Fish Aren't Eating

[Celbrise]

i find mine frozen blood worms they take it just fine. i've fed raw shrimp as well idk if the clowns will eat that. mysis i've tried they will take that as well. all frozen of course i tried the freeze dried ones they didn't like that in the past nor the flakes or pellet foods.

 

[JAMSOURY]

i find mine frozen blood worms they take it just fine. i've fed raw shrimp as well idk if the clowns will eat that. mysis i've tried they will take that as well. all frozen of course i tried the freeze dried ones they didn't like that in the past nor the flakes or pellet foods.

Possibly it's just the food I'm giving them. Never knew they could be so picky lol

 

[Celbrise]

yea mine are picky as well i've had 4 clowns now over the years all the same breed and none of them would eat much outside of the frozen foods. idk if black worms are okay to feed in SW aquariums i mostly see them being used in FW set ups. even my puffer is picky. i've tried using various foods for it but it only takes a select few like shrimp and frozen stuff. there might be 1 it will likely eat but it's a mollusk and extremely expensive in my state

 

[JAMSOURY]

yea mine are picky as well i've had 4 clowns now over the years all the same breed and none of them would eat much outside of the frozen foods. idk if black worms are okay to feed in SW aquariums i mostly see them being used in FW set ups. even my puffer is picky. i've tried using various foods for it but it only takes a select few like shrimp and frozen stuff. there might be 1 it will likely eat but it's a mollusk and extremely expensive in my state

Funny that you mention this because I'm at petco right now looking at bloodworms and I was iffy since it says for freshwater. I'm just gonna try the frozen mysis and see how that goes.

 

[JAMSOURY]

Ok so I tried the frozen mysis shrimp. They would pick at it but a lot of the time they would spit it out. Maybe they're retaining some of it. I laced it with metroplex, waiting on my focus to come in tomorrow.

Thanks for the help everyone! Hope I can figure this out

 

[Celbrise]

maybe move them to your display tank already? might be happier and start to eat more openly? could be stressed out thus why they are not eating. kind of hard to enjoy any meal even if hungry when you are under a lot of stress.

 

[JAMSOURY]

maybe move them to your display tank already? might be happier and start to eat more openly? could be stressed out thus why they are not eating. kind of hard to enjoy any meal even if hungry when you are under a lot of stress.

I'm pretty tempted to. Next time I'll have a bigger quarantine for sure. Just as long as there's no visible signs of ich or velvet, think it'd be okay? Treated them with copper for a couple weeks already

 

[Celbrise]

idk much about quarantines so i couldn't tell you but over a month? seems like a really long time to qaurantine new fish isn't the usual like 30 days?

 

[Crashjack]

Mysis are kind of big. It took a while for mine to eat frozen mysis and not spit out. Frozen brine they could eat no problem.

 

[CanadianReefer]

I'm pretty tempted to. Next time I'll have a bigger quarantine for sure. Just as long as there's no visible signs of ich or velvet, think it'd be okay? Treated them with copper for a couple weeks already

If you didn't notice any signs to begin with, I'm surprized you used copper. Nonetheless, 2 weeks in copper, if at the right level, should ensure no velvet. Ich can take up to 30 days, but clowns are fairly ich resistant to begin with. You're likely fine. Why don't you try feeding spirulina brine shrimp. Hikari is the best brand/product.

 

[JAMSOURY]

If you didn't notice any signs to begin with, I'm surprized you used copper. Nonetheless, 2 weeks in copper, if at the right level, should ensure no velvet. Ich can take up to 30 days, but clowns are fairly ich resistant to begin with. You're likely fine. Why don't you try feeding spirulina brine shrimp. Hikari is the best brand/product.

I read on the forum that people like to pretreat with copper in quarantine. So I gave it a try. Can you just get the hikari brine shrimp at Petco or something?

 

[rockstarta78]

You said last time you measured, your copper was at 2ppm. Did you dose all that at once or over a period of time. Also, when you dose prazi, usually fishes lose appetite. Prazi is for external parasite. If you are trying to treat your fishes prophylacticaly the copper treatment should last 6 weeks. But you should take 3-5 days to get to 2ppm copper. Even though it's safe to mix copper with prazi, I like to do the treatment separately. I go something like prazi - copper - prazi. Also, Prazi stays in your water column for about 5 days. What type of copper are you using? Cupramine is good, but I prefer chelated copper like Coppersafe. It's easier to remove from the water column by doing a 20% - 30% water change. How big is your QT?

EDIT: I said copper treatment should last 6 months. That's typo. It should be 6 weeks.

 

[JAMSOURY]

You said last time you measured, your copper was at 2ppm. Did you dose all that at once or over a period of time. Also, when you dose prazi, usually fishes lose appetite. Prazi is for external parasite. If you are trying to treat your fishes prophylacticaly the copper treatment should last 6 weeks. But you should take 3-5 days to get to 2ppm copper. Even though it's safe to mix copper with prazi, I like to do the treatment separately. I go something like prazi - copper - prazi. Also, Prazi stays in your water column for about 5 days. What type of copper are you using? Cupramine is good, but I prefer chelated copper like Coppersafe. It's easier to remove from the water column by doing a 20% - 30% water change. How big is your QT?

