Getting Picky Fish to eat: Raccoon butterfly and bangaiii cardinalfishh

[George9]

Hi guys
I recently placed an order with blue zoo for a raccoon butterfly, bangaii cardinal, flame angel and a baby blue tang. They are all currently in qt together. The angel and tang eat like pigs, the cardinal eats nothing and the butterfly occasionally picks at the nori clip, and eats free floating pieces of nori.

The tang had come down with horrible ich, she was constantly scratching so I had to dose copper to relieve her, but it doesn't look like it affected their appetite, the three are all eating except the cardinal.

I'd like to get the butterfly on mysis, and then eventually on to pellets, but what can I do to get him there? He just looks at the food float to the bottom. He may or may not have flukes, he was twitching the other day. I was going to wait until after I cure the ich to see, because if could have been because of ich too.

I've tried feeding the cardinal at night and it doesn't work. She only has taken one hunk of mysis that landed right in front of her, everything else she ignores. It's wild caught, I messed up buying a wild one I think.

Any advice is appreciated!! I want to get all these fish on pellets and fat so they can go into the Main tank happy and healthy.

 

[jjk_reef00]

Try chopped raw shrimp, scallops, and clam on the half shell.
Your butterfly may never take to pellets.

You can try a 5 minute freshwater dip to temporarily relieve the flukes and to confirm they exist.

 

[CedzAquAddictio]

Try chopped raw shrimp, scallops, and clam on the half shell.
Your butterfly may never take to pellets.

You can try a 5 minute freshwater dip to temporarily relieve the flukes and to confirm they exist.

Good advice given there...

I had a wild caught bangaii, and unfortunately it perished. I even added 1000 pods to the tank, and it would only eat the ones swimming by. They are triggered by live food, so try some live brine shrimp to stimulate their feeding instinct. Live black worms work too. Don't try to make it live off of brine alone, but it may get it to start eating long enough to get it going on frozen. I've had no luck with pellets. I now have two healthy tank raised bangaii and a mandarin in my 55g, and they are all fat pigs off of frozen. I add about 1000 pods every 2 or 3 months just for fun...

The butterfly should take to fresh clam pretty quickly...

Edit: Not sure how bangaii handle copper. May want to do a quick search as copper will suppress the appetite of fish sometimes, and some fish just don't handle copper very well at all. If this is the case, you may consider hypo or TT...

Best of luck, and keep us posted...

 

[snorvich]

Wild caught Bangaii rarely eat. Is that the cardinal you are talking about?

 

[triggreef]

live black worms, live brine

 

[yodacroz]

I've had great results with Larry's Reef Frenzy. I use it to feed all my fish including my cardinals

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

I would try live brine, live blackworms, chopped scallops and shrimp from your grocery store, and Hikari mysis and spirulina- enriched brine. A fresh water dip for flukes sounds like a good idea.

My raccoon only eats chopped seafood (scallop, shrimp, clam and salmon, chopped and frozen). It refuses mysis, brine, pellets, and flakes so it only eats once per day.

 

[George9]

Thanks everyone! I will pick up some fresh seafood and see how he reacts.

That's a shame about the bangaii cardinal, I had no idea the wild caught ones would be so tricky to get to eat. Hopefully I'll have a breakthrough with it though.

I'm a bit worried about doing a freshwater dip because it might stress him too much, going from copper, to freshwater back to a tank with copper might be too much for him.

Looks like Live Aquaria wins in my book, their butterflies and angels came healthy and eating everything, unlike These blue zoo fish.

 

[George9]

I ended up doing the dip and a few flukes came off, he seems much happier now that he's relieved. Looks like I'll have to try some prazipro, even though it didn't work on my last case of flukes.

Having 2 parasites makes this really difficult because I can't really cure then both at the same time.

 

[George9]

Whoo hoo he ate! I gave him a big clam half and he's still going to town on it.

Where do I go from here though? Keep feeding clams or will he be more willing to try Other frozen foods now that he ate?

 

[tanked_life]

I have a Banggai cardinal myself and he readily eats frozen brine/myso. My suggestion would be to take a cup and give it a soak in garlic extract. It entices there instinctual feeding somehow and garlic is very good for the fish and its immune system as well

 

[George9]

He won't even take it with the garlic

Does anyone have any ideas how to wean fish on to eating food from the water column?

 

[George9]

Actually I might be on to something. I took a small clump of rods and rubber banded it to a rock and he is picking at the food here and there, I don't think he's ingesting too much, but it's a start.

He's a very inquisitive little guy

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

I ended up doing the dip and a few flukes came off, he seems much happier now that he's relieved. Looks like I'll have to try some prazipro, even though it didn't work on my last case of flukes.

Having 2 parasites makes this really difficult because I can't really cure then both at the same time.

You can treat with PraziPro at the same time the fish is in copper solution. I have done it numerous times using Cupramine and PraziPro. I don't know about other copper formulations, though.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

He won't even take it with the garlic

Does anyone have any ideas how to wean fish on to eating food from the water column?

Keep feeding with food rubberbanded to rock, and gradually introduce small bits of food to the water column. It will learn to eat from the water column, but that may take some time. Put the food in the water column first when the fish is hungry.

 

[George9]

Thanks everyone! As of today, the butterfly is eating awesome, he takes froZen food from the water column and is picking at NLS Which is a great sign!

The cardinal still hasn't eaten anything. I think I'll just stock the tank with pods and let it scavenge by itself :/