Alligator Pipefish

[Gluestick]

I can't get my alligator pipes to eat anything but live mysis. I've tried live brine, live ghost shrimp, and lots of different frozen mysis.... The ghosts they would pick at, but most were too big for them. They won't touch the brine. Mysis are getting expensive - I've got to get them on frozen soon. Any tips?
I add the frozen and the brine in with EVERYTHING else so they can start associating that with food.... But it's been over 2 weeks and this is getting ridiculous.

Thanks.

[pledosophy]

Put them in a barebottom tank with no rock. Using a cycled filter can reduce the number fo water changes you'll need to do to keep nutrient levels down.

Put the live mysis in the freezer so they are alive, but well almost dead. Then feed to the pipes. If need be blow them around the tank with a turkey baster. Then do the same thing for a few days. Being a barebottom tank with no liverock it should be easy to siphon out the extra's and check for poop.

Then feed more frozen live mysis with dead frozen mysis. same proceedure. Then just dead. Most will catch the hang of it.

This is usually done in QT before the fish hits the display.

After they are going after the frozen happily, put them back in the dispaly.

I had a reidi that never took to frozen. Cost me $15 a week for 5.5 years.

[Gluestick]

thanks, i will try out the 1/2 frozen mysis thing.

[jiriki]

I have a pair of alligator and one would not eat at first frozen mysis. I was using San Fransico frozen mysis. I switched to the Hikari brand and it instantly ate everything I squirt at it. Eats like a pig now!

[Elysia]

I would agree w/ both of the above posters. pledosophy gives a great methodology for getting any fish onto frozen. And jiriki's post is something that I have heard from more than a few people -- some fish have brand preferences, so it is best to try each permutation available to you, just in case. Good luck.

[pledosophy]

I had some brand preference issues myself. they favored hikari over PE, but I favored PE over Hikari for the nutritional profile. Once they are on some form of frozen, easier to swith brands IME.

JME

[Gluestick]

After trying several brands and puchasing more than $250 in live mysis... because these things wouldn't eat anything else... I decided to give the remaining pipefish to a more experienced pipefish keeper. Thank you for the info!