Feeding Clowns

IndoorOcean

IndoorOcean

Premium Member
I bought two percs yesterday and they seem to be doing fine. However, I'm having difficulty feeding them. They do try to eat, but it seems like every piece of food they put in their mouths they spit back out. I've been feeding them frozen mysis shrimp and some Nutrafin dry food. They seem very eager to eat when the food is put in the tank. I'm not sure if they don't like what I'm feeding them or if the food is too large for them. They are pretty small.... probably about 3/4" in length. The food is pretty small in size too though. I have some frozen brine shrimp, but I know there's not much nutritional value in it so I wanted to avoid feeding that regularly. Any ideas anyone??? I did look for cyclopeze at the LFS yesterday, and they didn't have any.
 
I'm sure this isn't what you were looking to hear, but just give them time. I promise you aren't the first person concerned about your new clowns not eating, and I promise you won't be the last. Do your best to try to find some cyclopeze, even if it means a 30-45 min drive once a month. Your fish will benefit from it in ways I can't begin to explain.

As far as Dry foods are concered, I seems to have better luck with flakes, then I do with pellets. I also tend to prefer Formula 1 simply because of the nutritional value combined with the fact that their flakes are presoaked in garlic. As I'm sure you know, all fish are different. Good luck and don't get too concerned yet.
 
Thank you for the reply! I posted this thread in a hurry, not reading other threads beforehand. Now that I've read through some others, I can clearly see that this is quite a common problem. Makes me feel a lot better.
 
Question about the cyclopeze... is it better to use frozen or freeze-dried? I know I can order freeze-dried online and get it in a couple of days, but I'm not sure where I will locate the frozen locally.
 
Thanks for the help everyone! Ruskin, I found your thread very helpful.

Well, they actually ate a little today. I used the frozen mysis again. They were still spitting most of the pieces out, but did see them ingest several of them, so I'm hoping this means things are turning around.

I'm also trying to get the yellowtail damsel out of the tank and putting him in quarantine. He's not bullying them like he was on the first day, but he is still doing it nonetheless. He's difficult to catch and I don't want to disturb the tank any more than I have to while getting him out. If I was smart I would have gotten him out of there ahead of time... actually if I was smart I would have never bought him in the first place!

I did want to know more about soaking food in garlic. What is exactly is the technique for that? That's probably a dumb question, but I'm just not understanding it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9527205#post9527205 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by IndoorOcean
I did want to know more about soaking food in garlic. What is exactly is the technique for that? That's probably a dumb question, but I'm just not understanding it.
Click to expand...

I use this stuff called Selcon concentrate. It's a garlic Aquarium Food Booster. I take a little cup of water out of my tank and un-freeze some frozen mysis shrimp (or whatever your want) and add a couple of drops of the Selcon to it. Stir it up and add it back into the tank. It's supposedly good at helping your fish avoid disease.
 
I do very similar with my food. I break a piece of frozen off and add a drop or two of selcon. Then thaw with some tank water. Don't worry if the selcon seems to cloud some of the water. It's normal and goes away very quickly.

Something else that I was trying with my Clowns was to leave the filter running (I dont have anything else in the tank creating water movement). I didnt want any food being sucked up a first before they had a chance to eat so I was turning it off. Now I leave it running and the water movement seems to entice the fish to go after the mysis even more.

I'm glad my thread helped you, just stick with it and they will take sooner or later.

Matt
 
Since none of my LFS carry selcon, I use fresh garlic. I use a garlic press and use one clove of garlic, add it to my thawed frozen food and little bit of tank water and then feed that to them. They seem to like it, well it hasn't stopped them from eating yet:)
 
They ate a lot today! They became very active when they saw me approaching the tank and when I dumped in the mysis they swam all over the place trying to catch every piece. I need to go back to my LFS to get some variety of foods. The only other thing I have is some Nutrafin pellets and some frozen brine.
 
Congrats on getting your fish to eat. I learned from reading something GSMGuy posted that you can actually flake feed your clowns right out of your hand. Right now both of my True Percs will eat flakes right from my fingertips, however the Tomato is still a little shy. It's okay though as he can't be more then 4/5 months old.

I can say that in the little over a week that I have had all three of my fish I have noticed a huge change in their vibrance. All three of my fish seem to have a much richer color than they had when I acquired them. When I go to work and look at the colors of some of the clowns we hae there I feel bad for them as I know they could be in much better condition if we could feed them all the higher quality foods. Oh well they're not going to die from Nutrafin flakes. Plus at least they have somebody to feed them everyday.
 
I have a pair of gold & maroon (wild) that will eat Formula 2 flake from my fingers. Ovuel mentioned that his like Formula 1, so one of these (which are widely available) may be worth a try for you.

Interestingly, mine don't seem to care for the frozen Formula 1. I don't know if they don't like the consistency/texture, or they don't like Formula 1?
 
Honestly as much as I like Flake Formula 1 (and Formula Two just don't have any yet.) I don't like the consistency of their frozen product. IMO the couple of times I used it at work to feed fish it didn't seem to break down very well. Who knows though I may have used one that had some freezer burn or something?
 
It wasn't your batch - that's par for the course. Formula 1 especially. The gel that they use to bind it is like superglue. You can let it thaw completely, but it's still a major pain to try (unsuccessfully) to break it up.

Mine usually float to bottom where hermit crabs and shrimp will go at it.

The flip-side of the coin is that this characteristic works great for feeding a starfish. You can easily place the Formula 1 on a rock with a left finger, and use your right hand to put the starfish right on the food. Easy.
 
You can also try raw fresh shrimp.
Next time you are at your grocerie store pick up a few.
Dice them into little bits and see if they will eat.

You can also buy what is called seafood mix. Squid,octi,fish,clam and shrimp mix. Dice it up in a blender,seperate it into small freezer bags. Break off small chunks and thaw as needed.

Just make sure it is all RAW and not cooked.
 
Omni,

I never even thought about looking at the grocery for a mix like that. Which store do you pick that up in (Publix, Winn-Dixie, Food Lion)?

Also I know this is a little off of the topic, but where specifically in "Middle, Florida" do you live? I've lived in Florida for a majority of my life and I've never heard of a place called Middle }:cP.
 
Found some cyclopeeze yesterday. They really love that stuff! The only thing they are refusing to eat now is the dry food. I was going to get some Formula 1 but my LFS only had the pellet type and I would prefer the flake.

I never did get that damsel out of my tank, but things seem to be much better now... I'll keep watching carefully.
 
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