When your Square Back anthias don't eat. Feed them Guppies!

[asonitez]

Ya. Seriously.

I purchased 4 Square back Anthias and put them into Qurantine. I tried feeding them Selcon soaked foods, Kent Extreme Garlic foods, Live black worms, Frozen Mysis, Frozen Brine and the little bastards would not eat. Defeated I went to my LFS and spoke to the owner. He said gutload and feed them guppies. I said ***. He went over to a tank and took out 20 tiny feeder guppies bagged them up and gave them to me. He said drip acclimate the guppies in a 2 Gallon tank for 3 hours. He said feed them some marine flakes and spectrum pellets soaked in Selcon and throw them in. I did. What I saw next when they were introduced shocked the hell out of me. The Anthias went ballistic after them. Stalking attacking and ultimately having fun. Very nice !

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[aklee987]

Cool. Do you think you will get them to eat frozen in the future?

[flying_dutchman]

I think White Shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) would be better since they are saltwater, but interesting that it eats guppies.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=830+2190+2191&pcatid=2191

[seapug]

I've heard of this technique for other fish as well. It's probably fine as a temporary thing, but it's usually discouraged as a long term feeding solution. For whatever reason, feeding live freshwater fish to saltwater fish usually ends of killing the saltwater fish after a couple months. For all I know, it may be fine for Anthias, but I know it's not a good idea for most marine fish.

[Imzadi]

I just can't kill other fish, to feed my fish. But it's just me.


I would be worried about what is in their bellies, and what that is in turn being injested by your fish.

[jacksonpt]

From my experience, anything considered a feeder fish is nutritionally bad for the fish doing the eating... very high fat content with little to no nutritional value. So much so that it will usually lead to death.

This has been my experience both first hand and reliable info that I've read - piranhas, oscars, lion fish, triggers, eels and cepholopods.

[garrettm85]

Good stuff! I like it. Slowly move them over to frozen and all should be good. Great stuff. I would imagine that gut loading the guppies really helps in terms of temporary nutrition. Good thinking on the LFS owner and your parts!

[muttley000]

Interesting idea. You don't have the usual quarantine issue since the freshwater parasites will be killed by the saltwater. Although I doubt the nutritional value would be sufficient in the long term, it must be better than nothing!

[asonitez]

From my experience, anything considered a feeder fish is nutritionally bad for the fish doing the eating... very high fat content with little to no nutritional value. So much so that it will usually lead to death.

This has been my experience both first hand and reliable info that I've read - piranhas, oscars, lion fish, triggers, eels and cepholopods.

This is been my thoughts for some time as well. However, I am gut loading the guppies and introducing other foods into their diet. Black worms and they started eating adult brine shrimp today. The guppies were to spur them into eating or just getting into a feeding frenzy. I don't inted to keep them fed on live guppies. I just needed to induce a feeding reaction. Today with their guppies (who are all now living in a 10 gallon saltwater tank (1.009 sg). The guppies have shown themselves able to evade the anthias for about a day. When introduced I also feed brine which causes them to eat the brine as well. At first the first few days they spit the brine out. However, they now injest it.