feeding with baby guppies

jiriki

New member
I got a new pipefish which I am coaxing to eat. I am trying to feed with baby guppies and then slowly transitioning towards some kind of prepared food.

The baby guppies are way too fast for the pipefish to catch. Is there a trick to feeding them?

-Jon
 
First of all, guppies, being freshwater, don't have a nutrient profile that is sufficient for saltwater fish.
Depending on the size of the mouth of the pipefish, you need smaller food like bbs or rotifers, preferably gut loaded with appropriate enrichment material.
 
I know about the nutrient profile. I just need help getting something in its stomach first. This isn't meant to be a long term solution. This will fit the pipefishes mouth. It's just too fast for it to catch it.

So for those who have.. short term... fed baby guppies to pipefish or seahorses, how did you do it?
 
do what I do, get some molly's, (gupies could do it too) and convert them to SW !!!!

its not hard, add a bit of SW to it and bring the salinity up to 35 or whatever your SW system is at over 4-5 hours. dripping works the best.

feed them HIGH quality MARINE food. after a couple days, you have a marine fish :) with alllll the nutrition :)

I feed my molly's HEAVY with marine algae and pellets, carotenoids (carotein bits) and even phyto ! lol

their fry can then be used :)

the molly fry is fast, although pipe fish when healthy is faster, and cooler at hunting, give the fry 10 mins and it will be eaten :P

only Issue with molly is that their fry is somewhat big, my seahorses have no Issue eating them, but pipefish needs to strike it 3 times to get it.

although, I highly recommend switching to frozen food, add some mysis to a little cup, with the molly fry :) add al to the tank, eventually, remove the fry from the mix, the pipe fish will eat the mysis. (as they would get used to the taste and smell of mysis as food and ... )

BUT, all this needs to be done in a seperate 5-10 G tank, dont put molly;s in ure seahorse tank. just the fry and if not eaten, remove it.

the pipe fish will eventually corner the fry and eat it.
ORRRRR
an injured fish isnt that fast :P I AM NOT SAYING INJURE THE FRY, or am i
 
Why not just feed proper food to them?

Frozen mysis and if they won't take to it get them there with some live brine to entice them and also mix in a bit of mysis as well till they are taking well to it and then slowly remove the amount of live food entering the tank.

So many easier options than trying to feed a FW fish to SW animals which are fussy at the best of times!

Has it eaten since you've had it?
 
I've had it one day. I am trying to coax it to eat something. I tried mysis and mysis soaked in garlic guard. I even tried baby brine but it's just too small.

I do not have any adult brine shrimp. Not sure if I can get any .. going to LFS later to see if they have any.
 
I did "wear out" a guppy.. but it still swims away too fast :)

The pipefish has been chomping at the bag of guppies since I put it in the water. So I know its hungry and is willing to eat. Just can't actually catch one.
 
Got some adult brine shrimp. Something to eat at least... I'll be enriching the ones it doesn't eat.

I have selcon, golden pearls, spiralina, .. vita-chem... hmm what else.. any reason I can't use golden pearls to enrich them?

Again, I plan to keep this as a transition to mysis.
 
Grr... it won't eat adult brine.. just stares at it... looks interested.. semi chases them.. but not actually eat.
 
You might want to get some live mysis from http://www.aquaculturestore.com/. You can get 100 for under 20 bucks.

Another expensive alternative, but might work if your LFS has them - cherry shrimp. Depending on the store though, they can go for 10 bucks a pop, though many around here have them for 4 or 5.

Depending on the temperature where you live, you might be able to feed collect mosquito larvae now. Just be sure it comes form unpolluted waters, and remove any as they won't last in saltwater long.

Black worms are another freshwater food that might work; but they only last a couple minutes in saltwater.

Can you get access to amphipods? Check filter media if its an established tank. Or see if your LFS will let you get some from their filter media.

Finally, Try different brands of mysis; sometimes the size or shape of the different kinds is more appealing. Make sure you have good water movement so that the mysis moves around and looks alive. A turkey baster can help blow it around and keep it in the water column.
 
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