Who knew silversides could be such fun!?!

[mcoomer]

I had never fed silversides to my lobos and scoly so I was little surprised at the results tonight. To begin with I had to distract the two starfish so I gave each of them a fish of their own to chew on. With the diversion in effect, I put a bit of silverside in each of the corals. The scoly did it's normal thing where it swelled up, extended tentacles, and pulled the food in. That lasted for about 10 minutes whereupon the thing spit the fish out. I tried putting the piece back in place but it never grabbed it again. Not sure what to think of that.

Meanwhile, I was feeding the lobos. I put a piece of fish on each lobe and out came the tentacles. The largest was especially fun to watch. I thought there was no way it would be able to swallow the large piece I gave it but it grabbed the piece, opened its mouth very wide and slowly expanded it and ingested the entire piece. If you can imagine pics of Mt Fuji that's what my pumpkin colored lobo looked like swallowing that fish. The whole thing disappeared inside pretty neatly. The little lobo with 5 mouths seemed to pinch off a bit of the silverside, take that piece in, and let the rest of it float away.

So, being the first time that I've fed silversides does this sound like pretty typical behavior? I think next time I feed I'll use smaller pieces of fish. How do you feed silversides?

Thanks,
Mike

[apshooter]

I feed silverside "steaks" to my fungia, bubble and a couple of the larger acan heads. I cut pieces that each coral can handle. They seldom drop any. Fun to watch.

[mcoomer]

Yeah, I think maybe they were looking for a filet and I put a big ol' steak in there. Next time I'm going to cut some smaller pieces. I'm also wondering if you can buy freeze dried stuff so that they're not melted together into a brick. Seems like that would be easier to deal with.