Bangaii Cardinal Hiding, Won't Eat

[Yedgy]

I bought 2 cardinals on Saturday. One of them (the larger, fatter one) is now eating mysis heartily after a day or so of ignoring food. It also swims around the tank pretty well--generally behaving as expected, in other words.

The other one is a different story. It won't eat pellets, baby brine shrimp, mysis, or Cyclop-Eeze. I'm worried because it seems to react to the food in the water by jerking left and right, but it won't eat. It has been behaving very differently from the bigger fish, repeatedly climbing to the top of the tank, diving, and then swimming up and repeating. Today it's begun hiding kind of sideways under a rock along the sand bed.

It's a 50 gallon tank and there are no other fish, just corals and snails.

Should I worry?

 

[Yedgy]

...and since I deserve to be called out on it, I'll confess to not putting them in QT. They're the only fish in this tank and are likely to remain that way for months.

 

[Wolverine]

Are they wild-caught or tank-raised? Were they a pair prior to this, or just two random ones thrown together?

WC don't do well for many people.
If they're a pair, there's a small chance you have a male carrying eggs, but it would be very unusual for them to do it so quickly after being added to the tank.

 

[Yedgy]

I don't know whether they are WC or TR but the LFS didn't label them as one or the other. They are a random duo; I have no expectation that they are a mated pair. FWIW, it's the smaller one that's acting strangely. I don't know how to determine their sex but I can read up on it and guess if it may help. I will also check on ammonia, nitrite, etc. tonight but I expect the water to be clean as everything else seems healthy.

Thanks for your help!



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[Wolverine]

If they didn't say, that you can be sure they're wild-caught. That could be a problem, because many of them just don't seem to do well. Some eat but waste away. Others never get around to eating.

There's no reliable way to sex them that I've seen until you see the male carrying eggs.
If they're the same sex, there's a chance that the smaller one is being beaten up. I wouldn't expect it to be a water quality problem.

 

[DipG]

I got a wild caught pair from LFS a two months ago. One was eating and another wasn't. This went for a week and then one fine day both of them were eating. Then a week later the one who was eating from day 1 just died. After doing a lot of research i found out that this is a common problem with wild caught ones. So now i am left with one happy B. Cardinal.
For you i would say...just keep trying. If you can get live BBS then try to feed that. It was live BBS that drove both of my Bangaii Cardinals nuts. So try it and good luck.