lanman July 13, 2007 Share July 13, 2007 Nope, no one who has excess corals stepped up to the plate to offer some up to Peter so I offered to try the next best thing. Obviously it's long term life will depend on it becoming trained to eat offered foods rather than corals as I don't think anyone has such prolific growth that they can afford to let this fish be in their reef. No - but I do have a few 'junk' montipora frags that he can eat until he figures out how to eat food... How about mushrooms? I should have brought some coral up to Herndon today for you. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 14, 2007 Share July 14, 2007 He did pick at a rock that had mushrooms on it but didn't eat it. I'm still trying! I'm going to try and freeze cyclopeeze to a piece of coral again and put that in to see if he starts picking at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 16, 2007 Share July 16, 2007 OK, it's still getting skinnier but it's actually looking at the mysis instead of just ignoring it. I may do an earlier force feed and see if this motivates it to eat. Not sure yet, may also give it another day or two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tranman July 16, 2007 Share July 16, 2007 Well Dave, I'm surprise he lasted this long. But since you're saying he's getting skinnier, we know he only has a matter of days. Don't stress yourself over it too much, it's one of those live and learn experience. I learn not to trust Saltwaterfish.com on their description of fish anymore. Bunch of liars! btw...did you get those nasty emails i forward to you that i sent to saltwaterfish? Most likely, I prob. won't deal with that company any more. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 16, 2007 Share July 16, 2007 No, I didn't get the e-mails but haven't checked my e-mail today yet. Are they appropriate to post here? If so, why don't you post them here? On second thought, let me check them first and then you may want to post in the vendor experiences area and not here... I know that many people have had good experiences with saltwaterfish.com but if they are not responsive to customer concerns that may be a problem and not the type of online store people will want to buy from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 Once again I watched this fish pick over a specific rock and it "almost" ate some food that I covered the rock with. I'm still hopeful and Unni sent me a link to someone that has successfully trained some of these fish to eat, so I sent them a message, hope they respond with some help. It is still deteriorating very slowly and so I may try and force feed it over the next couple of days but I want to wait and see what this other person says. It's now going onto 11 days without eating a thing, not including the time that it spent at saltwaterfish.com without eating... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 Once again I watched this fish pick over a specific rock and it "almost" ate some food that I covered the rock with. I'm still hopeful and Unni sent me a link to someone that has successfully trained some of these fish to eat, so I sent them a message, hope they respond with some help. It is still deteriorating very slowly and so I may try and force feed it over the next couple of days but I want to wait and see what this other person says. It's now going onto 11 days without eating a thing, not including the time that it spent at saltwaterfish.com without eating... I drive to Herndon every morning and return every evening. Be happy to bring you a montipora frag or two. Would you prefer brown that was supposed to be purple, or brown that was supposed to be orange? Of course - his normal diet may be GARF blue bonsai or something - in which case he can starve! bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 I drive to Herndon every morning and return every evening. Be happy to bring you a montipora frag or two. Would you prefer brown that was supposed to be purple, or brown that was supposed to be orange? Of course - his normal diet may be GARF blue bonsai or something - in which case he can starve! bob Hmmm... that's a good question. Purple brown or orange brown... Any chance you have any superman that turned brown? Actually, your offer begs a question. If no one is willing to keep this fish in their reef where it will have the food that will naturally sustain it (and I can't imagine that anyone here has a tank big enough to provide it with the amount of polyps it will need to survive), is it a good idea to feed it corals or to continue to try and train it to eat offered foods? If it does not get trained to eat what is offered, will it long term have any sort of life? Or, do you think having some coral may help to sustain it until it is ready to eat prepared foods? The response I got from the guy over at reefland seemed to suggest that he thought I should just let it die. When I mentioned force feeding it he asked if that was fair to the fish or not... I want to be responsible here but am not sure what the most responsible thing to do is at this point in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unninair July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 Dave, Sorry to have sent you to the reefland person. While attempting to keep my Myers alive, I had come across his site and it seemed to indicate that he was willing to help another individual. Oh well - Unni Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YBeNormal July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 If you can get him to nibble on the coral then press other foods onto the coral to give him the taste he might actually learn to eat prepared foods. I'd say it's worth a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 i keep coming back to read this thread to see how this poor fish is doing.... it's very sad :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tranman July 17, 2007 Share July 17, 2007 i keep coming back to read this thread to see how this poor fish is doing.... it's very sad :( I'm sad to hear all this as well. I was the one who started this whole thing by believing saltwaterfish.com, (expecting the fish to eat clams). You woulda think he'll TRY to eat something else after all these days... Unni, Did you trained your Myeri's to eat prepared food? Those are some Beautiful fish too.