Feeding Suggestions

[splix]

This is more of a personal experience of things I've learned while keeping sensitive diet fish, and how large of an impact types of food can have on overall health. This is not me saying my way is the best. It's just suggestions on what I've had success with in the past which can possibly help others.

 

What I primarily feed is LRS reef frenzy or fish frenzy, red/green/purple nori, NLS pellets, PE mysis, Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef Flakes (purple can). My tank is primarily stocked with angels, a few wrasses, and a couple others like a dwarf lion and green mandarin.

 

Picky eaters: I've tried it all, trust me. What I've found best with picky eaters is a combination of 2 things. LRS fish eggs as well as a method of feeding LRS reef frenzy. I currently have a regal eating anything I feed, green mandarin eating anything it can find (not trained, he just started on his own), dwarf lion eating frozen. LRS Fish eggs will get any fish at least sniffing around. Even if he doesnt eat the eggs himself, it'll perk it's appetite way more than I've seen with garlic. One thing with eggs, it will blow your skimmer up. I just turn off my skimmer for an hour when I feed eggs. Right after I feed eggs (with them still in the water), I feed LRS frenzy for actual food. I thaw out the frenzy in tank water in a small dish and break it up and pour it in so it floods the tank so shy fish are able to eat without having to fight. The combination of the eggs with actual food will eventually get basically any fish to start eating.

The other method I use for hard-to-train fish is the little black net on a nori clip you can find at stores. It's a little 3" plastic mesh that goes in the clip. I zip tie the sides together so the food wont fall out. I just put a decent chunk of LRS in it and put it on the glass. All of the fish will eventually learn that this clip is LRS and will eventually go for it. I've also put 2 different clips in 2 different sides of the tank to separate aggression for more shy to eat fish like my regal was at first. This allows the regal to come up and pick at something for food while all the other nutso fish are attacking a different source. One thing to understand about fish that are shy to eat is they naturally pick at stuff for food in the wild. If you can give them something to pick at that provides food, that will get them eating. Fish that naturally use the water column are a little different like anthiases, and are usually not difficult to get eating. Eventually over time, the shy fish will learn to pull from the water column, then they'll start learning to try new foods like pellet, etc.

A note about LRS fish eggs. I only use them when trying to get new fish to start eating. After that, they arent really used. They are great to have on hand at all times. You never know when you're going to see that regal or other hard to get eating fish. They're also seasonal so it's not like you can just go pick some up when you want.

 

Training to eat: This blends into picky eaters because its about training your fish to understand what you are doing in front of the tank and what to expect, which will help cut down on shyness. When a fish is being shy, it wont feel comfortable enough to eat. This will help fish like a dwarf lion to start eating frozen. The best thing about this is a schedule and exposure of what you are doing in front of the tank. Your fish are watching you just as much as you watching them, and what you do dictates how they react. I can stand in front of the tank and the fish do nothing. I show them the little bowl I thaw LRS in and they start going crazy, coming out of caves and up to the glass because they know what the bowl means. If I have a net in my hand, they hide . They're smart enough to know what to expect.

Schedule: On this, your fish will know what to expect over time even before you realize it yourself. A little after my lights come on, I feed LRS and nori in clips. My fish know it and when I walk up to the tank in the morning, they already know what I'm up to and what to expect. When my auto feeder goes off at 3pm with NLS pellets, they hear it's sound and all immediately go to the top of the water where the feeder is and understand "food will drop in the water". Evening feeding is a little different because thats usually the time I do my maintenance so they dont know what to expect until I show them. All of this will get your fish to understand "I can eat what comes into the water" and will get your fish to start eating more of a variety of foods which is beneficial to their overall health, as well as shy fish understand you're about to bring food and thats it. When trying to introduce a new food, I'll give the usual feeding routine to them so they understand "food time" and I'll introduce the new food to them. Sometimes they're like "wtf...." but most times they give it a try. Over time they'll understand that new food is eatable and eat it like anything else.

