no they dont need to eat sponge..i had mine eating frozen squid,,silversides,,and krill...he lived very healthy until i moved him into a bigger tank and in the move i stressed him out to the point where he stopped eating and died....
Now that just makes me mad! Im sorry that it does, but it does
First, YES THEY DO NEED SPONGE... Their wild Diet is sponge...
Second, Did you ever think that maybe, its possible that it died due to poor nutrition that weakened its immune system to be point it couldnt cope with the new surroundings and environment and died?
i had mine eating frozen squid,,silversides,,and krill
Im sorry but that is WAY to high a protein diet for them, they dont eat that much protein in the wild.. Squids, small fish and shrimps are not on the menu in Cafe' Pacific or whereever....
Yes, they do need sponge, find the right sponge they like and give it do them often...
I had one for months... a med sized that I special ordered...
I took it home, gave it good clean water, and natural sponge to prey on and that was the ONLY thing it would eat for a month, what a blue species of reef sponge, that likes light....
well... that and my brain corals... but anyway...
After a month I was running myself to death trying to find more of this sponge... so I started to introduce new foods, in a clam shell, foods like frozen mysis, muscel, pellets, brine, plankton, cyclop, flake and a few others.. even fresh crab... the MI didnt touch it, picked, but that was all, never ingested...
Till one day I found a food by Ocean Nutrition, its Angelfish Formula with Sponges... and MAN O' MAN did he eat it up!
I took the frozen cube, and put it in a clamshell and he just LOVED IT, shortly after being able to feed him that I started introducing foods as usual to the water column for the other fish and all of a sudden one day out of the blue, he starts eatting EVERYTHING in site!...
He was on his way to recovery... eatting everything, very active, like a tang, was very personable... begging with all the other fish..
the ONLY thing I couldnt get him to eat was Nori on a clip...
Then, one day all my fish broke out in ich...
He had introduced it into the tank.. and always had a spot or two... but never REALLY BAD... None-the-less, It happened... I think this was because of the slowly decreasing water quality due to haveing to put some much food in... Luckly for me I knew I would be able to treat them because I was getting ready to move my tank..
So Move day came, just in time, they were covered in Ich...
I put my fish all in a 20gallon rubbermade tub with some baserock and a filter, and a powerhead... and treated with QUICK CURE, and treated again later that night, not remembering I treated, and then after about 4 hours of sleep, or maybe 5 Woke up again, and couldnt remember if I treated or not, and treated again... Now YOU WOULD THINK that I would be able to tell due to blue water... however, this particular Tub was blue... the same hue as the QC... bad mistake... I came home later that night to find all my fish with brain damage and half where dead, one of which was my MI...
I was SICK! after all the work, and effort... I poisoned my fish...
Not a proud moment for me... but this is the sad truth
My advise to you is, feed it a good varied diet, not just 1 or 3 foods, but rather a buffet of foods...
and please, find some sponge that he likes and feed it...
The Ocean Nutrition cubes Angelfish Formula with sponges, is a great MI food!
good luck!