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 18, 2007 Share July 18, 2007 Dave, Sorry to have sent you to the reefland person. While attempting to keep my Myers alive, I had come across his site and it seemed to indicate that he was willing to help another individual. Oh well - Unni Unni, don't be ridiculous! I appreciate any input from anyone. I know what he's trying to say and it seems like he thinks it'll be too much work. He is a bit cryptic in his responses and not very encouraging right now, but I'm hoping that he PMs me something that will work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unninair July 18, 2007 Share July 18, 2007 Unni, Did you trained your Myeri's to eat prepared food? Those are some Beautiful fish too.. Unfortunaltely I had to watch them starve to death... I wish I had know the facts before importing those beauties. The guy at the other end only gave me an hour to pick a few alternatives when he ran out of the ones promised. Some fish are better left in the ocean! I hope you have a different outcome. Unni Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 19, 2007 Share July 19, 2007 Success! A small one (no pun intended) but a success nonetheless! I heard back from the guy over on Reeflands.com and his suggestion was not anything that I hadn't been trying so far so I really started to think about what it had been picking on so far. I came to the conclusion that it was picking on the maroon/deep red/brown colored coralline and that this was probably the result of it eating pavona or psammacora coral in the wild that was brown (basically encrusting type corals) so I decided to try the cyclopeeze frozen to rock again, only this time I didn't use the dead coral, I simply used a small piece of live rock. Next thing I know it's picking the tiny pieces of cyclopeeze off of the rock. I then grabbed a camera and jammed a bunch of cyclopeeze into a hole in another rock and it began eating this. I then did it again and this time really jammed a ton of cyclopeeze into the rock along with some mysis. I didn't thaw it and refreeze it, but instead just jammed frozen chunks into the rock. When I put it in, it ate again, only this time it was much more successful. By no means is it gorging itself right now and it's very skinny and deteriorated, but this is a start and I am thinking of using something to gel the cyclopeeze together with other foods and improve the presentation for this fish. This is the last rock I put in there with the cyclopeeze and mysis on it. Another shot of the rock. Next to it is the red algae that it's been picking on. The darker areas are what it's been picking, I believe it's a type of coralline. And another shot of the rock with the cyclopeeze being the color at the top. Here it is eating (don't think I timed it right). Another shot of it coming back to eat again, the copper band is below hanging out and trying to get the mysis I jammed into the rock. Peter, if this works, we'll have to figure out what to do with this fish. If it can be completely trained over and it starts to pick on the aiptasia, I'll definitely take it off of your hands, but this is going to be a slow process I think and if it keeps on eating, we'll have to see if it puts on some weight again. It had to pick the most expensive food of them all! :wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tranman July 20, 2007 Share July 20, 2007 WoW!! I am speechless!!! I wish I could see it but the pix you uploaded shows a little icon with a red X in the center. So are you saying he first started eating Coralline algea?? the pink and purple stuff that takes so long to grow!?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Connor July 20, 2007 Share July 20, 2007 Great news and a great job!!! Congrats Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 20, 2007 Share July 20, 2007 OK, day 13 since he was shipped from Saltwaterfish.com to Peter and day 2 of successfully eating. It's not getting a whole lot of food, but what it is eating is chock full of protein and energy and I notice that it's more aggressively picking at the rock so getting it to eat the cyclopeeze is helping to sustain it. I am going to continue to mix the cyclopeeze with other foods and jam it onto the rock to see if it continues to sample different things. I saw a thread on how someone keeps it together with a natural coagulant, anyone remember what that was? I'm tempted to throw some alum in the cyclopeeze to make it jelly and then spread it onto the rock so that it lasts longer and is more solid to actually swallow. This would also allow me to mix other foods into the cyclopeeze and have them stick a bit better together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unninair July 26, 2007 Share July 26, 2007 Dave, Any updates? Unni Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason the filter freak July 26, 2007 Share July 26, 2007 That shot with the copper and red fin butterflys is awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 26, 2007 Share July 26, 2007 Well, it's still alive but not doing any better than it was before. It's still picking a bit but it's concentrating more on the rock around the food now. I added a small yellow tang in trade and I think I need to move it out as it's a bit aggressive compared to the butterfly. I've been trying to wean it off of the cyclopeeze by mixing it with other foods but so far it's only eaten a couple of bites of other foods and never returned for more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite July 26, 2007 Share July 26, 2007 Hope this doesn't sound too stupid. Would possibly food coloring help, if it's one that has nothing in it toxic to a fish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 26, 2007 Share July 26, 2007 Thought of that, but it's not something I want to introduce into the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite July 26, 2007 Share July 26, 2007 I was thinking about plant-based things. I just finished reading some stuff - it would take an actual analysis to figure out what might be ok, which really is too much to expect or go through. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 29, 2007 Share July 29, 2007 Lost the battle last night... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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