The mesmerising slender snipe fish.

[A Young Reefer]

All of us had that one fish that when we first saw, we immediately fell in love with and were fascinated about. Perhaps that “love at first sight” lead us to learn more about it and even go further to owning one with taking all the challenges of keeping it.
To me that fish would be the slender snipe fish, when I first saw it something about it left me totally mesmerised. Hence I thought it would be selfish of me to not share this beauty with everyone.
The slender snipe fish are distantly related to seahorses and pipe fish, the shape of the mouth gives it away.
They can be found anywhere from 15 to 500 meters deep (50 to 1640 feet) in tropical oceans such as the Atlantic and the indo Pacific, where they can be found in large schools.
Their snouts allow them to feed on small shrimp and phytoplankton.
I have never personally heard of any hobbyist keeping these in private tanks. However I have encountered a large school of them at the Dubai Aquarium and underwater zoo recently.
Images from there:

 

[WheatToast]

Cool! I have only seen snipefish once before at the COEX Aquarium in Seoul.
Sometimes Macroramphosus scolopax (longspine snipefish) becomes available to hobbyists in East Asia, though I'm not sure about Macroramphosus gracilis (slender snipefish):
https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/uonomichi/snipefish-1.html
https://yadokariya.jp/shopdetail/000000006917/
https://www.satoumi-shima.jp/2022/02/blog-post_789.html

 

[A Young Reefer]

Cool! I have only seen snipefish once before at the COEX Aquarium in Seoul.
Sometimes Macroramphosus scolopax (longspine snipefish) becomes available to hobbyists in East Asia, though I'm not sure about Macroramphosus gracilis (slender snipefish):
https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/uonomichi/snipefish-1.html
https://yadokariya.jp/shopdetail/000000006917/
https://www.satoumi-shima.jp/2022/02/blog-post_789.html

Thanks for sharing! I will be trying my best in order to obtain a specimen or two.
However it won’t be any time soon.

 

[death-by-reef]

weird lookin fish
but cool

 

[kingoftheHiLLpeople]

That is a head turning fish for sure!

 

[flakychips]

Thanks for sharing and these are certainly beautiful. I live in the UAE, so will be sure to check this out!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

All of us had that one fish that when we first saw, we immediately fell in love with and were fascinated about. Perhaps that “love at first sight” lead us to learn more about it and even go further to owning one with taking all the challenges of keeping it.
To me that fish would be the slender snipe fish, when I first saw it something about it left me totally mesmerised. Hence I thought it would be selfish of me to not share this beauty with everyone.
The slender snipe fish are distantly related to seahorses and pipe fish, the shape of the mouth gives it away.
They can be found anywhere from 15 to 500 meters deep (50 to 1640 feet) in tropical oceans such as the Atlantic and the indo Pacific, where they can be found in large schools.
Their snouts allow them to feed on small shrimp and phytoplankton.
I have never personally heard of any hobbyist keeping these in private tanks. However I have encountered a large school of them at the Dubai Aquarium and underwater zoo recently.
Images from there:

Cool fish. They are available from Japan, but need cooler water and are pretty costly. We had them spawn in their exhibit, but never raised them. We did raise boar fish that we housed with our snipefish:

Captive Propagation of the Boarfish

By Todd Gardner and Jay Hemdal Introduction The boarfish, Capros aper is a temperate (cool) water species, usually found at depths of 40 to 700 meters. Al

reefs.com

Jay

 

[A Young Reefer]

Cool fish. They are available from Japan, but need cooler water and are pretty costly. We had them spawn in their exhibit, but never raised them. We did raise boar fish that we housed with our snipefish:

Captive Propagation of the Boarfish

By Todd Gardner and Jay Hemdal Introduction The boarfish, Capros aper is a temperate (cool) water species, usually found at depths of 40 to 700 meters. Al

reefs.com

Jay

Thank you!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Here is some text from my Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques book about snipefish:

Snipefish Macroramphosus sp. Macroramphosidae

These long-nosed, deepwater fish of the family Macroramphosidae are an enigma to taxonomists. There does not seem to be a firm agreement as to how many species there actually are. Including the related bellowsfish of the genera Centriscops and Notopogon, (which apparently do not appear in North American aquariums), there are about 12 species (Nelson 1984). The genus Macroramphosus contains two or more species, (at the very least, there seems to be two species available to aquarists).

Macroramphosus gracilis, the slender snipefish is reported to reach a length of 150mm (FishBase 1999) and is found to depths of 350 m. Due to confusion with other species, the range of this fish is uncertain, but may be found worldwide in deep temperate waters. Reports of a species of snipefish found on the continental slope of the United States may be this species, although most aquarium specimens originate in Japan. A slender species, the dorsal spine is not very prominent and often held flat against the body. This spine does not extend posterior beyond the soft dorsal fin. Coloration is a finely mottled red on the back, shading to pinkish red on the underside. This species exhibits strong schooling behavior, and with enough specimens, in a large aquarium, they tend to orient themselves in a close school. These fish are rather easily shocked by rapid changes in light intensity, and moving them from the dark confines of a shipping box into a brightly lit room may prove fatal. Drape their quarantine tank with dark plastic sheeting, and withdraw that a little each day as they acclimate to normal room light levels. This species is also much more sensitive to the movement of people around their aquarium as are M. scolopax. Successfully utilizing this species for a display aquarium may require an extended period of social acclimation. One technique that can be tried (after the fish have adapted to normal room light levels) is to attach strips of plastic garbage bags to a vertical support near their tank. Then, direct a fan to blow across these strips, giving them more or less constant motion. The snipefish will soon adapt this movement and will be much less afraid of the movement when people subsequently walk by their aquarium. Public displays of these fish should probably incorporate a second panel, separated by an air space, from the main aquarium viewing panel. This may reduce the stress in these fish from people tapping the exhibit window.

Macroramphosus scolopax, the Longspine snipefish is reported to reach 200mm, (FishBase 1999) but long-term captives (5+ years) failed to reach even 80mm in length. The distribution of this species is equally uncertain. Most specimens found in public aquariums probably originated in the Eastern Atlantic or Mediterranean Sea. A heavy bodied species, the dorsal spine is very prominent and if not damaged, can extend beyond a line drawn up through the middle of the caudal fin. This species does not seem to have as strong an affinity for schooling with conspecifics as does M. gracilis. At times, although normally peaceful, this species has been seen “jousting” with tankmates by trying to intimidate each other with snout thrusts and raising their dorsal spines. Normally a pink or orange color, when frightened or interacting with other snipefish, they develop a faint blotchy coloration on their flanks.

The basic husbandry requirements of both species are similar. They prefer dimly lit aquariums held at a typical specific gravity of 1.022, a pH above 8.0 and a water temperature of between 52 and 62 degrees Fahrenheit. As with most skittish fish, they may jump out if frightened, so the aquarium should be fitted with a secure cover. Live adult brine shrimp or even live mysid shrimp may be required to elicit a feeding response in newly captured Macroramphosids. Once feeding on these items, it is generally a routine matter to switch them over to feeding on frozen mysids and Euphasia pacifica krill.

Jay