Pipefish not eating.. need some advice

[Mangodude]

Hey everyone! Hope its ok to post this here..


I got 5 gulf of mexico pipefish this past sunday (collected them myself) and I am unable to get them to eat.. In the past, I usually give the pipefish I catch to a friend and she puts them in her reef. She feeds them mysis/brine and they eat with everyone else. So this time I decided to keep a few for myself and give them a shot. They are in a 50g macro tank with two other wrasse type fish (belted sandfish). I've tried frozen mysis, frozen brine and live brine so far. I'm getting ready to try live brine soaked in garlic in a minute..

I have brine shrimp eggs so getting live brine is not a problem but they don't want to eat it.

They're very active. Watching everything that floats by.. but they never go after any of it.

pipe's are about 6 inches long? big enough mouths where I think they could handle a mysis no problem.. the live brine almost look too small for them..


any help would be appreciated! :D

[namxas]

You're going to need to get them eating first so they don't lose weight and their GI system doesn't shut down. Since you collected the pipes yourself, I'm assuming you can get your waders on and collect some "grass shrimp" from the grassbeds, probably near where you collected the pipes.

If you can't do this, you'll need to get some live Munnid isopods, Gammarid amphipods or Mysids for them (Copepods are too small and likely won't be noticed). If you can't get any of these, gutload some FW ghost shrimp with a good marine flake food, and the pipes will eat those.

Additionally, if you can find "berried" females, the pipes will often actually pluck the eggs off the shrimp with no harm coming to the shrimp.

Once you get the pipes eating for you (none of the foods you've tried are recognized as food, BTW), then you can start weaning them onto frozen mysis.

[Mangodude]

Thanks!

I don't think these guys mouths are big enough to eat the grass shrimp we find around here though..
usually the shrimp are 2+ inches long..

[TamiW]

I disagree about gulf pipefish eating copepods. Mine do. The first thing I'd try is newly hatched brine shrimp, though, because you can hatch in large quantities, (where finding copepods in large quantities doesn't always work.)

OP, you are probably right about the grass shrimp, but there are likely plenty of other small shrimp and crustaceans from the same place you collect the pipes.

[Mangodude]

I disagree about gulf pipefish eating copepods. Mine do. The first thing I'd try is newly hatched brine shrimp, though, because you can hatch in large quantities, (where finding copepods in large quantities doesn't always work.)

OP, you are probably right about the grass shrimp, but there are likely plenty of other small shrimp and crustaceans from the same place you collect the pipes.

The live brine I tied yesterday were 1 hour old. I'm going to try them again when they are a little bigger..


Yes, copepods are hard to aquire.. I have a friend who breeds them for research though :D