Never have I heard of a DD one that had to be retrained to the extent of smearing food on coral skeletons, but of course some are more eager than others to take particular foods and all have to be watched to make sure they really are eating in the beginning. That may feel like re-training, but does not begin to compare with the experiences shared by those who started from square one with starving fish from the LFS.
One thing that become very evident in the long RC thread was that everyone's fish had different food preferences; even those who purchased pairs experienced each of their fish gobbling up completely different foods. Popular items were Nutrimar ova (no longer available), formula 1 & 2 gel foods, cyclops, NLS pellets, Ocean Nutrition reef flakes, roe, mysis, spirulina brine, regular brine, and a couple of other things, but not every fish ate all those items, and some fish would only consume one or two particular things, while others gobbled everything in sight.
The bar owner said his DD fish was eating mysis straight out of the shipping bag, but reading through the RC thread, some fish owners say theirs won't touch mysis. Same goes for just about all other foods - some fish love them and others refuse them. The important thing is that all the DD fish accepted some type of prepared food. With the LFS purchases, some would not eat anything, others would only eat coral, and others accepted prepared foods but were already too far gone when the owner purchased them. There were some LFS purchase successes, but many failures; I don't recall any DD failures, other than fish that died for other reasons long after they were purchased.
If you get one, treat us all to info and pictures!
