Regal Angel Primer

[JJKK]

Hi Folks. I got a 5" yellow belly regal in my tank. It started eating zoas and only zoas after day 3. How long can they sustain themselves on just eating zoas. I have tried live black worms, frozen PE Mysis, PE Pellets, NLS Pellets, Sustainable Aquatics Pellets, Ocean Nutrition Pellets, Cobalt Spurilina flakes, LRS Reef Frenzy, Masstick, and Hikari frozen brine. So far, he hasn't eaten them yet.

Just came back from the store and freezing a live clam. Will stick that in the tank after the wrasses go in to the sand later. He has been pretty active cruising the whole tank so he is not bother by any other fish.

So, how long can he live by just eating zoas? What should I try next(besides a clam) for one that is eating zoas and relatively comfortable in the tank?

Thanks.

 

[ThRoewer]

Try Caulerpa and other soft macro algae.
Fresh or frozen oysters are also always a good thing to try.
Zoas won't sustain him for long, but the fact that he is picking and eating anything is a good thing.
My Regals eat everything by now, including pellets and flakes, but they always nip on algae.

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[pfan151]

Definitely try fresh clams. Then rub some masstick on the edges of the clam shell. I wouldn’t worry though. Once they are at least eating something it’s just a matter of time before they start on other things. It’s takes them a bit to get used to eating out of the water column sometimes.

 

[JJKK]

Thanks. I saw him took a couple of nip of the frozen clam. But than I saw him taking a couple of bite of one of my green indo torch as well as an acan.

Now I am stress. I don't mind the zoas and acans, but I got a holy grail torch, an Aussie gold, dragon soul as well as an expensive skittle torch.

If he starts eating clams and oysters, than masstick and then pellets, would he leave the torches alone?

 

[pfan151]

Thanks. I saw him took a couple of nip of the frozen clam. But than I saw him taking a couple of bite of one of my green indo torch as well as an acan.

Now I am stress. I don't mind the zoas and acans, but I got a holy grail torch, an Aussie gold, dragon soul as well as an expensive skittle torch.

If he starts eating clams and oysters, than masstick and then pellets, would he leave the torches alone?

Never really know. I don't keep LPS with any angels. It's definitely a risk. I'm not a believer in the theory about if a fish is well fed it won't nip. I the wild they'd be pretty much grazing all day long.

 

[ThRoewer]

Any LPS is fair game, especially if they are meat or have long tentacles.
I've seen my guys also pick at some SPS, but there I think they rather went after some pods or bugs, at least I didn't see any bite marks or damage.

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[pfan151]

I occasionally see a few tips on my sps bitten off. I assume it’s one of the regals but I’ve never seen them go after it. The rest of my fish are tangs, damsels,anthias, and wrasses so the angels are the main suspect.

 

[ThRoewer]

I occasionally see a few tips on my sps bitten off. I assume it's one of the regals but I've never seen them go after it. The rest of my fish are tangs, damsels,anthias, and wrasses so the angels are the main suspect.

My main suspects would be the tangs. At one of the LFS here the tangs in their display tank really went to town on the SPS in there.

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[JJKK]

Been monitoring this morning and he is still grazing on the zoas. Didn't see him nip the torches this morning. I did notice that the 2 times he took a chunk out of the indo green torch, he went immediately to the cleaner shrimp to get his mouth checked out. Not sure if it was stinging him some how.

That specific torch that he nipped has opened up this morning and I couldn't tell that it was bitten by the regal angel(except that I witnessed it last night and there were green tips floating in my tank). Hope it was just a curious nip and he didn't really like it.

He did polish off the clam with the Copperband last night/this morning.

 

[ThRoewer]

If he eats clam then you are good. It will take likely a while to get him take other foods, but he can live on clam for quite some time.
I would however always offer some algae. I feel those are critical for long term success with Regals.

 

[JJKK]

Ok. Great. Still worrying about the torches.

I clipped purple seaweed with Selcon yesterday and no go. Will try regular Nori today.

