False Percs not consuming food

[dinki]

Originally Posted by earlybird
Sorry for your loss. I recommend in the future to buy from a reputable store that will let you see the fish eat and hold it for at least a week so you can see it's behavior before you purchase.
That makes a lot of sense. The lady did feed the fish but there were a good many clowns in the tank so I can't say with certainty that I saw the one I bought eating. I'm hoping I won't have to go back to that store again. I know of at least one other LFS that sells SW, but I went to this one because it has been around for twenty years.
@PerfectDark, Do you have any opinions on the Spectrum pellets? Is Formula 1 a flake food? How do you get fresh garlic juice? Just squeeze the cloves?

 

[perfectdark]

Originally Posted by dinki
That makes a lot of sense. The lady did feed the fish but there were a good many clowns in the tank so I can't say with certainty that I saw the one I bought eating. I'm hoping I won't have to go back to that store again. I know of at least one other LFS that sells SW, but I went to this one because it has been around for twenty years.
@PerfectDark, Do you have any opinions on the Spectrum pellets? Is Formula 1 a flake food? How do you get fresh garlic juice? Just squeeze the cloves?

I feed my fish every other day to every 2 days depending on my coral feeding schedule. I feed a variety of food and am ordering a batch of Rod Buehler's food in the next couple of days. While I believe there are some decent foods on the market the more home made foods from what I have read are more nutritous for our fish. And he has from what I understand to be an incredible blend.
But as far as pellet foods go I have tried one in the past, ORA glow. It was ok, it took my fish some time to accept it. I also tried formula 1 flake but I dont like it at all. The gel binding foods seemed to me to be most accepted however in large quantities can add quite a bit to your bioload. So I nixed all that, now I feed every other day just as much food as they can consume in 2 minutes with my power heads off for about 1 minute. Alternating feedings with marine cuisine which has a blend of formula 2 a more algea based frozen with vegtables in it, mysis, and sqiud. On coral feeding days I will act as a fish feeding day too but dont feed any "fish food" just coral food. So cyclops, zoo plank, and phyto get dosed to all my corals and of course the fish gobble up their share of cyclops.

 

[uberlink]

My advice would honestly be to forget flake food. I keep it around only for occasional feeding or for use in an auto feeder when you're out of town. I pretty much feed only frozen food (although I feed veggie flakes to my vegetarians).
You can save a lot of money--and improve quality--by making your own frozen food. I use about a pound of scallops, a couple pounds of fresh shelled shrimp, some zoecon liquid vitamins, a couple cloves of pressed garlic, and some dried seaweed. Put it all in the blender with a cup or so of tank water and grind it all until it is pretty much smooth. Put the mix into a few large ziploc bags and press them out so that they are like a flat sheet. Into the freezer. A day later when they are frozen solid, cut them into dice sized cubes. Feed one cube every other day or so (more cubes if you have lots of livestock). Since I've started doing this, I've lost almost no fish. And everything in the tank loves it.
Cost? Maybe 10 or 20 every 3 or four months. Not bad.

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by dinki
Mike, how small were the baby clowns you had? The fish that died was about an inch long.
The surviving clown did something today that concerned me. I feed him some pellets and he hit on it and then spit it out, sucked it in then spit it out again. He then moved on to the other remaining pellets doing the same thing. I feed him some frozen brine shrimp last night and he ate it right up. Is he just being picky in regards to the pellets? I've feed him these pellets before and he swallowed them whole. Should I add flake to his diet as well?
I'm a bit gunshy now that I've had one casualty and I want to make sure that the surviving fish eats well.
My first pair I got over 2 years ago were the size of a dime, my second pair from January was smaller then the size of a dime. You should feed it mysis shrimp over brine since brine have no nutritional value....When fish is first introduced, I really suggest feedings on a daily basis to get it to start eating for you, I feed all mine on a daily basis anyway unless I'm not home before lights out. My babies are growing nicely, first pair is getting pretty big now, the second pair, the smaller male is just starting to grow his tail stripe. My second pair is a mix of Picasso and Onyx, would be interesting to see what they look like once they're fully grown. Both have pretty much turned black now with the smaller male with weird pattern on it's body.