Tricks for feeding picky fish?

[Wrench]

I have a regal angel who is slow to eat. It picks at a few things here and there but not enough to sustain itself. Does anyone have any tricks? I've used everything in my bag.

 

I've tried the following:

Live brine and blackworms

PE mysis

Frozen brine

Scott's homemade brew

Fresh clams on the half shell

Sea scallops

[smallreef]

Hung up some nori after soaking it in selcon or garlic juice?

[davelin315]

http://wamas.org/forums/blog/11/entry-27-the-regal-angelfish-dave-lin/

 

Wrote a newsletter article a couple years back on this exact subject.

[Cliff Puckstable]

Frozen Cyclopes has always worked for me.

[scott711]

I would try mussels, macro algae,  too.  Is it in QT by itself?  They are one of the hardest fish to get to eat.  I have one in QT that has eaten very little too, so I feel your pain

[Wrench]

I plan to get some mussels on the way home from work tonight, I haven't been able to find any yet. I put some garlic soaked nori in there and the fish looked at it but never ate any.  I didn't QT this fish. I gave it a couple medicated baths and then put it into my frag tank. Aside from an exiled ocellaris clown, the angel is the only fish in the tank. 

[scott711]

what is the size?  Larger ones and really small ones don't do as well.  Is it a yellow or blue belly? 

[Wrench]

It's a yellow belly, about 3.5". I can barely discern traces of the eyespot so it's not too old. Likely it came from the same place as yours. The market has been flooded the past few weeks. Seems like every retailer has had them.

[smallreef]

I got a smaller yellow belly and it took about 3Days of feeding the entire tank live worms to get it to finally eat...

had to turn the return pump off..but kept on the PH...

[davelin315]

Get some sponge encrusted rock and jam food into the sponges and let it graze on them.  You probably won't catch it eating at all but will need to get it to develop a taste for what you're offering.  I did a lot of clam and mussel but the problem with that is it introduces some nasty stuff into your system.  The fresher the better.  I also would remove other fish and have lots of rock in the system for it.

[Wrench]

'Lil guy annihilated some fresh mussels tonight. I was barely able to get my hand out of the tank before he had a mouthful. Hopefully it wont take too long to ween him onto other foods.

[monkiboy]

'Lil guy annihilated some fresh mussels tonight. I was barely able to get my hand out of the tank before he had a mouthful. Hopefully it wont take too long to ween him onto other foods.

awesome - we need video!

[Wrench]

Hmmm. Not sure how to post a video. I'll take one during tomorrows feeding and give it a shot. 

[monkiboy]

Hmmm. Not sure how to post a video. I'll take one during tomorrows feeding and give it a shot. 

email it me (mg@marcosjr.com) and i'll post it for you if you can't. easiest thing to do is upload to youtube and copy the link here directly in a post.

[Wrench]

Finally got a short video uploaded. Eats out of my hand now, too bad it will still only touch mussels.

 

[yt]

[/yt]

[monkiboy]

how's this guy doing?

[dave w]

Its great you got him to start eating.  The mussels will give him enough energy to start trying out other things in tank soon, we hope.  Paul B and I were writing about a guy back in the 1980's named Albert Thiel.  Thiel was one of the pioneers in using Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) to determine water quality.  One of Thiel's insights was that many picky fish, the Regal Angel in particular, had a hard time feeding at lower ORP levels (300-400 range), yet were more robust feeders at higher (600-700) ranges.  You may check your ORP just out of curiosity.  But it's more likely that you just have a little guy who has been in forced starvation during the collection, holding and transport of the past few weeks and is still a little too shocked to eat well.

[Wrench]

Little guy is doing well. His staple diet is still mussels although he does readily take flake food now. He also eats frozen brine shrimp but only a few before just watching them float by. 

 

Dave, thanks for the input! My ORP hovers around 350mV. It would be higher if I could keep this dang ozonizer online for more than a week without it breaking down. 

[monkiboy]

can we get an update on this guy and his diet? thanks!