Orange Toadfish

[Iphis]

Hey all,

I have had the "little" guy in my avatar picture for over two years. He is an Orange Toadfish from the gulf...

I have had him since he was only an inch long and is now over 7 inches long.

I trained him to eat frozen silversides and other frozen, uncooked fish and he has been doing so for the past two years without fail.

Suddenly, he has stopped eating. I have not introduced anything new to the tank in 6 months, the water quality has not changed (kept a journal, he's a messy eater, but my remora takes care of it.)

He has four turbo snail tankmates and a plethora of feather dusters. Nothing else is showing signs of wear.

He will not accept anything and I am hesitant to go buy something alive to feed to him. He is still "responsive" as much as a toadfish can be, pushing him around will ellicit him to move around a little. Mostly he just sits there watching.

He has no obvious blemishes. His color is still as radiant as ever. His eyes have their normal creepyness to them.

I just can't get him to eat. Its been two weeks and I'm getting worried about him.

I read an article in the recent Coral Magazine that stated aggressive fish will bore of frozen food and will only accept live food after a while, is this true?

I thought of putting his tank butt up against one of my very active fish tanks to entice him into thinking other fish are nearby and dropping fish in that way. (This has confused him before, watching him flaring his fins and swimming up and down the glass is hilarious)

Please help me save Captain Jack. I don't want him to go into the night.

Thanks,

Iphis

 

[aquaman67]

I'd get some ghost shrimp or mollies to get him eating again.

 

[TarheelReefer22]

Does anyone know if this is a common issue? I just adopted one my self and have him in a tank just for him and planned on the tank to be planted? Any other tips or tricks would be awesome!

 

[namxas]

Preds do go off their feed for various reasons. Sometimes is boredom, sometimes whatever you're feeding them might be a bit "off" or freezer burned. They could also be ailing.

it's also important to know that 2 weeks without eating isn't going to harm a healthy binge/fast predator...they're used to it in the wild. However, I'd be looking into the reason for this.

How often were you feeding the fish?
How much at a time?
How do you present the food to the fish?
What size food items are you feeding out?

 

[SteelMastiff]

I had an orange toadfish 24 years ago but decided to go a different route and re-homed it. It was a fun fish, I wish you the best with yours, hopefully it's just constipated...