Training Juveniles to eat frozen

[Fredfish]

I need some advice on getting my 4 month old juvies to start taking frozen. I have had them in a small tank floating in the refugium for a week now. I add frozen (shaved pe mysis) early in the day and put in a sponge from the main tank before going to work. The sponge usually has a few amphipods in it.

So far they are completely ignoring the frozen mysis.

Anyone have any experience training older juvies like mine?

Fred

[JennyL]

Hi Fred,
I have trained many juvies onto frozen.

They will not recognize shaved pieces of mysis as food.
Try getting some very small frozen mysis, such as hikari and pick out the smallest ones you can and keep them whole. Offer the frozen first feed in the morning when they are really hungry. Be sure to also offer live, you don't want them to go hungry.

Keep frozen moving in the water a bit so it looks alive, this helps them recognize it as a food source.

It takes time and patience. Once they are trying the frozen, slowly increase the frozen and less live until they have converted to frozen.

HTH

[Fredfish]

Thanks Jenny. I was thinking of using Hikari next. PE used to offer a smaller size as well, but I have not seen it in stores at all.

I am currently giving them live amphipods. Other than my refugium, I unfortunately do not have a source of live foods available to me.

Fred

[DanU]

Fred, we get juvies to take frozen by starting early. Near the beginning we offer frozen cyclopeeze. Depending upon the species and how fast they are growing we will start adding shaved mysis anywhere from 3 or 4 weeks to 6 weeks. As they start taking the frozen we start dialing back on the artemia. As a general rule, the younger they start, the easier it is and the faster they will grow. By using this method, we have most species at seller size eating whole frozen mysis at 4 months.

Dan

[Fredfish]

As a general rule, the younger they start, the easier it is

I wondered about this. Maybe I am being a little misleading in calling my horses juveniles at 4 months. They are more like young adults.

Today I thawed out mysis for the adults and pulled out the smallest for the 'juvies'. Don't know if this will help, but it can't hurt.

I have one other observation from a previous (and disastrous) attempt to get one of my adults back onto frozen when I first got them. I made the mistake of putting my newly acquired charges into a 40g tank nicely populated with pods and wondered why they did not take frozen. :rolleyes:

Anyway, at one point, I tried killing live mysis and mixing them in with my frozen as a way to further entice my one reluctant horse back onto frozen. Withing seconds of the mysis hitting the water, it would suck up the freshly killed mysis and ignore the rest.

Sea horses must have both chemical and visual ways of identifying what the 'right' food is for them.

I hope my current efforts do not turn into the same exercze of frustration that my previous attempt did.

Fred

[Fredfish]

Oh yea, I already have the bar of frozen cyclopeeze ready for the next batch of fry. Now I need to make another fry tank for them because it looks like the current one may be occupied for a while.

Fred