My new clowns aren't eating much..

[PrFishGirl]

Hi everyone I just bought a pair of clowns this Saturday. I know it's only been 3 days,but they don't seem to have much of an appetite. I feed them flakes and nothing. So I went out and bought them pellets, mysis shrimps and brine shrimp. They just don't seem interested in any of it. The smaller one takes a nibble of the pellet here n there and that's about it. I do see the bigger one picking at the glass, do they eat copapods? Should I be worried?

 

[shifty51008]

I wouldnt be to worried yet. You could also try soaking the foods in some garlic and see if that helps. And yes the will eat pods also.

 

[OrionN]

get some live brine shrimp. Also ask about the what the breeder feed them and use that food. Ot\ften, they use pellet foods

 

[peasofme]

only bring home fish that eat with zest at the store in front of you. and only foods you are willing to feed. most clowns will eat anything. but i did have problems with one when i first started the hobby. it was likely wild caught. most false percs are tank raised. think the first clown i got was from petco. that explains a lot. never buy from petco. make sure the fish you buy is healthy. deeply colored. out in front, breathing slowly, clear bright eyes, no discolorations, no scratching, no injuries. ideally you want to buy from a store with all healthy fish. at least the tank it comes from should be healthy though. if there's one sick fish in a tank it's very likely all the fish are sick.

 

[LittleBeard]

Are they in a QT system or did you place them directly into your display tank? Were they eating at the fish store? What species of clowns are they? Are they wild or tank bred?

They are omnivores so they'll eat copepod, algae ect.

Any live food is more likely to illicit an eating response, and for difficult to get started fish I start with live brine and then train them on more nutritious frozen and dry food. It is significantly easier to monitor their eating habits in a QT tank because you know if they're eating.

 

[Pez68]

Find out what they were eating at the store. If they're picking at the glass, they're likely eating copepods. Do you have a lot of pods in the tank? Mine were picky the first couple days too. They turned their nose at the dry food as they were eating pods off the glass all day and night. I assume they then realized they were still hungry, and weren't getting enough pods, so decided to eat the pellets.

Do they look healthy? Any abnormal behavior? Rapid breathing? Lethargic?

 

[ptr13]

I have seen those guys eat fish eggs from Asian store to just get them to eat.

 

[PrFishGirl]

they're healthy looking and swimming around no labored breathing or rapid. I have quite a few copapods on my glass n tank. They swim around a lot more when I turn my koralia off. I was thinking the bigger one must be eating the pods because he wasn't even looking at the food and was picking on the glass and rocks every time I was looking in the tank.

 

[Pez68]

Mine were obsessed with the pods for a few days, then they started warming up to the pellets, and just snacking on pods in the morning, or when they found one. What time of day are you feeding them? How long after lights come on?

 

[peasofme]

something i notice with blennies is when you first get them they are sometimes more interested in eating algae in the tank. then if they take prepared foods they sometimes are less interested in algae. keep offering them foods, just a little at a time. eventually they should come around. you can try once a day or twice a day. once in the day, once at night

 

[PrFishGirl]

Lights turn on at 6am and by the time I get up around 8ish I feed them a few pellets to see if they eat. They swim up to it then just turn away. Then I'll try a feed them a few mysis shrimp in the afternoon before I leave for work in the evening but again nothing. I'll just keep feeding them a Little at a time and hope eventually they'll eat the food.

 

[Pez68]

Feed them later in the day. By the time you feed them, they have probably already had a full breakfast of pods. I don't start feeding mine until the afternoon, and by then they are hungry again. I had no luck feeding mine in the morning so I just stopped trying. I imagine the fish store wasn't feeding that early either. Mine don't even open until around 11AM around here. If they are tank raised, they are probably used to eating on a schedule.

Try feeding them a couple hours before lights out and see if you have better luck.

They may be waking up as soon as some light hits the tank and eating pods right away, before they have a chance to scurry away and hide.

P.S. My clowns do nothing but eat pods off the glass for the first 2-3 hours after they "wake up".

 

[peasofme]

also, how big are the clowns? food size is a big deal. they will only eat what they can fit in their little mouths and little throats. they also have little bellies when smaller. mine would only eat two small pellets a day for about a year. he was about 1.5" flake food broken into small pieces is good to try. texture and color of the flake does matter. some of my fish will only eat red flakes, some only colorless flakes, etc. red colored foods often get a good feeding response. a soft flake is also preferred. i have these bleach white flakes that curl up in the water that noone will touch. a flake should break apart when touched with a stick in the water.

 

[PrFishGirl]

1mm pellets... Not a great pic of them

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Try some Cyclop-Eeze. It's clownfish crack.

I get it in the frozen package that has both the Cyclop-Eeze and Mysis. Chances are you can find it at your LFS.