Getting Reidi' to feed

[Rainman]

Hi All,

I hate to say it, but this is probably one of those predictable posts with perhaps a predictable outcome, but I gotta try.

After completely redecorating our entire living room we decided to down-size from our 100g reef to something a little smaller and try our hand at Sea Horses. We've setup a mini-reef in a fairly compact 2ftx2ftx2ft cube which is heavily rocked out with mature live rock from our old established system and has a variety of gorganians and pulsing xenia, etc. We configured our system in this way back last November and prior to locating what we thought would be a responsible sea horse purchase we have kept the system mature with a single Coral Beauty and a Rainbow Wrasse which still remain.

We worked with our LFS to source some captive bred Reidi from perhaps the most reputable source in the UK (TMC - who are reputed to have a number of captive breeding programmes). We aquired three Reidi after our LFS has had them for over three weeks and all were feeding on frozen mysis whilst in their care. Once home and aclimatised and within a few hours two of our new charges were eating brine and had moved onto mysis within 24 hours, however one has not and is immediately noticeable by it's thinner appearance compared to it's other tank mates.

I did wonder about our other fish but I'm pretty certain they're not a factor. If I feed in the evening (lights on) the wrasse is never anywhere to be seen as it's only evident in the mornings and doesn't compete with anything else in the tank. The dwarf angel isn't the most pugnacious fish and pretty much ignores the sea horses and after it (along with the wrasse) has had it's daily feed of high quality flake it doesn't get too competitive later on. Neither fish are bothered by the sea horses and the sea horses don't seem bothered by them in the slightest either - absolutely no aggression or competition issues here.

Two of our Reidi are already outwardly mobile, very active and quite gregarious, as soon as food is introduced they wake up from wherever they've been hitched up and resting and become quite the hunters, much as I'd always hoped they would be.

Alas one seems to be quite withdrawn, takes some coaxing out with food, seems interested but eats very little if any. I've tried it with brine and mysis and I can quite easily target quatities of food right with 1cm of it's mouth. It appears to examine the food but doesn't eat. Getting food to this chap doesn't appear to be the challenge, just getting it to start seems to be the issue - and this seems odd as it was feeding whilst at the LFS. There does not appear to be any signs of damage or desease aside from being on the thin side. Indeed, the other two already look like they're doing great with nice rounded features and are proving to be quite the sea pigs "snicking" anything that floats by and actively going and looking for more.

Anything someone might add that might give me the edge on getting this little chap feeding ?

Thanks

 

[pledosophy]

I would move the seahorse back into the QT tank and try feeding it there. If it is still a slow eater, it might just be a slow eater, but if not then the other fish are likely a problem.

Seahorses can be put off of food by the stress of faster moving tank mates. While aggression is not often seen IME some seahorses react differently and become more reclusive. This can be true even if the seahorse was in the tank years before the new fish IME. Removing the faster swimming fish can calm the seahorse and put them back on foods IME.

It might benefit you to train the seahorse to eat out of a feeding dish our container in the QT, and keep the QT tank barebottom. This way the seahorse will know where the food is at all times, and you can see how much the seahorse is pooping.

Then you can move the feeding dish into your display tank and the seahorse will know where the food is and might feel more comfortable.

Since there is no disease issue apparent you can keep water quaility up by doing frequent water changes with your display and the QT tank.

I have worked with and kept several different seahorses. Some seahorses are just slow eaters and lazy. I have a barb who stay hitched to her feeding dish 18 hours a day, and will wait a half hour to an hour or more sometimes, to eat the food right in front of her. She's been doing this for months and her health still is fine.

I would not offer brine unless she is not eating frozen at all. Sometimes a tank with no sand or rock will be void of distraction and get them back on frozen foods.

HTH

Best of Luck.

 

[Rainman]

Fingers crossed, we've seen some encouraging developments over the last couple of days.

I've decided to tryg a few different varieties of brineshrimp - spirunlina and garlic enriched - in the hope that something a little out of the ordinary might trigger some feeding activity. I've still yet to witness it physically eat something but it's not looking as thin as when I first posted 4 days ago.

I bought about 5 river shrimp in the hope that something live would bring it out of it's shell - we actually saw it strike at one today although it didn't succeed in turning it into a meal. It's out and and about and certainly going into "hunting mode", so thats something positive. Maybe it's just a matter of time.

We'll keep persevering and report back, but things may not be as desperate as I originally thought.

 

[Rainman]

Hurrah - finally seen it eat for the first time.

We bought a different batch of mysis and this seemed to do the trick. The new mysis are slightly smaller in size than in the original batch we'd been trying to feed, but thats about the only difference.

I feel we're passed the worst and hopefully we should start to see it regaining some shape and vitality - it's certainly more active now than it's ever been.

I don't know if it was the river shrimp that peeked it's curiosity in food in general, the garlic enriched brine, or just the different sized mysis. Either way I guess it goes to show you've got to be ready to offer some variety and stick at it.