Anyone have experience with keeping banded pipe fish in a mixed reef?

[Juskr]

Hello community,

I came across 2 healthy looking banded pipefish at Petco that have been there for 2 weeks and eating frozen in front of my eyes. I have not kept pipefish before and never considered them an option in a reef tank until I saw nox.rupaw tank which had a dragon face pipefish (Nox, please correct me if I have the wrong piepfish) looking very happy in a high flow tank SPS/LPS tank.

My current tank is a 120 gallon mixed reef and heavily stocked. I would love to add 2 pipefish to my 120 but wanted to gather additional information before making a decision.

Questions
1. Would several torch corals, hammer, and or large elegance pose a problem for the pipefish?

2. I have many fish (Anthias, Chromis, cleaner wrasse, 2 mandarins, etc) and a few that I consider the bosses (Large Maroon Clown, Blue Tang, Sailfin). Any concerns with those fish and the pipefish?

3. What about inverts? I have 2 fire shrimp and 2 clean shrimp.

4. To minimize the risk of introducing fish illness, I would perform some QT. My plan would be to use the tank transfer method. Does anyone have any recommendations for QT process for pipefish?

Photo of tank today

 

[KTrevino]

Did you end up getting them?

 

[F i s h y]

Curious if they did as well. My opinion would be that yes they could be kept but there would need to be a large population of pods available in between feedings to ensure they were getting enough. Especially with mandarins already in the tank.

 

[locito277]

if you get healthy ones they should be good. Issue is you need to feed them a lot since they take time to snatch up Mysis. Other fish skip them in line. I have a pair of red and yellows along with what I believe to be two manybanded males in my 350. This aquarium houses 4 tangs, 5 Ventralis anthias, bandit angel, pair of orange spotted filefish, mandarin, 2 dragon face pipefish, many cleaner shrimps( skunk & fire), a coral banded shrimp and 4 morays. youll be fine although you have to make sure They get their fill. Few Mysis twice a day will suffice. I had a pair in my 720 but once I added about 20 anthias long term it became hard for them to compete my 350 is pretty laid back for them.