New Fish Aren't Eating and Other Queries

Hugh Mann · Feb 12, 2020

First post here, so please correct me if I am in the wrong place.

So I am just getting into the marine aquarium scene with the help of a good friend who has lots of experience, but I figured it couldn't hurt to as the community. I have a 55 gallon tank, a few pieces of live rock and a few bits of dead rock that should be turning into live, crushed Coral substrate, and I seeded the bacteria from my friends tank. After cycling, I picked up my first three fish and other sundries. I went with a marine betta, fuzzy dwarf lionfish, and a golden dwarf eel. (Before anyone accuses me of spending way too much on my first fish, I got an insane deal)

But anyways, it's been four days and the last two I've been trying to feed them frozen mysis and brine shrimp with some Kent Garlic Xtreme and so far only the eel has eaten, and eaten quite a bit. The other two haven't touched a morsel.

I'm feeding them, or at least trying to by thawing the shrimp in tank water, and depositing it near them with a turkey baster, again, at my friends recommendation. So what I'm asking you, is there any other, better techniques for feeding them that sort of food, is there a better type of food I can be using to try and get them to eat? The Lionfish and betta, which were in the same tank, I was told ate frozen at the store.

I would prefer to avoid feeding them live, I know it's better and easier, but the closest source of live feeders is roughly a 4 hour drive and I don't have a second tank to house them. Though the idea of getting one and breeding saltwater mollies has occurred to me.

Old Fritz · Feb 12, 2020

unfortunately ime marine bettas and dwarf lion fish can be a pain to get eating. I always start on live and transition to frozen foods, typically for live foods I do ghost shrimp or mollies until I'm able to get them on a frozen food. Keep trying for a week and see if they take to frozen food before trying live

fishguy242 · Feb 12, 2020

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here
agree try live first for both fish should get comfortable in a few feedings wean to frozen

najer · Feb 12, 2020

I have had 2 dwarf fuzzies in the past and hand fed both plus they both took flake as well as frozen, as above give it a few days.

kireek · Feb 12, 2020

Welcome to Reef2Reef and best of luck with your new additions! It is a beautiful group.Hopefully those two will begin eating for you soon.

Hugh Mann · Feb 13, 2020

Old Fritz said:
unfortunately ime marine bettas and dwarf lion fish can be a pain to get eating. I always start on live and transition to frozen foods, typically for live foods I do ghost shrimp or mollies until I'm able to get them on a frozen food. Keep trying for a week and see if they take to frozen food before trying live

When you feed them mollies, which will likely be my go to if I have to feed them live, do you just toss them in the tank and wait until they get eaten? How long do they last?
Asking because as I mentioned, the closest source for saltwater fish is a 4 hour drive each way.

Old Fritz · Feb 13, 2020

Hugh Mann said:
When you feed them mollies, which will likely be my go to if I have to feed them live, do you just toss them in the tank and wait until they get eaten? How long do they last?
Asking because as I mentioned, the closest source for saltwater fish is a 4 hour drive each way.

you can acclimate them, but to be honest I've always just thrown them in and never had issues. I used to do this when I worked at petco to sell them as feeders. Mollies will last longer, however depending on the size of your fish they may struggle to actually eat them. You can use feeder minnows temporarily but shouldn't be used long term because they don't have the right nutrients and they aren't the healthiest of food sources in the world. Mollies themselves are pretty easy to breed though. Just setup a ten gallon and watch them multiply

Hugh Mann · Feb 13, 2020

Old Fritz said:
you can acclimate them, but to be honest I've always just thrown them in and never had issues. I used to do this when I worked at petco to sell them as feeders. Mollies will last longer, however depending on the size of your fish they may struggle to actually eat them. You can use feeder minnows temporarily but shouldn't be used long term because they don't have the right nutrients and they aren't the healthiest of food sources in the world. Mollies themselves are pretty easy to breed though. Just setup a ten gallon and watch them multiply

Thank you, very helpful. The eel shouldn't have a problem, but the lion and betta are pretty small, 3 and 4 inches respectively. Will just have to get smaller ones and toss them in.

I read about breeding mollies as feeders. It came up pretty often that as they're naturally fresh water fish they don't pack the right nutrition to be the primary source of food. Do you know if that's true, or is there a way to get around that, or just use live mollies so they don't starve while weaning onto dead food?