Enticing a fish to eat.

[chend2]

Hey,
I just got a new blueline rabbitfish from BarrierReef, and I was told hes been eating and hes been there for 2 months, but it seems that he won't eat anything I offer him. He is in a fully established reef so hes eating off the rocks but no frozen of prepared foods. What can I do to get him to start eating?

 

[leebca]

A wild-caught fish put into a display tank will usually revert back to its ways of eating in the wild. The opportunity to train the fish to eat prepared foods is when the fish is in quarantine. It seems you passed by that step.

At this point in time, find out from those/them who say the fish was eating, and ask specifically what was the fish eating. Get some of that and try.

Offer fresh dried seaweed daily (removing & discarding uneaten at night) even if the fish isn't eating it. Try putting the seaweed at different places (on the aq wall with a clip; on a rock with a rubber band; on the substrate weighed down by some substrate or small rock; etc.). Read over: Food Presentation

You can try live foods, frozen worms and pods, etc.

Since the fish is eating, it is probably not stressed enough to prevent it eating prepared foods, it's just that now, since it is in a more familiar setting, is reverting back to foraging for the foods it is used to finding.

 

[chend2]

Hes the only fish I have which is why he isn't in quarantine.

 

[leebca]

If you'll take some time to look at the first couple of pages of this post, you'll note there are many good reasons for quarantine. One of them is the opportunity for the fish to acclimate to you, AND eating the prepared foods you have to offer: A Quarantine Procedure.

When a public aquarium puts a single fish on display in its own tank, the fish is first quarantined for some of those noted reasons. Once the fish is released into the display, the fish doesn't have to learn anything. Some are 'dumb' enough to die rather than learn to eat.

I hope yours will start to eat using some of the tricks and suggestions in the given posts.