Yellow-banded sweet lip fish

[SethKim]

Hi guys,
I've had this guy for about 6weeks now,
I didn't have any information about this fish b4 I purchased it at LFS.
I have a FOWLR tank and I tend to feed heavy, so i'm always on a lookout for a hardy appetite that would cleanup any leftovers.
What I didn't know was that this fish was a finicky eater!!! When I got the fish it was paper thin, would eat but spit it right out.
Well, I finally got him to eat on salmon (took about 3wks!!). Now it eats well and doing great!!

The linear pattern on this fish is awesome!! and I think it got the name "dogfish" because of the swimming pattern because they wiggle like dog's tail:dog:.

They also have a habit of grabbing a mouthful of sand and spitting out, so if you have corals on the sand bed, be aware of this behavior.
For me so far it hasn't shown any aggressive behavior, but that may soon change.
So far its been a wonderful addition to my collection ^^

I'm having difficulty identifying this fish
is this P. orientalis or lineatus?

 

[arnaldolex]

is that fish reef safe and how much

 

[jaa1456]

I have never heard of any sweet lips being reef safe when fully grown. But I have never read much about the one pictured either. The norm for that family is to grow well over a foot and eat anything that will fit in their mouths, including other fish.

 

[jaa1456]

A quick search looks like the oriental sweet lips and the size listed is 33" in the wild. That's gonna be a big fish in your tank, I would say capable of reach 2 feet in your tank.

 

[marrone]

You'll find that even though most Sweetlip can get about 2'-3' in the wild most unless top off around 8"-12" in your tank. Then again they're usually very hard to get to start eating and even when they start to eat a lot of them still don't make it, especially the Clown Sweetlips. As for being reef safe, people do keep them in their reefs as they're not going to bother any of your corals though they may eat inverts, like crabs and shrimp. And even though they do get large they're very docile and shouldn't be keep with very aggressive tank mates.

 

[arnaldolex]

am gonna pass lol