bi-color angel feeding?

B

bankspower

New member
Hello everyone, got another question for ya. About 12 days ago I added a bi-color angel to my 55 gallon aquarium. This makes two fish in there, the angel and one clownfish.

The angel doesn't seem to be interested in eating the foods I'm offering. It nips at the live rock fairly often, but I can't imagine it's getting enough from that only. I've been alternating feeding mysis shrimp, emerald entree, and angel/butterfly mix all frozen foods. The clownfish has been in there for a few months now and will eat about anything you offer it, but this angel will only occasionally take one or two pieces of food it happens to swim by. How can I get it to eat? It's definitely not thin and acts very healthy. It was in my dealer's tank for 2-3 weeks before I bought it, but I made the mistake of not asking if it was eating for him.

I've tested the water params every other day and it's been coming back decent(and consistent) each time amm-0, trite-0, trate-0-2.5ppm, 78 degrees, 1.023 sg. The tank has been set up for about 5 months now.

Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance for your help.

Shawn
 
Yeah...it's best to see if the fish is taking food when at the fish store. But, anyway, it does seem to be all right since you said you have seen it take a few pieces of food. It's best to see it eat with a good appetite, so I'd try giving it some live brine shrimp. That's a food that will most stubborn fish to eating vigorously. Once you give it that, you can follow it up with some frozen, vitamin enhanced, brine shrimp. But, remember that brine shrimp is inadequate as a sole diet so you have to be careful to not start to rely on it. Mix some other foods with the frozen brine when you put it into the tank. Also, maybe raise the salinity up a bit to 1.025. Let us know if the fish takes the "bait."
 
You may also want to try a garlic additive, in my experience fish go nuts for garlic soaked foods and it also aids their immune systems which may be crucial for a new fish
viceversabrd
 
I feed mine formula two (frozen & flakes), along with nori and frozen angel formula. They need certain greens in their daily diet and they benefit from sponge based foods like the angel formula, which is a natural food source for them in the wild.
 
I fed San Francisco Bay brand Angel & Butterfly frozen food today and it maybe took one or two little bites of it, but not much at all IMO. Where can I get live brine shrimp? I haven't asked for that specifically at the local dealer, but kind of doubt he has any. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if this fish would just eat a little more, it looks great to me otherwise. I'll post a picture of it, please excuse the shamefully small amount of live rock(i have 45 pounds more curing in the spare room as we speak), should be able to add the new stuff in another 4 or 5 days.

Shawn
 
105839tank_3.jpg
 
Mine eats anything-- even nori off a clip...

Your tank looks sparse-- he might be stressed from his moves still and has no place to hide and chill out....if more rock isn't an option right now-- how about putting some pieces of PVC in there so he can go hide some times... your clown will like this too.

I used to run with very little rock (not quite that little) and found after adding more rock that the fish would come out more... I think if they feel secure (with a hiding place) they will be more sociable.. and you will actually see your fish more...

I don't know if the PVC will help him eat but I don't think it would hurt.
 
I hear ya on the sparse deal, that's why I have 45 pounds more live rock just finishing up curing right now. It'll be in the aquarium in about 2 more days. I want to see ammonia and nitrites at zero for just a couple more days before I put it in the aquarium. That should provide much more hiding for the angel and other future fish.

Shawn
 
If it was me, I'd go ahead and add one or two of those rocks -

It seems like I've read that bicolors are among the angels that rely on macroalgae - if you have access to some caulerpa, you might add some to the tank - If you can get like a bag food of various macros, that would go a long way towards making the fish feel comfortable

Stressed fish results in diseased fish
Making the fish feel comfortable = reducing stress
It makes more of difference than you might expect :)

Frozen foods like mysis, especially the small marine ones frm H2O are tempting, live brine as suggested - LFS's usually keep that in the back somewhere, you have to ask for it - Most fish can't resist frozen Cyclopeeze

If you r-e-ally want him to eat try adding an open brain coral ;)
 
The rock had been finished curing since last friday so I added it to the aquarium last night. It seems with the added caves/hiding places the angelfish already appears to feel more secure. I don't think I'll feed today, because I had a bit of a problem over the weekend.
I was out of town with the national guard and when I got back Sunday nite I found a dead hermit crab. One of the other hermits decided it needed a new shell and waged war. Anyway, dead hermit along with the skimmer air line becoming clogged with salt created a bit of a situation. I don't know how long the hermit was dead, but when I went to feed yesterday the clownfish didn't seem all too interested. I thought this to be extremely odd so I tested all the parameters. Everything was 0's except for ammonia was between 0 and .25ppm!!. I didn't have any water prepared to do a quick change so I added some amquel. Today I tested again and the ammonia was back to 0, nitrite almost undetectable between 0 and .05pm. I bet the dead hermit released enough ammonia into the aquarium to create a little cycle. Hopefully this passes without incident, but the clown has been just hangin out in the corner of the aquarium this morning. I'll have 5 gallons of fresh RODI water ready tonight so I can do a change then.

What do you guys recommend??! I'm getting concerned.

Shawn

P.S. Yesterday when I tested the aquarium water it was before I put the additional live rock in. This morning the test was with the live rock
 
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