New True Percula not eating

[Stoffer]

I just introduced a true percula clownfish into my newly established marine aquarium a few days ago. The first night I put him in he and his 6line wrasse companion (also new) were eating their froze mysa shrimp happily. It was either that night or the day after I had a lot of work to do, so I was up most of the light, so there was always some indirect light into the aquarium, which leads me to beleive the clown, at least, didn't get much of a rest that night. The day after that he was very sluggish most of the time, and wasn't eating. That night he had a good 7 hours of darkness, and the day or two since he's been swimminng fine and seems happy, but he still is uninterested in eating. I checked him out and he doesn't seem to have any visible disease.

I was actually more conscerned about the 6line wrasse not doing well because of their tendency to not ship healthy, but he's doing fine. Any ideas why the clown won't eat?

 

[reefrunner69]

Not sure why he is not eating, but you should offer a variety and you might try soaking the food in garlic, slecon or zoe to entice it to eat.

 

[goldy]

i know ther is not much nutrients in frozen brine shrimp but it is usually used to start a feeding frenzy. so that might help.

 

[xxmoorishmanxx]

can be a little messy but my two clowns love flake.

 

[pdwire]

I had the same problem with my clown and it took ~3 days before he would start eating. I ended up giving him live brine and some frozen brine and that got him started nicely. Now he come to the top of the water and will actually eat flakes of food from my hand Good luck

 

[Stoffer]

I hope he starts eating soon. He hasn't eaten in days and he's getting quite thin. I think he'll die soon if he keeps going on like this. Today he would approach food but the moment he found out what it was, either mysa shrimp, spirulina flakes or color bits, he'd just pull away and not eat it.

On a separate note, I think my banded shrimp killed one of my hermet crabs....gotta get a new one I guess....

 

[fishlips12]

My lonely clown would not eat the flake but loves the brine shrimp. We introduced to the tank a new clown that eats the flakes and know the pick clown eats flakes and is far happier and livlier since we added a friend for him.

 

[Stoffer]

I don't understand this fish. Just now he's really excited about getting something to eat. I put in some color bits at the top of the tank and he jumped at it, like he really wanted to eat it, but once he realize what it was he spit it out and did nothing but look at the other bits. Then I tried the same thing with the frozen mysa shrimp, but he completely ignored them. Then once again with the flakes, but he ignored them too!

This is completely baffling because the day I brought him home he happily ate the frozen mysa shrimp, and it seems now that he really wants to eat, but he's being very picky...after 5 days of not eating!!

 

[Stoffer]

Yeah, update on the color bits. He goes after all color bits floating on top, but always spits them out. Just a side note that he actually DOES want to eat, but just ignores all of the mysa shrimp he used to eat, and won't eat color bits.

 

[alrmc4]

is the food to big maybe if you ground the flake in your fingers to smaller pieces? when i first got mine they were babies and i had to do that.

 

[Stoffer]

Nah, he's big enough to handle it. If the 6line wrasse can, the percula can.

 

[fishlips12]

maybe he/she is expecting

 

[goldy]

maybe he just doesn't like them. you may have a picky eater.keep trying different things until you find what he likes.

 

[Stoffer]

Yeah, I think he's just extremely picky, considering he ignores any type of frozen food. I think he may have gotten sick from the frozen mysa shrimp the first night, so it'll take him a while to get back on I guess. I've bought different kinds of frozen food for him, but it seems he'll only eat dry food that'll float on top...just gotta find some he'll like. Any suggestions?

How long can they go without eating btw?