Getting a Rhinopias on Dead Foods

[Pufferpunk]

This fella's great at catching guppies but I can't fool him into eating anything else. I'm sure a diet of FW fish can be good for him & I don't want to feed him dam$elfish. Any suggestions?

[JHemdal]

There is a technique that I discussed in my Advanced Marine Aquarium book - once the fish is feeding well on guppies, start feeding it freshly dead guppies (you may have to puncture the guppies'air bladder to get it to sink). Once it is feeding on dead guppies, freeze and then thaw some dead guppies and get it to accept those. Then, start feeding it thawed guppies with the heads removed (This has to do with predators focusing on the eyes of prey). Finally, using a razor blade, cut other seafood items into the shape of the headless dead guppies. From that point, the fish will be hitting anything, so you can introduce all sorts of other foods. If your Rhinopias has tankmates (not always a good idea - I keep them in a species tank) you may have to use a broomstraw to offer the food to them. One final caveat - this works best on a newly acquired predatory fish - once they have had months of feeding on live guppies in your tank it is a much more difficult task. My staff aquarists were the ones who taught me this technique, they have never had it fail them for piscivores, it even works on trumpetfish!

Jay Hemdal

[Pufferpunk]

Wonderful--thank you! I have had many a task of getting my wild-caught puffers to eat dead foods but at least they looked at it. This guy was totally disinterested. I didn't realize they needed to be tricked so seriously! Looks like I have quite a task ahead of me.

[Pufferpunk]

What makes good tankmates for these fish? I have a larger clown goby I can't catch & neither can the Rhinopias, it seems. I was thinking of a dwarf lion?

[LisaD]

If Rhinopias are anything like Hawaiian leaf fish in their feeding habits, good luck. I have kept leaf fish for several years and have never been able to get them to eat dead food. They do take ghost shrimp readily, and I gutload heavily. You could do the same with the guppies, but I'd definitely offer ghost shrimp and maybe a small damsel at least once in a while.

I've never kept a Rhinopias, but have kept ambon scorpions, and as mentioned leaf fish. I'd be worried a lionfish may outcompete the Rhinopias for food. Maybe consider a marine betta, other slow swimming, more passive feeders.

I actually kept seahorses with my leaf fish, but don't know if a Rhinopias would be tempted to eat them or not.

[Pufferpunk]

I always feed the guppies flakes, before catching them out of the tank.

[bluedevils32701]

The best tankmate for a rhinopias in my opinion is a moray eel. I had one with my pair of hawaiian dragon morays and they got along great. The only problem was I had to feed the rhinopias live ghost shrimp since he would never accept dead or frozen food :(