Radial Filefish Feeding

Mushroom Boy · Feb 15, 2018

Hello,

Last weekend, I got an ORA bred radial filefish from my LFS and am wondering what others are feeding them. I've read a few threads where people say it takes them awhile to start eating offered foods, which hopefully seems to be my situation. I haven't seen my new one eat anything I've offered (mysis, pellet, formula 1, decapsulated brine...). Just wondering how long it took others to start eating in their tank and if there was one food in particular that got the ball rolling.

Thanks!

nautical_nathaniel · Feb 15, 2018

You might want to try smaller or ground up pieces of food initially, they have tiny mouths especially if it is a younger fish.

Fallling · Feb 17, 2018

I got an ORA pair last fall. I was feeding frozen food in QT, and they weren't interested. However, I read a review on Live Aquaria suggesting grinding up pellets... totally worked. They ate ground up pellets right away. I still added frozen food to tank, and after a week 1 or 2, they were eating frozen food. I don't feed pellets in the DT, so getting them to eat frozen food was important. They pretty each anything to fit in their tiny mouths including small mysis. Very cool fish and interesting to watch.

Mushroom Boy · Feb 18, 2018

Thanks, that's a good tip, I'll give it a shot. Any particular pellets you're using?

Fallling · Feb 21, 2018

I used New Life Spectrum pellets. I believe that's what ORA uses which is likely why the fish immediately took to the pellets. One other thing I did was include silk plants (like used in freshwater) in the QT to replicate corals that they naturally like to hang out in. They definitely seemed to appreciate and would sleep in them at night and hang out in them in general.

Rockytop_Reefer · Mar 20, 2019

I got a bonded pair through Diver’s Den about a month ago. Didn’t eat for 2 days after they were acclimated. I went and got some live brine shrimp and that kicked them into gear. I then continued to feed them live brine with a bit of frozen mysis mixed in. Once the live brine ran out they were fine eating the frozen mysis by itself. They’re real good at chewying the full mysis into pieces so they can eat it.
I think they might also snag some of the bigger Cyclopeeze when I add that for my pipefish.