Good food?

[RLG2182]

Hey guys!

What do you think is a good food for my O. Clowns? I picked up a frozen pack of "marine cuisine" made by san francisco bay brand - a complete carnivorous formula. Well, needless to say, they hate it. They will keep on spitting out the same piece of food 30 time & won't touch the rest. I did some research afterwards and I know they're omnivores, but this was the stuff that the Petco people recommended I buy:

"artemia franciscana, krill, mysis, menhaden oil"

What would be a good food mixture that I could get at most petsmart or petco locations? (or other LFS) Flaked, frozen? TIA!

 

[Ximat]

I feed my O's a mixture of Mysis, Formula Two, Garlic Guard, Vita & every so often i through in some ZooPlankton. They love it.

To my knowledge the Marine Cuisine would be more for Tangs and such that don't like meaty foods as much.

 

[Flsprophet2]

I use Marine Cuisine for my fish and they all love it. I have a Coral Beauty, Percula Clown, Royal Gramma and a Yellow Watchman Goby. As soon as I stick my syringe in there to feed, my Clown will actually come up to the syringe and try and pick the food out from it.

 

[RLG2182]

To my knowledge the Marine Cuisine would be more for Tangs and such that don't like meaty foods as much.

Well, to my understanding it says that it's for carnivores. They have a formula that's for herbivores, but that's not the one I have. If the fish keep on spitting the food out & eating it again, is that a sign that they don't like the food? :?

 

[Phyl]

It is more likely that they are trying to "chew" the food. You may not be mushing it up small enough for them to eat. Even if I put a piece of flake into my tank that is too big the fish will "eat it and spit it out" several times until it gets small enough for them to swallow.

With only 2 small clowns, I would take 1/3 or so of a cube of food (the rest put back into the freezer). Dissolve it very well into some tank water and make sure that you mush it up a LOT. Really work it with your finger. It should be all but dust by the time you're done with it. Then pour about 1/6 of that into the tank at a time. If they still spitting it out then you should try mushing it up more.

You should only put into the water column however much they can eat before it falls to the floor to prevent waste. As the fish get more used to what you're feeding them they will probably feed more aggressively. They're still pretty new to you, your tank, feeding with you standing there (I usually have to feed and step back for the first couple of weeks with a fish in QT). It will take them some time to get into the routine.

I feed my tank a rotation of formula 1, 2 prime reef, mysis, krill, and cyclopeze. (and some liquid life, krill, and mysis for my corals)

 

[klam]

Did you just get the clowns? When i first got my clowns they would try the food and spit it back out. After a day or so of getting used to their new homes they would eat it.

Formula 1 was designed with clown fishes in mind. OSI Spirulina is also good to have in the diet. Having a variety of foods is good for their diet.

I use Formula1 frozen, Formula1 pellets, spirulina, mysis which I soak in Selcon(sometimes), cyclop-eeze bar. I also rotate the foods fed.