Vegetarian Flame Angel??

roger saltwaters · Jul 7, 2016

I put a nice Flame Angel in my tank a couple days ago and this guy seems to be a picky eater. I have been told they eat Mysis but so far he is completely uninterested. So today I go back to the LFS and ask if they have any ideas. They say try Reef Frenzy which I immediately do. Same result. Couldn't care less.

He does constantly nip at algae, and maybe copepods. Nips at the gravel and pretty much everywhere. Seems energetic and perfectly healthy. What am I missing here?

4FordFamily · Jul 7, 2016

Well Angels eat a lot of algae in the wild so it's certainly possible that it prefers it. Red nori is a hit for most fish, give it a try.

Live brine and blackworms will cross any vegetarian over to the dark side though!

roger saltwaters · Jul 7, 2016

4FordFamily said:
Well Angels eat a lot of algae in the wild so it's certainly possible that it prefers it. Red nori is a hit for most fish, give it a try.

Live brine and blackworms will cross any vegetarian over to the dark side though!

Ok. I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

roger saltwaters · Jul 11, 2016

Any more ideas? So far I have tried mysis, reef frenzy, and now nori with no success. The fish is energetic and constantly pecks at the rocks and gravel but is completely disinterested in anything I put in the tank. Is aggressive towards my goby and occasionally nips at my birdsnest. Wonder if this is because he's hungry?

pga7602 · Jul 11, 2016

These types of angels are hit or miss when it comes to reefs. Most of the time they end up eating coral unfortunley.

Salty1962 · Jul 11, 2016

Give him enough time to settle in, he'll eat.

roger saltwaters · Jul 17, 2016

Two weeks now. Still just picks algae of the back. So weird.

stunreefer · Jul 17, 2016

Many benthic feeders (a.k.a. rock grazers) need to be weaned onto prepared foods. They do not know what this stuff floating past them is, so they return to their instinct of picking at the rocks.

As 4FordFamily mentioned live foods (brine and black worms particularly) are your best shot at weaning an uninterested benthic feeder. You can likely throw every frozen food on the market at them without any difference, it needs to move!

With that said for some reason Hikari spirulina enriched brine entices the heck out of picky eaters, so that could be worth a shot.

pga7602 said:
These types of angels are hit or miss when it comes to reefs. Most of the time they end up eating coral unfortunley.

Disagree. While many Centropyge will pick at coral, few will actually ingest it. Of course there are exceptions. Healthy colonies can take the picking, frags cannot, which is why it's best practice to add them to a mature reef.

eatbreakfast · Jul 18, 2016

Soaking the food in garlic can often entice a picky eater.

Clams on the half shell provides a meaty food that it can graze on at it's leisure.

Trying fish eggs, either tobiko or masago. Nearly all fish readily eat the eggs of other fish opportunistically.

becks · Jul 18, 2016

If the clams work some people add a small bit of frozen or dried food in with the clam

zoomonster · Jul 18, 2016

I've had a couple like that that only seemed interested in grazing. Flame for sure and multicolor I think but both eventually came around. Flame, flame back, potters, coral beauty, multicolor angels and all graze, eat various flake, mysis, brine, spirulina, calanus, pellets and green/red nori. Most importantly none eat coral.