Help! O. Clowns Won't Eat

[Chrisfish]

Any flakes or pelets you would recommend trying? Getting desperate. Don't want these little guys to starve.

Welcome to R2R. Sorry about your clowns, my clowns eat frozen LRS and live Black worms, so I cant recommend a brand for either one but something else I know some members do to get their fish to eat is to soak the food in garlic guard so you might want to use the food you have and soak it in that. Most LFS sell it. Best of luck with your clowns and in addition I agree, call the lfs where you purchased them to see how the others are doing and what they are eating. Please keep us posted.

 

[TheREALDaddyJ]

Welcome to R2R. Sorry about your clowns, my clowns eat frozen LRS and live Black worms, so I cant recommend a brand for either one but something else I know some members do to get their fish to eat is to soak the food in garlic guard so you might want to use the food you have and soak it in that. Most LFS sell it. Best of luck with your clowns and in addition I agree, call the lfs where you purchased them to see how the others are doing and what they are eating. Please keep us posted.

I've tried the garlic. Waiting on LFS manager to call me back. Going to see if she can contact the distributor and find out. I got them the day after I arrived and the sold all of them before I returned 2 days later.

 

[Chrisfish]

I've tried the garlic. Waiting on LFS manager to call me back. Going to see if she can contact the distributor and find out. I got them the day after I arrived and the sold all of them before I returned 2 days later.

Ok, thanks for letting us know, obviously this is very important to you.

 

[TheREALDaddyJ]

Ok, thanks for letting us know, obviously this is very important to you.

I take being responsible for any living creatures life very seriously. I don't want them to die because I did something wrong.

 

[Chrisfish]

I take being responsible for any living creatures life very seriously. I don't want them to die because I did something wrong.

I'm right there with you And what I said I meant in the best possible way.

 

[TheREALDaddyJ]

Thank God! They both ate tonight! You guys are good luck! I mixed up the reef frenzy, eggs, and mysis and soaked it in garlic and saw both of them eat at least 3 or 4 pieces myself! Phew. I was worried! Maybe it just took them longer than all the others to get comfortable enough to eat. So long as they keep eating, I guess it doesn't matter why they weren't! Such a relief.

 

[Albz]

My clowns took about 3 days to get comfortable and eat.. Now they see me and theyy get so excited lol

 

[DeniseAndy]

Great. Those are good foods, so stick with those if they are eating. Yippee. I hope they continue to eat well.

So far with pellets, I like the Hikari Marine S and so do my fish. I have some others, but those are tiny and easy for the fish to eat.

 

[Chrisfish]

Great news!!

 

[kalare]

You may want to try introducing flake and pellet to your daily diet. If you go on vacation, feeding frozen to your fish will be troublesome without someone in your house daily to do so. I personally use Spectrum and Hikari pellets, and Ocean Nutrition and California Blackwork flake foods. As stated earlier, captive bred clowns are more often then not, fed on flake and pellet once they reach a decent size. It's cheaper and easier for the breeder and clowns readily take these foods. Perhaps they just weren't used to frozen...I've been feeding my 22 year old clowns pellet for so long they won't even eat frozen cause they don't know what it is.

Glad you've gotten them to eat though, remember to quarantine and feed a varied diet!

 

[DeniseAndy]

I also just started using Cobalt pellets and flake. Seems to be going well. My fish get a bit of everything.

 

[TheREALDaddyJ]

I'm using new life spectrum pellets now too. They are eating well! Just ordered my LED lighting. Almost time to try some noobie corals.

 

[Chrisfish]

Glad to hear they're doing great

 

[cgd01]

Hey all,

Relatively new to the hobby. I've had some experience with freshwater, but this is my first foray into saltwater. I have a 75g tank with a 40g sump I built, running a protein skimmer and gfo/carbon reactor. 75 pounds of live rock, and a deep live sand substrate. Water is 78 degrees, ammonia at 0, nitrite at 0, and nitrate at 5ppm. Salinity is a tad high at 1.026 if the cheap swing arm is accurate. My tank has been fully cycled and reading 0 for just over a month. I currently have a 6 line wrasse, starry blenny, 2 o. Clowns, and a foxface. All are juvenille, and we're added about 1 per week after the cycle. The clowns are captive bred, and have been in the tank 5 days, and I can not get them to eat anything! I see no signs of aggression between anyone, and everyone, the clowns included,
are showing no other signs of stress, but they WILL NOT EAT. I've attempted frozen LRS reef frenzy nano, frozen mysis, frozen fish eggs, and all three after soaking in seachem garlic guard. Everyone else is eating just fine. Any other suggestions? I don't want to be the cause of their demise, but I am trying everything I can think of. When I feed, they swim around frantically like they know it's feeding time, but when they get to the food, they just turn their nose up at it. Help! I'm running out of ideas.

 

[cgd01]

I use omega slow sinking pellets. My clowns go NUTS for them. Use the small size. They will float for a bit then start to sink

 

[cgd01]

It's an algae based pellet. My daughter tore the label off. Green top, green container. They shouldn't refuse this

 

[Justin Hartmann]

Hey, I kind of had the same problem that you are explaining. I got two clowns that the store said they fed PE Mysis shrimp, so I picked some of those up and the fish would kind of eat them but would spit them out and ignore that they were in the tank. I felt the same way that they would starve, I went out and got some pellets and flakes. They did the same thing with the pellets. Last thing I tried was the Ocean Nutrition Formula One Flakes, they seem to love this! They eat it up fast every time I feed them, now they go to the surface and start eating them all immediately. Not sure why but they really only eat the flakes right now. I try other stuff every once in a while to give a varied die and to feed the other stuff in the tank. Maybe someday they will start to eat that but for now I just feed them the flakes. Hope this helps, the flakes are pretty cheap too.