Any hope of persuading a CBB to take non-mysis foods?

[trilinearmipmap]

Mine eats nothing but mysis and frozen clams. If it accidentally bites some flake food while eating mysis it spits it right out.

[RD]

Tony, if yours readily accepts mysis, then the "juice" from frozen mysis would also be good choice for pre-soaking the pellets. It may take some serious effort on your part, but the fact that your fish will already take the pellets in is a big plus.

Many of the more difficult to feed species can sometimes be "trained" to take dry foods, some individuals are easy to train, some are quite difficult, but in the long run it usually works out to be in the fishes best interest.

[Delphinus]

Oh .. sorry if I said something incorrect. He doesn't really take the pellets, only by accident. I.e., if I feed my dendrophyllia NLS pellets instead of mysis, he might think I'm feeding it mysis and he might try to steal some. If that happens though, he'll spit it out. He won't chase down any food that isn't mysis. If I feed mysis and flake at the same time, all the other fish go into a frenzy and gobble up everything that they can, he somehow can tell which is mysis and which isn't, and will only go after the mysis.

[RD]

Ok, gotcha, thanks for clearing that up. Even still, if he does take the odd pellet, and that pellet suddenly has a softer perhaps more natural texture/feel to it, AND it's suddenly more palatable due to being soaked in mysis juice (something that this fish does seem to relish), you just might be able to eventually persuade him that it's worth swallowing.
Or not ..... but IMO it's worth a shot.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Oh .. sorry if I said something incorrect. He doesn't really take the pellets, only by accident. I.e., if I feed my dendrophyllia NLS pellets instead of mysis, he might think I'm feeding it mysis and he might try to steal some. If that happens though, he'll spit it out. He won't chase down any food that isn't mysis. If I feed mysis and flake at the same time, all the other fish go into a frenzy and gobble up everything that they can, he somehow can tell which is mysis and which isn't, and will only go after the mysis.

Don't feed your Dendro NLS Tony. It has an ingredient in it that makes them vomit (I suspect the copper ingredient at the end of the list). Other than that, fish love it and no ill effects there.

[RD]

King Albert, marine salt mixes have more copper in them than NLS, so it wouldn't be that.

[albert_dao]

I'll wait til 3 AM to dig up the RC threads Neil.

:P

[Delphinus]

Oh... well .. Ok I won't feed them that anymore then. I thought it was kinda nice to feed it something that wouldn't get stolen by the mysis fiend (the CBB).

I can try feeding it some Cyclops-Eeze flakes.. man nobody in my tank will touch that stuff. Must be stale or something. (I'm actually thinking of tossing the container .. that and the freeze-dried stuff .. useless. Only thing anybody will touch is the frozen kind.)

[Delphinus]

Quick update (in case anyone's interested )

So on Wednesday I was able to buy some NLS "Finicky Fish", hoping that with a name like that, there would be hope for my CBB taking it. I soaked it in with some mysis for an hour or so, then offered it to the tank.

Unfortunately I was not able to successfully seperate the mysis from the pellets afterwards, so there was still a mix. The CBB shunned the pellets and picked out all the mysis bits. Won't chase down the pellets, only the mysis.

So on Thursday I found some clam juice at Co-op. There is was, a jar of opaque liquid literally called "Clam Juice." (On the back it says - "Ingredients: Clam juice.") So I tried soaking some pellets in this stuff for a few hours and tried offering those to the tank.

May I just say, by the way, clam juice reeks. Took a sniff of it and ... yup. This smells like clams. Quite putridly strongly I might add.

Mr. Finicky STILL shunned the pellets, although the stinky pellets were a hit with everyone else (tang, hawkfish, 6line, angel) who all went berserk chasing after them. So I'm hoping a few more tries of this and he'll observe the others and maybe make the mental connection that it might be OK to try eating.

[Chaloupa]

I'm interested! Keep us up to date as I would love to be able to get my CBB eating pellets! Although, the idea of clam juice is absolutely revolting!