Tank raised kuda eating frozen, but picky?

[Stevenliu9]

I got a pair of female captive raised kuda over the weekend. They were eating live brime, frozen mysis, and limpid's reef blend at the store. After I took them home, they were happily eating frozen mysis and brine for the last two days. But today when I fed them, they ate "a few" pieces but have appears to become very picky. They would follow a piece of shrimp and then decide to not pursue. From what I can gather they seem to only want certain "parts" of the shrimp, and if they happen to take a whole one, they'd "chew up" then spit out what they don't like (i.e. kept the head and spit tail, or vise versa). Is that normal behavior or are they just playing with food? They still eat, just not as much as the previous two days. Is there reason for concern? They are about 3" right now.

 

[Mo2]

Hum sounds like you may have old mysis. Or, they have problems eating. Possibly parasites in the gills. What kind of mysis are you using? And how does it look like when you thaw a cube? Does the water turn brown?

 

[Stevenliu9]

The horses are eating better today! But the interesting thing is between the two, the one who was eating well yesterday isn't today, and the one who wasn't eating well yesterday is eating very well today. Is there such a thing as "overfeeding" and they feel like they need to take a day off from eating?
To answer your Q I am using hikari right now as PE mysis is a bit too "fat" for my horses to swallow right now. I guess it's hard to tell if there is yellow since I soak the shrimp in selcon as I thaw it. But I don't detect any yellow tint aside the usual selcon cloudiness.

 

[rayjay]

Just a comment on soaking the shrimp in selcon before you feed them to the seahorses.
IMO, unless you dry out or use freeze dried shrimp, the selcon is NOT going to be absorbed into the shrimp, but rather just coat it. When just coated, almost all of the selcon is going to wash off into the water column so that the seahorses will receive little if any benefit from the soaking. However, the washed off nutrient will fuel nasty bacteria which WILL in time affect the health of the seahorse, but in a negative way.

 

[FinzAquatics]

Have you tried the PE mysis and verified that its too big or assuming that its too large. You would be surprised how big of a shrimp they can eat. I just recently bought an ORA CB Erectus seahorse who was being very picky. Sounds very similar... Tried brine, hikari mysis... Then said screw it and fed PE Mysys for my bigger horses and now my tiny guy is eating the big stuff like a champ. He can't even fit the whole piece in his mouth. Eats a little, spits out a little, then eats the rest.

Id say give the PE another chance..

 

[kdtran]

Will Garlic work - i know for my fish it help. I had seahorse but they were not captive Bred and i got tired of getting live Mysis (and sometimes the Fish store don't carry them)

 

[Stevenliu9]

Thanks for all your suggestions! I actually bought a slab of PE mysis the other day because I see the shrimp size was smaller than what I am used to see. They have been eating well the last two days since I posted this, but I will switch out to PE mysis in my next feed.