Help me, my Colin's Angelfish won't eat!

[Kaiser]

I previously posted asking about advice for a Colin's angel I had ordered and now I'm back with a similar question. I got the Colin's angel about two weeks ago and have been quarantining it from the moment I got it. When I first got it, I dipped it in methylene blue and drip acclimated it. The QT did have copper in it at the time, but since then I have been slowly lowering it via water changes, carbon, and polyfilters. He hasn't been the most aggressive eater, and by that I mean that I haven't seen him actively eat at all. I did see him pick at the leftovers for a split second during the first week but I haven't seen much since. I've tried live brine, live blackworms, garlic, and seaweed. He did seem to be scared of my Desjaardini tang but that tang has been in an acclimation box since Wednesday to avoid this. Does anyone have any advice? Could he still be bothered by the leftover copper in the water? (I haven't completely removed the copper yet). Could it be the water parameters in general? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I really want this fish to survive

 

[suta4242]

Hi Kaiser, I suspect you might be facing a few issues.

On the good news front your angel doesn’t seem emaciated so, subject to size, has enough reserves to withstand not eating for a while.

I read your other post and notice your quarantine also contains a blue tang? Just that this means you can almost be certain that the fish are carrying marine WS and possibly more, complicating quarantine. The copper at a therapeutic dose will definitely affect appetite, as will poor water quality during treatment or a high parasite burden. A new colini will also react poorly to being bullied, though this improves significantly over time.

All these things increase its reluctance to feed properly. I know others disagree but I quarantine all fish, especially ones like this. The difference is I use a quiet teacher fish that can’t possibly worry the angel or outcompete it eg wetmorellas. I have had it take a few months for a large male to learn to eat prepared foods, and as little as a few hours for a tiny juvenile to enthusiastically eat mysis from the bottom. The latter was because the collector had the fish for a few weeks, the former had been collected and shipped direct in a couple of days (and was set in its ways).

To improve your odds you need to keep water quality high and ideally section off some of the quarantine for the angel. The copper is a catch 22, can you do a proper tank transfer method?

 

[Kaiser]

Hi Kaiser, I suspect you might be facing a few issues.

On the good news front your angel doesn’t seem emaciated so, subject to size, has enough reserves to withstand not eating for a while.

I read your other post and notice your quarantine also contains a blue tang? Just that this means you can almost be certain that the fish are carrying marine WS and possibly more, complicating quarantine. The copper at a therapeutic dose will definitely affect appetite, as will poor water quality during treatment or a high parasite burden. A new colini will also react poorly to being bullied, though this improves significantly over time.

All these things increase its reluctance to feed properly. I know others disagree but I quarantine all fish, especially ones like this. The difference is I use a quiet teacher fish that can’t possibly worry the angel or outcompete it eg wetmorellas. I have had it take a few months for a large male to learn to eat prepared foods, and as little as a few hours for a tiny juvenile to enthusiastically eat mysis from the bottom. The latter was because the collector had the fish for a few weeks, the former had been collected and shipped direct in a couple of days (and was set in its ways).

To improve your odds you need to keep water quality high and ideally section off some of the quarantine for the angel. The copper is a catch 22, can you do a proper tank transfer method?

The blue tang actually passed away a week or so ago, it never ended up eating unfortunately. Right now I have the desjaardini (in the acclimation box), the colini, and a couple of saltwater mollies that I acclimated myself in there. I've never personally tried tank transfer, so I must admit I would be a bit nervous about doing it, if I were to go down this route, how would you recommend I do it?

 

[Kaiser]

The blue tang actually passed away a week or so ago, it never ended up eating unfortunately. Right now I have the desjaardini (in the acclimation box), the colini, and a couple of saltwater mollies that I acclimated myself in there. I've never personally tried tank transfer, so I must admit I would be a bit nervous about doing it, if I were to go down this route, how would you recommend I do it?

just to note, I'm also gonna just remove the copper entirely right now since i would rather have the fish eating first. I don't think the desjaardini is handling the copper well either, I'm noticing lateral line start to show up which I definitely don't want.

 

[Angel_Anthias lover]

Nothing i can add as ive never kept this fish, but good luck hes a beauty, and maybe add a few rocks for him to graze on, idk if there is any in the tank cause its a quarnatine but it may help, and ive found easy reef masstick to be a favourite amongst many of my angels if thats any help

 

[DarthSimon]

You can try something called Masstick:

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/masstick-fish-food-easy-reefs.html

I have gotten finicky Regal Angels eating this in the past...

