Regal angle advice needed

[foshizzle]

Ive had a 4"+ indian ocean regal in QT for a month now.

I have tube fed him twice recently with a mix of crushed spectrum pellets and mysis.​

Ive tried PE mysis and my homemade frozen food but have never witnessed him eat. The QT is established with sand, LR rubble and quite a bit of algae but he very rarely pecks at the substrate. He still looks pretty good - fairly active and not too thin.

Should I introduce him to the DT and hope he learns to feed from the other fish?
OR ​

Should I keep him tube feeding him in QT until he eats?

My fear is that he will slowly starve in QT before eating. I have a 120 display with tons of sponge and other inverts for him to graze on. DT houses a handful of leopard wrasses, radiant wrasse, clown, copperband and a 4" Hippo tang.

I have not tried clams on half shell yet. Any other suggestions to entice feeding?

 

[EYE-CANDY AQUATICS]

Try feeding live brine shrimp to get him used to eating. The live prey sometime enduce them to start eating. Start mixing live brine and your frozen food until you are only using frozen food

 

[HolisticBear]

Live brine seems good, no experience with this but I've read good reports on Masstick. Hopefully others will chime in.


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

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

I would not add him to dt.

Clams, live black worms white worms etc. May help.

Adding a dither fish to qt might help.

They are tough!

 

[lion king]

I've tried to move my harder to feed specimens through qt to the dt as fast as I can, as soon as I deem they are as disease free as I can tell. They do seem to take off when in a tank with other fish settled into captive living. The regal is not used to feeding from the water column, adding some dither fish to the qt sometimes helps to teach them. I've added a couple mollies with a potters angel once, and it worked. Live foods like pods, black worms, and brine shrimp help. My flagfin picked but didn't really chow down, I moved him through my qt in 3 weeks. I treated with prazi pro and followed with metro/focus in food in case of parasites. He's been in my dt several months now, he took off like gangbusters as soon as he went into the dt.

 

[Fishnut]

I vote to keep it in QT until eating better. That is based on the Qt being 30 + gallons with some hide outs caves or PVC pipes. Not just a bare ten gallon tank. Regals are shy fish and need to have an escape route to feel comfortable. Try cutting up the frozen foods into smaller pieces and then turn off the flow for awhile and let it pick the food off the bottom. It may help. Good luck.