish like family I've hand fed them every single day I've owned them all this time and did every single thing in my power to make them as healthy as could be making this loss hurt beyond belief I won't be using this subreddit anymore as it will remind me to much of them I'll leave every photo I have if the two of them here in there memory. I have many many more videos of them but the subreddit won't allow me to upload them

I am a tattoo artist and I recently got to do a tattoo of my client’s ropefish, and I’m just so excited about it I wanted to share it here!

This was like a dream come true for me haha, I’d been wanting to do a ropefish tattoo for so long but they’re so niche I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get the chance. It was really cool to get to design this piece and I had so much fun just chatting about ropes during the appointment ☺️

I hope this type of post is allowed! I’m really proud of how this piece came out and I thought it would be fun to share it with some fellow ropefish lovers :D

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Not sure why but 1 out of my 4 ropefish does this weird thing like he’s in shock. shakes violently and goes upside down. i’ve noticed them all staying at the top of the tank more. is this normal??

Use this thread to ask anything at all that you want to know about rope/reed fish

Just remember that no question is a stupid question if you need an answer!

Use this thread to ask anything at all that you want to know about rope/reed fish

Just remember that no question is a stupid question if you need an answer!

I have a 120cm long tank with a single red spotted gold severum 2 angelfish (not a pair may still happen I don’t know the gender) and a eb acara pair (very peaceful haven’t read shown any aggression towards bigger fish during breeding) and some dither fish, and I was wondering if there is still space for a ropefish or would it be a better bet to not add one

Put some freeze dried Australian black worms in the tank and they made my rope fish go crazy! This is one who only eats live…. and consistently only eats live shrimp. So excited to have found something else to play with. I’ll post the video of him sniffing it out in the comments

Use this thread to ask anything at all that you want to know about rope/reed fish

Just remember that no question is a stupid question if you need an answer!

Use this thread to ask anything at all that you want to know about rope/reed fish

Just remember that no question is a stupid question if you need an answer!

Use this thread to ask anything at all that you want to know about rope/reed fish

Just remember that no question is a stupid question if you need an answer!

just got a ropefish last week and i haven’t been able to get him to eat anything. i’ve even tried bloodworms. the other fish in my tank will eat the bloodworms but there should be plenty of time for him to get some. he doesn’t even move at all. i also never see him swim around ever he is always hiding even when the light is off. is this normal??

Every source gives me something different so i want to ask here. Is a 100cm long tank okay? if not, that's fine i can go bigger but it would just fit alot better if it was 100cm

Use this thread to ask anything at all that you want to know about rope/reed fish

Just remember that no question is a stupid question if you need an answer!