 

[suta4242]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tank-transfer-method.192655/

Only thing I can emphasise is to keep the water clean (low bacterial load) and good parameters.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

[Mark Novack]

A good rock with encusting sponge can really stimulate the feeding response but it's a very expensive way to feed unless your supplier will let you change cleaned rocks for encrusted ones or if you can grow lots of the sponge. The rock I purchased was in a suppliers sump for several years to encrust like it did. It was polished cleaOne 3 to 4 inch Angel will clean a well sponge encrusted fist size piece of rock in a feeding session.

 

[suta4242]

Curious, was it your colins angel that did that or another species? The closest I have seen in the tank to their wild feeding behaviour is different to most other dwarfs I have kept...

I have seen a large male relentlessly pick at the tips of a feather star (it had to be removed). He swam over to it the moment it was placed in the tank and obviously recognised a potential food source. He was also aware of the potential in a small tuxedo urchin, which a declivis butterfly then cracked open. The innards went flying across the tank with angel promptly chasing/ feeding it.

I realise individuals vary but when offered encrusted LR riddled with small sponges and tunicates the colins were a lot more interested in small pods there, than the actual sponges etc... Any clean up or minor rock movement was immediately investigated for scraps in the detritus left behind.

OTOH a juvenile goldflake did exactly what you said and I could offer small encrusted sponges and watch her go nuts. Another reefer said his multibars did the same. Guess this variation in character also makes angels so interesting.

 

[Mark Novack]

Curious, was it your colins angel that did that or another species? The closest I have seen in the tank to their wild feeding behaviour is different to most other dwarfs I have kept...

I have seen a large male relentlessly pick at the tips of a feather star (it had to be removed). He swam over to it the moment it was placed in the tank and obviously recognised a potential food source. He was also aware of the potential in a small tuxedo urchin, which a declivis butterfly then cracked open. The innards went flying across the tank with angel promptly chasing/ feeding it.

I realise individuals vary but when offered encrusted LR riddled with small sponges and tunicates the colins were a lot more interested in small pods there, than the actual sponges etc... Any clean up or minor rock movement was immediately investigated for scraps in the detritus left behind.

OTOH a juvenile goldflake did exactly what you said and I could offer small encrusted sponges and watch her go nuts. Another reefer said his multibars did the same. Guess this variation in character also makes angels so interesting.

Yes, I see that my sentence got chopped. It was a small Navarchus. None of my Pomacanthidae eat those small white tunicates either. They pull them off and spit them out. I scoop the tunicates up where they gather and toss them into the overflow. They don't touch the ball sponge either. The rock I purchased was covered in a 4mm average layer of a yellow encrusting sponge variety. I won't even guess at naming a species. Perhaps it was Angelus Foodus?
On another note, my Ciliaris took several days to eat. Now it pigs out while the other large angels sneak around picking up pellets when she is not watching. Her aggression surprised me. She only dominates majestic angels, never the dwarfs.

Just thought about this. Easy Reefs dki marine mellow pellets. Every fish I have goes nuts for those. My Aculeatus won't let me sink them and bites them from my fingers. Even the Labroides Dimitiatus eats them like they are the prime rib of live artemia. The Easy Reefs paste foods also cause a feeding frenzy but are messy and need to be used within a few days of mixing. The fishes' reaction to the Easy Reefs food is more frenzied than with live artemia.

Good luck with the little guy. In all the fish I have had, I can remember only one that insisted on starving to death, a Zebra moray that I believe suffered internal damage, perhaps dropped or fell from the tank at the store. I have lost others because of nutritional problems, but they ate what was available. It's always the heavy sponge eaters. I guess that there is nothing better than a live sponge.

Mark

PS: I have written the word sponge so many times today that it no longer sounds like a real word.

 

[Mark Novack]

These are the pellets that make the water boil with feeding activity.

 

[suta4242]

Kaiser, how is your angel faring?

 

[Jesterrace]

Did you do the seaweed on a clip or rubberbanded to a rock or other surface towards the bottom of the tank? Sometimes they can be freaked out by the clip and prefer to eat it off of rock or a fixed object closer to the bottom of the tank as it is more like their natural grazing habits. I always recommend greens to start out with Centropyge Angels since it's a bigger part of their natural diet than meaty foods are.