 

Variety: The key to health is variety. You dont have to have like 50 different types of food on hand type of variety. You just have to feed more than 1 type like flake every day. My tank is primarily angels, and they are they require a huge variety in diet. LRS food have a good variety in them already, thats why they are my primary food. At the same time, I cant feed LRS while I'm on vacation so thats where the above comes into play, training them to eat other foods. If you just dump pellets into your tank and your fish arent eating them, your hurting your fish and your tank with food sitting there creating no3 and po4. Thats why a lot of times people come back from vacation and they have algae outbreaks. They're overfeeding with a food the fish dont understand. I feed heavy and often, because....why not. I'm FOWLR and my no3 po4 are in check. This may not apply to everyone. I know exactly how much my fish can eat so I dont over feed though, which is key. The "rule" is never feed more than your fish can consume in 2 minutes. If your auto feeder goes off and you're seeing pellets rolling around in the sand an hour later, cut it back. Same thing with frozen. If the power heads are just pushing food around and no one is going for it, cut it back a bit. On the other side, if your fish are still going nutso after the feeding and they ate it all in 30 seconds, it's ok to feed a little more.

My feeding schedule is:

Morning: 1 sheet 4x4" of nori (different color every day) and a chunk of LRS in the clip net

afternoon: auto feeder gives a small bit of NLS pellets. Just enough to keep them trained on the sound of the auto feeder for when I'm away.

Evening: 1/2 sheet of nori and either PE mysis or LRS frenzy. Some times I also feed light on the frozen and also feed reef flakes to keep them trained on those as well.

I've gotten to the point that all fish eat anything I introduce. Even the lionfish will strike at flakes and sometimes pick at pellets because he understands they are food.

 

Sick Fish: This is not an argument with me saying my way is the best, it's just my personal experience which will hopefully help others.

There are a bunch of foods out there saying they'll cure whatever, and thats fine to try. It's your tank. Just like the "reef safe ich cure" I personally dont trust them. I also want to mention garlic. Garlic is not medicinal in any way, it's is purely a way to help get sick fish to eat more to help them try to stay healthy and overcome, that is it. Garlic actually stresses the liver as well, so if you're fish has ich and you're feeding garlic soaked whatever 5x a day....it's actually hurting and not helping. I use garlic sometimes when trying to get shy new fish to eat, thats it.

What I do when my blue tang loves to fire up the ich generator. I'm a believer in Selcon. I'll turn off the auto feeder and I'll replace that feeding with frozen since it's more beneficial. Morning feeding stays normal. After my morning feed, I'll take my thaw bowl, chunk of LRS and put a good amount of selcon on it (enough to cover the top of the chunk), and put it in the fridge for a slow thaw. No water to help thaw it. I want the LRS to soak up the selcon, not water. I'll repeat the same thing for my evening feeding as well. On top of this, I up my nori feeding as well, basically to the point that there is always nori in the tank. Nori is the best food a tang can have (imo) so when they're struggling, having a sheet for them to snack on I believe is beneficial. Nori also wont introduce a bunch of nitrates (if any honestly) so there is no harm in it. Selcon on the other hand will bump up your nitrates when feeding it heavily so keep that in mind. Nitrates are easy to deal with so it's worth the extra effort to me to do extra nitrate maintenance while trying to get a sick fish back to health.

 

Things may work differently with your stock and your tank. This is just my tank and what I've learned over time. If you have 2 clowns and a goby in a nano, a lot of this probably wont matter much to you. I've always had larger, hard to get eating fish.

[Luke33]

Good write up. When I have a fish that won't eat after all of the above my last resort is live black worms. I then ween them off that to frozen blood worms and eventually get them to eat lrs and do try the eggs too but I hate the skimmer reaction to the eggs!

[Transplant]

Thanks for the write up. I've been experimenting with getting new fish to eat over the last few months this will help a lot. Would love to hear what others do.

[ReefNewby82]

Wow thanks Chad....nice write up! Will have to keep black worms in mind.

[AdamC00]

How often and how much do you guys feed? I feel that I put a lot of food in my tank, but I do not feel that my fish eat enough. When I get home from work, they are all swarming at the top corner waiting for food.

[Luke33]

I feed every other day. I want my fish to work on the tank for half the time. When I do feed I feed blood worms, mysis, LRS frenzy and LRS herbivore. I also throw squid, brine, and various veggie frozens in there as well as black worms on occasion.

 

My fish are extremely plump doing this.

[splix]

How often and how much do you guys feed? I feel that I put a lot of food in my tank, but I do not feel that my fish eat enough. When I get home from work, they are all swarming at the top corner waiting for food.

 

No matter how much you feed, fish will always act hungry.

[AdamC00]

I feed all frozen 1 time a day in the evening. I also feed 1 sheet of nori 2-3 times a week. I have an auto feeder to feed pellet food in the afternoon but turned that off because I thought it was over kill. I feed LRS Herbivore, LRS Reef, frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis, rods original and rods reef. Anything else I should consider adding?