Angler Fish won't eat. HELP!!!

i got a angler fish a few days ago and tried feeding him yesterday and today. he won't even eat when i put it right by his mouth. he turns away. i tried large mysis shrimp and filets of fish i had. can anyone help me on what i should do?

 

Live food

 

+1 ingtar_shinowa

ghost shrimp, guppies.

 

anglers a finicky eaters in the first place. plus its only been in your tank a few days.
try ghost shrimp for a while and once it gets used to those you can try to move into prepared foods.

 

Yes, however:

Anglers only need to be fed once in a few days otherwise they'll develop bloat and might die.

Do not be alarmed: do not continue harassing your fish with food

Let it be for a few days to give it time to adapt to the new tank. I'd also recommend you find a bait shop near you and buy some ghost shrimp. You can keep them in a bucket with an airstone.


The angler won't want dead things such as filets it feeds on live, active foods.

DO NOT feed it feeder goldfish

If your LFS sells frozen silversides, you can try enticing it by moving thawed silversides around on monofilament fishing line.

The best however would be to let it be, anglers often go 2 or 3 days between feedings.

You could also order some feeder shrimp from LA during the interim.




I'm sorry, but I love these animals and you clearly didn't research one enough before buying it. The best you can do now is do the above. If you have any more pressing questions I'd be glad to help, along with helping you ID it.

 

All good info. We generally don't feed anglers more than twice a week, add a third feeding for juvies.

Besides overfeeding, you'll want to be sure that you don't offer the fish too large of a food item, as anglers have such slow metabolisms, the food can literally decompose in their bellies before it's digested, with the outcome being a dead angler.

Anglers generally aren't too picky once you get them eating for you, and most will try to "lure" you whenever they begin to see you ass "the food god".

HOW you present to food to your preds is a HUGE part of successful weaning. We've come up with a pretty good tool for this purpose. It's called a "stealth stick", and fish seem not to mind it as much as other sticks, tongs, etc. In fact, we had an angler go "stick shy" before we came up with the stealth stick, and once a fish goes stick shy, it's REALLY hard to turn them back around.

Here's a good article on weaning your fish, and it also describes the stealth stick and how to make one:

Tools of the Trade: Equipment & Techniques to Convert your Fish onto Frozen

HTH

 

I used one of these as my feeder.

It was a graphite rod and would provide no resistance to the fish when it took the food. I'm not sure if you can find one near you but it worked well for me.

 

Greg, I love lionfish lair more and more. What a great article on feeding predators.

 

pictures please

 

Sticks like that will indeed work fine. However, what we've found is that some fish are too small, more aggressive, or simply misjudge their strike length, and end up with a mouth full of stick, often won't let go, and this is where we've had fish go stick shy (one of these was actually a juvie A. pictus).

We've also found that the less visible the stick is, the less intimidating it is for fish that aren't yet weaned. However, it's the monofilament at the business end that we feel makes the difference, as besides being less visible, you can get smaller pieces of food on the stick, and since it's not rigid, you can make the food item "dance" a bit. And of course, there's no chance of the diners injuring themselves on a sharp-pointed stick.

FWIW, for those who are not DIY-inclined, these sticks will soon be available from us with a few "niceties" added (we actually hold a patent on our design).