Lightly Medicated | Orange Spot Filefish

What “Lightly Medicated” means

This is the same animal as our non-quarantined listing, held briefly in our systems and given one short prophylactic course — a light treatment for ich and for internal and external worms — then observed eating in front of us before it goes home.

A light course knocks the parasite load down. It does not guarantee full removal, and we will not pretend otherwise. Ich is only killed in its free-swimming stage, and a short treatment window can miss cysts entirely; worm burdens can survive a single dose. Clearing an animal takes the full quarantine window — 40 to 90 days depending on the species — which is exactly what the Quarantined listing is for. This tier buys you a lower parasite load and a fish we have watched eat, not a cleared animal.

We condition the fish on our end. Every animal we medicate is brought back onto prepared food on our own systems and is eating before it leaves — in practice it is rare for a lightly medicated fish to ship out and arrive sick. Do the same at your end: get it eating in your aquarium before you count it settled.

When it ships

Plan on 5–7 days on our systems for the treatment course, and it does not leave until it is eating. If the animal is not already in our systems we source it first — allow up to two weeks for it to reach us before that clock starts. From the day you order, plan on roughly three weeks in total.

The guarantees

• Shipped — Early AM Overnight only: 24-hour live arrival guarantee from confirmed delivery. Next Day Air (standard Overnight), 2-Day and USPS Priority carry no live arrival guarantee, on any tier.
• Local pickup or delivery: 7-day live guarantee — bring a water sample from your aquarium so we can test it before your livestock goes home with you.
• Maintenance clients: 60-day live guarantee on any livestock you buy from us, for as long as we service your aquarium on a plan of at least twice a month — weekly, every 10 days, or biweekly. Monthly plans carry 28 days. Nobody else in the trade puts that in writing.
• Sourcing: if the animal is not already in-house, add up to two more weeks in front of the window above — that applies on every tier.
• Claims: video of the sealed, unopened bag, opened on camera, with the animal on a white paper towel, inside the window.

Want the full program — treated, observed, confirmed eating, and covered for 28 days on pickup? That is the Quarantined listing. Run your own quarantine and just want the fish this week? The non-quarantined listing is cheaper still. The whole ladder is explained in Quarantined vs Non-Quarantined.

This fish eats live coral and almost nothing else. Oxymonacanthus longirostris is an obligate corallivore: in the wild it feeds almost exclusively on the polyps of Acropora, and that long snout exists to pick them out of the corallites. Most imported specimens never accept prepared food and starve over a few weeks. That is the ordinary outcome, not the unlucky one.

A light prophylactic course lowers the parasite load. It does not change what this animal eats — if you cannot supply live Acropora, this fish will starve regardless of tier.

It is not reef safe. It will strip an Acropora colony. Keeping one honestly means a mature tank with SPS growth you are willing to feed to it, or a dedicated system and a standing supply of live coral. Everything else about it is easy to like — small, peaceful toward other fish, and it pairs readily. The difficulty is entirely the diet.

Care level: Expert only · Temperament: Peaceful toward fish · Max size: ~5" · Min tank: 50 gal · Reef safe: No — eats SPS coral · Diet: Obligate corallivore — live Acropora polyps; most refuse prepared food