hungrly fish(I think)

[xunhe]

The aquarium owner said that this kind of fish only eats live shrimps. I want to know if it will eat other feeds.

 

[GlassMunky]

#MODS why is this listed as an article? it should be just a normal post.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

The aquarium owner said that this kind of fish only eats live shrimps. I want to know if it will eat other feeds.

You should be able to train it to eat other foods in time, yes. A couple of ideas that may or may not be helpful for that:

-Offer the food you want the fish to eat at the same time as you offer it the live shrimp it will take:

Just to check, have you tried mixing small amounts (that get increasingly larger over time) of the other foods in with food the clowns do accept?

-Swap out the live/frozen fish being fed in the quote below for live/frozen shrimp; switch the smelt in step 5 for something like mysis shrimp cubes or crab meat or something:

Converting piscivores to feed on non-living foods​

One basic principle of life in the sea is that big fish often eat little fish. Many carnivorous fish feed exclusively on smaller fish and are termed obligate piscivores. When brought into captivity, this feeding behavior can become a liability, as small, living marine fish are too expensive to feed to larger fish on a regular basis. When one of these fish is collected and brought into captivity, it may not have fed normally for up to a month prior to that time. The first consideration is of course to get the animal feeding as usual. This often entails offering the piscivore some small live fish, which are usually accepted with much gusto. Lionfish, anglerfish, trumpetfish and many others will accept live fish quite readily from the first day they are placed into an aquarium. The question is then; can this feeding regimen be sustained? For aquarists near the ocean, this may not be a problem as they can usually collect some manner of small live fish to feed their animals. Inland aquarists have more of a problem. Buying damselfish, marine killifish or other species becomes too expensive. Mollies and Gambusia can be adapted to living in seawater and then be used as a live food source. Live feeder goldfish and guppies may be accepted, but have serious nutritional deficiencies when fed to marine fish for long periods (See thiaminase section above). If nothing else, using live fish as food is abhorrent to some aquarists, and is never really a convenient or cost-effective food source. The alternative then is to train the piscivorous fish to accept some type of non-living food. The following process has worked for every species of obligate piscivore, as long as the aquarist spends the time and effort required to allow the method to succeed:


1) The first step is to stabilize the new fish and get it to accept any live fish of appropriate size as a first meal (At the same time, general quarantine issues must be addressed). Do not allow the new fish to spend too much time at this stage. It is very common to have fish become “addicted” to one particular type of live food if it is used for too long of a time. As soon as the fish is routinely accepting live fish, and has become somewhat conditioned to associate your approach with an impending meal, it is time to try step two.

2) Using the same species of food fish that the animal is accustomed to, freeze some, then offer the animal a mixture of living, and thawed / dead fish. By chance, it will likely swallow some of the dead fish while searching out the live fish. If this fails, try impaling a live fish on a broom straw or 3/16” clear tubing and offer it to the fish that way. Once accepted, switch to impaling previously frozen fish and feed in the same manner.

3) Continue introducing more thawed whole fish to the animal’s diet each day until the animal is not being offered any live or fresh food. It may help to forcefully toss the dead fish into the aquarium so that their motion is more likely to elicit a feeding response.

4) Eventually, the predator should be feeding solely on thawed, whole fish tossed into the aquarium. At this point, use a knife and remove the head of each of the frozen fish, so that the predator then becomes accustomed to feeding on just the fish’s body. The reason for taking this step is that most piscivores clue in on their prey’s eyes as a means to make an effective capture. When the eyes of their food item are removed, this primary feeding cue is removed and they may not recognize the item as food. Once the piscivore has overcome this need, they are one step closer to being trained to feed on prepared food items.

5) The next step to take is to switch the fish to begin feeding on a different type of fish flesh such as smelt. To make this transition, use a sharp knife to cut a piece of smelt into a good facsimile of the headless fish that the animal has been used to feeding on. Drop these smelt pieces into the aquarium and they will usually be accepted with little problem.

6) At this stage, the predatory fish is usually willing to begin accepting almost any food item including prepared gelatin foods. Never allow the fish to “backslide”, avoid the temptation to give it a live fish as a treat from time to time. The fish may relapse; and you may find that you will have to start the training process all over again.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

#MODS why is this listed as an article? it should be just a normal post.

Fixed. Not sure how that happened

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Fixed. Not sure how that happened

It's happened a few times recently - it looks like members can currently publish articles without them needing to be approved by the mods first.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

It's happened a few times recently - it looks like members can currently publish articles without them needing to be approved by the mods first.

I'll look into this further to see if I can figure out how these are getting approved.