Shy Firefish—should I continue spot feeding?

[bayisland]

I have an exquisite firefish who is spending his entire day in his little cave because my bristletooth Tomini tang is bullying him. He used to come out for feeding time, but lately I’ve started spot feeding into his cave because he stopped coming out at feeding. This can’t go on forever because I’ll need to depend on an auto feeder for vacations at some point.

Do I continue spot feeding and hope he gets comfortable enough to come out? Stop spot feeding? I feel like I’m enabling this behavior with the spot feeding.

 

[bushdoc]

Your story reminds me of my own, when one of first fish I got was Powder Brown Tang. I had problems introducing other fish later and basically found out that I need to buy and introduce several at one time and still he would bully to death one or two.
He's been with me for 8 years now, is a bit more docile, but I am not getting any shy fish like firefish anymore.