Help feeding an angler....

MarineGirl411

MarineGirl411

New member
I purchase an angler at my LFS. It was eating frozen mysis for the store owner very very well. I think she was feeding him about 2 mysis twice a day. This guy is pretty little...I would say about 1 3/4 inch max. I got the little guy to eat a large krill 4 days ago. LFS said to make sure to at least feed 2 mysis shrimp twice a day to be safe. I am worried this little guy might starve. I have read the article on getting them trained to eat frozen. He also ate live food for her at the store. I want to stay away from live food if possible. My question is, with a frogfish 1 3/4 inches max, how much should he be fed and how often? The krill was pretty dang large. I am taking a guess at his size. He could even be smaller. Please let me know. He would not eat the mysis for me. I have tried krill and mysis for 4 days since his last feeding. I have read not to overfeed. I am just worried about the little guy. Please help. Thank you all.
 
Having trouble understanding your post completely, but he is currently eating krill? What are you using to feed him? Some fishing line (as described in that thread)?

I've converted several anglers over successfully to silversides and I usually start with ghost shrimp then about a week after the last feeding I introduce a silverside on fishing line and try t0 wiggle it a lot.

FWIW I also have an extremely tiny angler right now (dwarf species though, not a small juvenile) and I would not worry about him starving. If he isn't taking food and he was already readily eating frozen, he might not be hungry. Once you've had him for a while longer you'll get a feeling from his behaviour (and belly size) if he is looking for another meal or not.
 
I have tried fishing line and tweezers. He eats right off the tweezers. He only ate krill for me once. I have had him for about 1 1/2 weeks. He didn't eat for about a week. Then he finally ate krill 4 days ago. I believe mine is a dwarf species as well. He ate exactly 1 week after I had him. Aren't silversides way too big for him now?
 
Buy a big bag of silversides, thaw it out just to the point you can break it down into smaller pieces and then pick out the smallest fish. You'll easily find ones he is capable of eating. Then use the fishing line feeding stick described in that thread.

Depending on what you're feeding him the frequency of feeding with vary. If you get him on silversides you can probably do 5-7 days (depending on just how small the fish are). If you get him back on mysis I'd do it every 3-5 days.
 
Similar with lions just enough to give him a slight "bulge" in his stomach. Anglers aren't very active and thus have slow metabolisms so over feeding is the main problem here. I would feed on the lighter side at first until you can notice the bulge. When I had one I fed him Tuesday Thursday Saturday.
 
Ok. I will get some silversides. He just ate again! Thank God. He ate krill. I went to feed him another one and he ate it, but then I could not get the line off. Ugh! I had to pull it out of his mouth. So he has 1 krill in his belly.
 
First of all, you're actually in danger of OVERFEEDING this fish. Anglers have SUPER slow metabolisms, and too much, or too large a prey item can begin to decompose in the fish's GI tract, which will cause your angler to bloat, float, and die.

As mentioned, for a tiny juvie like your specimen, you could go 3x a week, or as often as every-other day while the fish is still a juvie, assuming the meals aren't too large. A couple of "jumbo"/PE-sized mysis is a fine meal for a fish that size.

Secondly, get the fish off the krill...a steady diet of krill may cause the fish to develop lockjaw. There are no "official" studies on this that I know of, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to warrant caution. Another problem with krill is that once fish are solidly onto it, it's tuff to get them to take anything else.

One thing about small specimens is making sure they aren't intimidated by the size of their food item, and I'd try to stay with food that's no larger than twice the size of the angler's eye (smaller food items also digest more readily).

HERE is a good article on various techniques for feeding your fish. We use the "stealth stick" pretty much exclusively for all of our preds, which range from about 1" to over 12" in size.

BTW, do you know what species you have?
 
Okay, I screwed up. My friend Barbie=LFS, said to just feed him 2 mysis a day and sometimes even skipping days. I'm having a bad week and screwed up. I was just worried about this little guy. I didn't want him dying on me. Namxas, that was the article I was referring to. I have already read that.
 
