3/4 inch African Blue Pipefish food problem

[Barracuda1]

Ok, I just received an African Blue Pipefish and it is ALOT smaller than I expected, and the feeding plan I had for it failed miserably. the pipefishes mouth is so small it can't eat much, the copepods I had were all accidently released ( in an aquarium with damsals, so it can't live there) , the brine shrimp eggs didn't hatch, and frozen food was rejected, but it may be eating Microvore Bottled diet, but I can't tell, but can it be sustained on this, if not, what can I do to keep it alive

 

[ReefNutPA]

While it will be costly..... Reef Pods (which are Tiger Pods) can be purchased at some LFS or online. They will eat them. Yes, blue stripes are very small and have tiny snouts. They would eat similar foods as dwarf seahorses - newly hatched or enriched 2-3 day old baby brine shrimp and copepods. Not much else I can think of. Rarely do they accept frozen foods initially, although, they may be trained to take it over time.

Tom

 

[mollymonticello]

I had the same exact problem when I first got my bluestripes. I put them in a bare bottom tank to train them to eat frozen food. It only took a couple weeks for one of them. Now they eat frozen Nutramar Ova, frozen Cyclops, frozen Cyclop eeze, and now that they've grown they eat frozen small mysis.

I would recommend you put him in a small bare bottom tank and start hatching more brine shrimp. Get some Nutramar Ova and Cyclops or Cyclop eeze. Soak the brine shrimp in garlic before you feed your pipe. He'll start to associate garlic with food, and soon he'll be eating frozen food soaked in garlic. It is really hard to do this in a main tank where there are distractions. It's best to do this in a bare bottom tank, then move them once trained.

I don't know about that Microvert food. I've never been comfortable feeding meaty foods that don't require refrigeration or freezing. It might sustain him until you can get some good frozen food or some brine shrimp.

Even if your pipefish learns to eat frozen food, I'd still recommend a small hang on refugium. I've told this story on RC before, but bascially I had two pipes that I had to separate because they fight. One went in my reef with lots of pods, and one went in a 10 gallon by itself with no pods. Both were fed frozen foods twice a day. The one in the reef ate frozen and snicked pods all day. That one is 1 1/2 times the size of the one kept in the tank with no pods. I think it's really beneficial to them to have live copepods to graze on all day.

 

[Barracuda1]

I checked my LFS for pods, but there were none, but there was cyclopeez and live adult brine shrimp, so I got both, but could possibly a large population of adults in the tank yeild a substitute for pods because of brine shrimp babies produced?

 

[Barracuda1]

Well the pipefish died, and now That I can see him, what I thought was his "normal" side was really a bag of bones, appearantly no one has feed him for weeks, not just the 2 days Ive had him. Too bad, I mean he was so far gone his organs were basically gone

 

[mollymonticello]

awww, that's too bad. Unfortunately starvation is a common problem with pipefish, starting with collection to wholesaler, then LFS to hobbyist.

For future readers of this thread, live brine in your reef tank isn't a good substitute for pods. They are very dirty animals and would probably be destroyed by your pumps anyhow.

 

[jus chillin]

reefs2go.com is a great place to get pods!.....