I had one,about 15cm, in my 720L for about 6 months. It ate good on both frozen and dried(standard flake and pellets for marine) foods, as well as grazing heavily on my living rocks.
A key for my good results with keeping this rather difficult (my opinion) surgeon, may be the 5-10mm thick grovt of red filametous algae wich cover the edges of 30-40% ov my liverock.
From day 2, the Clown-Surgeon started grazing eagerly on the rocks, and after about 2 weeks it started eating all types foods with huge apetite.
Also, by this time, it had established itself as the Big Boss!
My belive is, that this fish have the need to be the boss, as much as it needs food!
...- And it needs a LOT of food as well...
I experimented with how much food needed to keep its belly good and full. Feeding 6-7-8 times with various dry foods pr day, never kept it from constantly grazing on rokcs. My 2 other surgeons,C. binotatus and Z. desjardini, where fully boulging in the belly, and rested in a calm area. The lineatus just kept on patroling its aquarium with swallowlike movements as allways.
It is also nessesary to create good enough space for swimming, as this fish never rest. ¨My¨ lineatus had a standard ¨patrol-route¨ of a kind of figure 8 across the whole aquarium length, around my two free-standing reef-structures.
-Always ensuring it positioning itself on the ïnside¨of other big fishes, so itself is close to the reef, and in perfect position to envict and push/thretening the other ouwards away from the reef, -if nessecery...
I sadly lost this fish as I was away for a long time with work. My girlfriend tried to keep my aquarium fit, but failed to keep it fat enuogh...
I soon will try again, as my local shop will have another shipment from Indonesia...
I really admire and respect this fish. Its colors and paterns show of ekstreme, when it is able to.
As long it is allowed to be boss, it never seems to harm other fish. But it handles competition with ekstreme violence. Make it good space both psycological and physical, and enough food for it's high performance lifestyle, -and this Ferrari of a fish will reward you good with it's beaute and performance!
keine