Last edited:
Even though krill is not ideal, isn't it better than nothing? I have read where freshwater shrimp do not have the proper vitamins for saltwater fish. I have tried the jumbo mysis. He just simply will not eat them for me. Barbie has the magic touch. I don't and I am telling you these fish do not like me! Barbie told me many times about not overfeeding them. I read that article at the Lionfishlair.com many times. I tried that fishing line method today and that is how I got him to
take the krill. He was extremely excited when he saw it on the fishing line "crawling" over the rocks. He lured like I have never seen before. Except of course with the one Barbie has now!!!! These fish love her. This is my fiance's fish. I am the one taking care of it however. If it was me, I would have went with seahorses instead!
 
Last edited:
I feed mine 2X a week w/ Silversides. I've heard to err on the side of caution and not feed too much for a chance at long term survival. Had mine for almost 15 months.
 
I'm the LFS owner that she purchased the fish from. I do not have the actual species information for them, they only arrive as "red anglers". This is the identical twin to the one she has (she originally bought this one but he will only eat for me, stupid fish!)

normal_angler.jpg


He was eating 2 jumbo mysis 4 or 5 times a week at my shop. I start them eating live fw cherry shrimp to get them switched over to frozen. I think krill is a little big for the size of the fish, but on the other hand, he would eat it and she was desperate. Hopefully he will be able to continue his training and convert to eating other frozen foods. She is just early in the process. I think they'll get it :). I don't let them leave the store until they will eat food off tweezers. He is just still a little spoiled. He isn't intimidated and will climb to the top of the tank to try to lure you when you get close to the tank.

IMO silversides are WAY too large for him, even for the smaller ones I can purchase. They are always going to be larger than krill though.

Hope this answers any of the questions :). Any help on an actual ID would be most appreciated!

Barbie
 
Barbie,
Do you have anymore of the mysis? My pigs in the 180 would not eat the jumbo mysis either. I am thinking maybe I got a bad batch and that is why he would not touch it? I will try some squid with this guy later on. I was desperate just to get him to eat something. Barbie is the best. She knows her fish and they LOVE her! The guy above was sooo cute. He hated us and would not even eat live food for me or my fiance. Only for Barbie! He recognizes her! When I took him back to the store, he started luring at her while he was still in the bag! LOL! He knows her. The krill he ate this time was not an entire krill. I took about 1/3 of the size off the tail end because it looked too big for him. So what is the food of choice for these guys then?
 
Barbie said:
IMO silversides are WAY too large for him, even for the smaller ones I can purchase. They are always going to be larger than krill though.
Click to expand...

Not trying to be argumentative, but different brands of silver sides will have different sizes. I currently feed my smallest angler (~1 1/4") them exclusively. I'm currently away from home or I'd post the brand, but the bags usually have 20-30 very, very small silver sides mixed in with the medium to large ones (by small I mean like 1/2 the size of a standard Q-tip).

By the way beautiful angler!
 
I have three brands of silversides that I carry off and on at the shop and none of them are smaller than 2". I would be interested in the brand if they are that much smaller.

Yes Gina, I have lots of mysis and we can open a pack and feed it to something, but probably not my spoiled angler! He swam back and forth following me across the front of the tank begging the other day. It was awesome to see he really recognized me that much. Now if the smart little bugger would just eat anything that wasn't wiggling!

Barbie
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
feeding
Replies
5
Views
3K
austin_socal
A
A
First SPS coral. Is this bleaching?
Replies
6
Views
592
apavlik2
A
Tamara Marshall
๐‚๐จ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ž๐ก๐ž๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐ฏ๐ž ๐€๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐œ๐ฅ๐ž ๐€๐›๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐…๐ซ๐จ๐ณ๐ž๐ง ๐…๐จ๐จ๐- ๐Œ๐š๐ง๐ญ๐š ๐’๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ž๐ฆ๐ฌ ๐€๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐œ๐ฅ๐ž
Replies
0
Views
1K
Tamara Marshall
Tamara Marshall
Tamara Marshall
๐‚๐จ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ž๐ก๐ž๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐ฏ๐ž ๐€๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐œ๐ฅ๐ž ๐€๐›๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐…๐ซ๐จ๐ณ๐ž๐ง ๐…๐จ๐จ๐- ๐Œ๐š๐ง๐ญ๐š ๐’๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ž๐ฆ๐ฌ ๐€๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐œ๐ฅ๐ž
Replies
0
Views
625
Tamara Marshall
Tamara Marshall
Broken reefer
Rotifers
Replies
0
Views
1K
Broken reefer
Broken reefer
Back
Top