EDIT: I said copper treatment should last 6 months. That's typo. It should be 6 weeks.

Awesome thanks for all this info! Next time I'll start with prazi first as well! I'm using coppersafe in my 10 gallon qt. I dosed slowly. I'm thinking the stress and meds suppressed their appetite. Hopefully they start eating. They look healthy so I guess it's not all that bad

 

[mcarroll]

I would want them eating with gusto, pretty much when they came out of the bag at home.

I certainly wouldn't sell clownfish at retail that were behaving like you're describing.

If you agree that the med's are an impediment to them eating, then however soon you are able to be done with the med treatments you should be done with them and get the clowns into normal, clean seawater. Even if it's still in the QT for more observation.

I don't know enough about what you're doing to say "rush it" but certainly do not add more time onto whatever treatments you're doing. Know what I mean?

Clowns are nasty little carnivores with teeth....they ought to be acting like it by now. Yours are acting weird. You ought to flinch when you put your hand in the tank cuz you think they're gonna bite you again. That should be your goal for them! They should not be timid from a mysis shrimp...that's not a positive sign.

 

[JAMSOURY]

I would want them eating with gusto, pretty much when they came out of the bag at home.

I certainly wouldn't sell clownfish at retail that were behaving like you're describing.

If you agree that the med's are an impediment to them eating, then however soon you are able to be done with the med treatments you should be done with them and get the clowns into normal, clean seawater. Even if it's still in the QT for more observation.

I don't know enough about what you're doing to say "rush it" but certainly do not add more time onto whatever treatments you're doing. Know what I mean?

Clowns are nasty little carnivores with teeth....they ought to be acting like it by now. Yours are acting weird. You ought to flinch when you put your hand in the tank cuz you think they're gonna bite you again. That should be your goal for them! They should not be timid from a mysis shrimp...that's not a positive sign.

Oh interesting!! Yeah it's definitely weird to me too. Hopefully today would be better. Yesterday they ate more than usual. I pulled them off the meds

 

[mcarroll]

Clowns are nasty little carnivores with teeth

(not my photo of a nasty little carnivore)

(see this post for more photos)

 

[JAMSOURY]

(not my photo of a nasty little carnivore)

(see this post for more photos)

That thing looks crazy!

 

[rockstarta78]

One thing I do, and this is purely personal preference, so follow only if you feel comfortable, when I acquire a new fish my first goal is to get the fish eating and not treating. The fish is already stressed out, it's been through God knows what. That's the reason my QT is painted black on 3 sides. Once I am done acclimating the fish I let the fish settle in within his new environment. After couple of hours I will try to feed either a very small amount of mysis, or even pellets. Once I see the fish has been eating properly for 2-3 days, then I will start my treatment regiment. Now this applies fish that already seem healthy. If I see a fish that looks sick, all bets are off. We go into emergency survival mode. This has worked for me so far. But as I said, please follow only if you feel comfortable and it's case by case basis.

And in your case, I think you will be fine as soon as you do your WC after the copper treatment is over. My clowns used to sulk inside the PVC fitting the entire 6 weeks I did the copper treatment. But they would come out to eat just a little. Copper is toxic, and fishes don't necessarily enjoy that toxic environment. Best of luck to you.

 

[JAMSOURY]

One thing I do, and this is purely personal preference, so follow only if you feel comfortable, when I acquire a new fish my first goal is to get the fish eating and not treating. The fish is already stressed out, it's been through God knows what. That's the reason my QT is painted black on 3 sides. Once I am done acclimating the fish I let the fish settle in within his new environment. After couple of hours I will try to feed either a very small amount of mysis, or even pellets. Once I see the fish has been eating properly for 2-3 days, then I will start my treatment regiment. Now this applies fish that already seem healthy. If I see a fish that looks sick, all bets are off. We go into emergency survival mode. This has worked for me so far. But as I said, please follow only if you feel comfortable and it's case by case basis.

And in your case, I think you will be fine as soon as you do your WC after the copper treatment is over. My clowns used to sulk inside the PVC fitting the entire 6 weeks I did the copper treatment. But they would come out to eat just a little. Copper is toxic, and fishes don't necessarily enjoy that toxic environment. Best of luck to you.

Cool, same here, they would hide and eat very little, which made me think they were sick but I guess, it's from the meds. I pulled them off the meds, so I'm going to see what happens next

 

[mcarroll]

That thing looks crazy!

It IS crazy! LOL

Wait until you're in the "picture" I painted earlier with a hungry, defensive clown in the tank. Every time your hands go in, one hand has to be in feint/block mode while the other is in business mode because they will draw blood if you let them hit your skin.

Every fish has a unique personality, so they aren't guaranteed to turn out like this. What else is in the tank makes a big difference, as do other things. But those teeth are not for smiling at the camera....make no mistake.