 

[ThRoewer]

Found a Red Sea regal angel at AC today. It's a juvenile in transition, about 3.5 inches in length. It was eating well at the store and, aside from some Lymphocystis, looking healthy. Once it is through QT I plan to pair it with my Maldives regal. Originally I wanted another baby Maldives regal to pair it with, but with LA's policy change and price increase, I decided to give this one a shot. And with this one being from Djibouti, it should not be too different from the Maldives strain.

Here a video of it while in the formalin bath (marine Betta is also new):

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[Ab129]

New regal

New regal

So my regal is in day 4 of TTM
So far I have tried feeding frozen Mysis, frozen clams, frozen bloodworms, frozen angel cubes and nori.
At best he has only nipped at very tiny pieces of frozen foods.
He is acting fine, swimming around, not hiding or anything but I feel like he really needs to eat more or he is going to starve!
Is this common with these fish and more importantly is it ok or do I need to try something else to get him to eat more?

 

[pfan151]

So my regal is in day 4 of TTM
So far I have tried feeding frozen Mysis, frozen clams, frozen bloodworms, frozen angel cubes and nori.
At best he has only nipped at very tiny pieces of frozen foods.
He is acting fine, swimming around, not hiding or anything but I feel like he really needs to eat more or he is going to starve!
Is this common with these fish and more importantly is it ok or do I need to try something else to get him to eat more?

Pretty common for them to take a few days to get eating. Regals aren't a fish I do TTM on though. I prefer to just observe them in a tank with a lot of live rock to get them picking at the rocks. Seems to get them to settle in and start eating faster.

 

[Ab129]

I would have preferred to put him right into DT for less stress and quicker acclamation but I lost all my fish except one to ich last year and I just refuse to take that chance again.
I have already decided to NOT do my usual post TTM quarantine and put him straight into the DT Fromm TTM.

 

[ThRoewer]

Last week AC had a number of small to tiny Philippine Regals so I gave it another shot and picked one 50mm juvenile and a 25mm tiny one that can't be more than a few months past settlement (some of its soft dorsal fin is still clear). This time I skipped the formalin bath and put them both straight into my Nuvo drop-off tank that has plenty of algae and critters. After some initial posing, the larger one pretty much ignores the tiny. Both are extremely shy and for the first week I hardly saw them.
So on Friday morning, I added my surplus Darwin ocellaris as a QT buddy for them and when I came home in the evening the larger one of the two was far less skittish and even came out to the front. The tiny one still prefers to stay at the rock-wall and near the rocks.
They both eat but prefer live tigger pods and other pods they find on the rocks. The larger also went after some frozen brine shrimp but not really with gusto yet. He did better with frozen cyclops, so I think it is just a matter of time to get him to eat everything.
One thing I found to be extremely helpful with shy and finicky eaters is to add a small clownfish to their tank (or neighboring compartment as long as they can see each other). The clowns usually being out in the open and eating well makes the shyer fish feel more safe and comfortable. And by observing the clown eat they learn that all that stuff you throw into the tank is actually food.

 

[OrionN]

I would love to see some pictures of them.

 

[alton]

Sounds like good news on the new regal angels. Minh has always preached to me above having a cheap very docile fish in with new fish to help them start eating. Good luck on your two new fish. And like Minh said "Where are the Pictures"

 

[pfan151]

I grabbed a 3” indo from NYaquatic last week. Came in looking good. It’s been picking at LRS and clams but pretty shy so far. Mostly grabs food that floats by his little ledge. He’s in with a copperband butterfly in a 90g reef that I mainly use as a quarantine tank.

 

[ThRoewer]

Sounds like good news on the new regal angels. Minh has always preached to me above having a cheap very docile fish in with new fish to help them start eating. Good luck on your two new fish. And like Minh said "Where are the Pictures"

Had to clean the front of the tank first and then have them to get used to it before even thinking about pictures... gonna see what I can do the next days.
But I might have to incarcerate the larger one for some time. While I haven't seen him showing any aggression towards the tiny one, just his presence seems to be enough to force the little one into hiding which is kind of counterproductive to the goal of getting it to eat frozen food.
The larger of the two is already going after frozen mysis, so having him confined to a breeder box may actually help an giving the tiny a break.

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