Trying to get Regal to eat prepared food

S

splix

New member
I got a red sea regal from LFS a week ago thursday. He's out swimming around but you can tell he's still timid. He's doing the normal grazing on the rocks and such but I know thats not enough for him. I need to get him to eat prepared food. The hard part is that he's timid enough that he hides whenever the food frenzy happens when I feed the tank.
I've tried:
pellets - dont last long enough for him to notice them

LRS - he wont do it

live brine - I dont think he is. He hides when the frenzy starts but I see him picking at stuff in his cave. Hard to tell if he's actually eating it or not.

Live bloodworms - Same as the brine. I watched him pull one out of the water column and then spit it back out. I have seen him eat one before though.

I picked up some red nori yesterday and figured out that none of my other fish like it which is a plus. It'll actually last long enough for him to eat. I've not seen him eat it yet. My emperor picks at it.
Green nori everyone eats and they can take down a whole sheet in a matter of seconds.

little neck clams on 1/2 shell. He WILL eat. The only pain with it is so does everyone else. I've got to baby sit him while he acts embarrassed to eat while I sho off the rest of the fish.

Oh and he finished off any zoas the emperor didnt fancy. Thats fine, I didnt have anything high dollar, and in my mind regal > zoas. I'm running a fish tank with coral, not the reverse.

Any tips? Maybe a food that I've not tried yet? I just dont want him to not get enough to eat and I'll be devastated if he dies. He's nibbling and has at least eaten some stuff this past week, so it's not like he's starved the entire week.
 
He's not in QT?
That's where he should be while you fatten him up to prepared foods. Not necessarily a baron QT, but a holding tank by himself with live rock so he can adjust to eating comfortly and so there is no competition.
 
On the redsea I have had one take up to 4 weeks to eat, the one in my avatar took 3 weeks and I got him in 2012 and he is still happy and fat
 
I should of added I put all my fish in QT so they don't have to compete for food plus prevention
 
He's a little big for my QT I think. I didnt want to stress him out by being in a small space when I knew they were already difficult to get to eat. I thought maybe he'll have a better chance going into DT.

I could be wrong, this is my first regal.
 
QT really helps fish to settle down and become used to human. I keep all my QT in a desperate room and tell my kids not to play in there. It took my blue tang and coral beauty a week to associate me with food. Took my flame angel almost three weeks to come out of hiding. If I had kept them in DT from day 1 they might not have made it considering my pig like wrasses.


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splix said:
He's a little big for my QT I think. I didnt want to stress him out by being in a small space when I knew they were already difficult to get to eat. I thought maybe he'll have a better chance going into DT.

I could be wrong, this is my first regal.
Click to expand...

If you can get him out and get a 40g QT then I would. Place existing tank water, and LR in with him.
 
A few questions:

1. What size is the fish?

2. Was he eating at the LFS? If yes, what?

3. What are his tank mates and how large are they?

4. How large is the tank and how is it decorated?

Pictures or videos would also help to get a better picture of the overall situation.


I have right now 5 regal angels and all were eating from day one, though usually at first only brine shrimp (poor nutritional value) or clams on the shell. Getting them on Mysis wasn't overly hard but took a bit time.

What I found is that the regal angels have ideally to be the largest fish in the tank, at least during acclimatization. Calm and rather slow eating fish are fine. Best is when there is not too much competition for food or if the regal can intimidate the competition enough to have first pick. But I found that other, smaller fish in the tank actually help to entice the regal to eat or picking up a new food item.

Juveniles between 2.5 and 4 inch seem to make the least problems with taking frozen food or even pellets. They likely still get the bulk of their food from plankton, small shrimp and whatever else they find. Larger individuals may have already specialized on sessile inverts like sponges and tunicates, though in the wild regals are generalists that take what they can get.

As for QT size: I had a 2.75" regal in a 10 gallon QT with 2 dottybacks and a tiny yellow watchman goby and the regal did fine in there for almost 2 months. There he actually was the terror of the tank and kept chasing the dottybacks to a point where they would hide from him.
 
They have poor track record if you add them direct to DT. They are timid enough such taht I would put them in isolation. I don't QT my fish but I do have fish in my 40 gal frag tank to get them to get use to captivity first before add them into the DT.
 
He's in a long 180. Rock work takes up about 1/3 of the rear bottom of the tank with plenty of caves he swims in and out of. So he's got the security along with a lot of open water.
He is by far the largest fish in the tank, easily 5+ inches. The other tank mates that are aggressive eaters are the two blue jaw triggers (M&F). He seems to have made friends with the juv. emperor angel since he isnt afraid to eat around him.
He was not eating at the LFS because they special ordered him for me so he never left the bag. I asked the LFS what the supplier feeds and they said live brine and mysis.

Do I need to go get a larger holding tank for him until he's eating everything? Would pulling him and putting him in a smaller tank stress him out? He is eating clams in the DT...
I'm afraid even if I do get him to eat prepared food, once he's back into the DT with the eating competition he's going to go back to square one and just be afraid to eat.
I know he'll eat, I watch him when I feed the tank. He sees the stuff and is interested, but it's the whole eating competition thing that has him reserved.
 
Unfortunately the track record getting 5" regals eating is not very good


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Setting aside disease prevention, one of the really unappreciated benefits of QT is to provide a stressed fish the opportunity to eat in a non competitive environment. That is particularly true of problem feeders where adding them directly to the display may mean they never eat.
 
I don't see mysis on your list of food tried


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Man, our fish is really have it good. Fresh oyster on the 1/2 shell, fresh clams, live worms, ...... .... .. .
 
He does pick at "little neck clams" on the 1/2 shell.

I ended up pulling the two triggers and put them in QT which lets me keep the 1/2 shell clams in the tank full time without them disappearing in a few seconds, which also greatly eliminates the food competition in the DT.

I also just picked up some LRS fish eggs which they just released. It was expensive but the LFS told me everyone raves about how it works on hard to eat fish.
 
Alright, so I just tried LRS eggs mixed with frozen mysis. It definitely peaked his interest and he just about joined the crowd during the feeding. I think I've figured him out though. He doesnt like to pull from the water column, but if it's on the rocks or sand, it's food to him. After the frenzy was over, I did see him pick at some stuff in the water column which was hugely promising.
We'll try it again in the morning. Hopefully sooner than later he figures out that he can eat the food from the water and live. :)

Big props to the LRS eggs. Other than the clams on the 1/2 shell, it might keep him alive.
 
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