Angler questions

[littlefoxx]

Im getting this little dude in a week, only the one Im getting is red and white not yellow and red. Ive done a lot of research and read your posts @lion king!! I just had some questions about feeding. You mention guppies and mollies are good food for them I believe, I was just wondering where you get them from? I know petsmart and petco have a lot of them all the time but its also petsmart and petco… any suggestions? One of My LFS stores has a freshwater section and has guppies and mollies, they are good and fully QT. They also occasionally have feeder ghost shrimp. The guy Im getting the angler from says it eats frozen as well but Ive read that they dont do well with frozen only and I want to give it the best nutrition I can. I read some people feed them damsel fish too?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Im getting this little dude in a week, only the one Im getting is red and white not yellow and red. Ive done a lot of research and read your posts @lion king!! I just had some questions about feeding. You mention guppies and mollies are good food for them I believe, I was just wondering where you get them from? I know petsmart and petco have a lot of them all the time but its also petsmart and petco… any suggestions? One of My LFS stores has a freshwater section and has guppies and mollies, they are good and fully QT. They also occasionally have feeder ghost shrimp. The guy Im getting the angler from says it eats frozen as well but Ive read that they dont do well with frozen only and I want to give it the best nutrition I can. I read some people feed them damsel fish too?

While you are waiting for @lion king to respond, I wanted to weigh in:
I am NOT a fan of this species in aquariums. If you track them in people’s tanks, finding any that survive more than a year is pretty rare. Many of them die in the first 4 months.
If you go ahead with this, please consider keeping it in as a single fish in a well seasoned nano reef.
Overfeeding is one long term concern with these, as are problems in thiaminase in their food (black mollies can help with that).

Jay

 

[DTB90]

If you can afford better food they last longer ime. I had one go 4 years before a power outage killed it while I was on vacation. I would routinely catch wild foods and qt them for a period. The ghost shrimp feeder guppy diet often has low nutrients. You can always try to get them to eat frozen foods. I am preparing to get one myself I want a yellow wartskin like in the picture you posted.

 

[lion king]

You'll likely be better to start off initially with offering ghosties. My angler thread offers the most comprehensive information I have right now. I've stated many times that my food recommendations are based on what's most frequently available to most, and what's been proven by me to produce long term success. Any live food source will always be best if you breed them yourself, and sure if you can go out in the ocean and catch your own silversides(salt water variety not smelt or minnows they call silversides), then you will obviously be better off. While ghosties may contain thiaminess their live enzymes and viable vitamin B1 will negate any negative effects, guppies and mollies do not contain thiaminese. Any negative nutritional claims on the live foods I recommend have never successfully been challenged by anyone actually able to keep the same species as I speak on, and all of my predators live very long lives. I will strongly state, most sources of any live food today have a very high chance of being compromised by toxic water conditions. You really should set up your own breeding project. As of today the best outcome seems to be between 3-5 years, and as Jay stated most die pretty quickly.

An added note; angler must be released under the water, them gulping air could prove deadly.

 

[littlefoxx]

You'll likely be better to start off initially with offering ghosties. My angler thread offers the most comprehensive information I have right now. I've stated many times that my food recommendations are based on what's most frequently available to most, and what's been proven by me to produce long term success. Any live food source will always be best if you breed them yourself, and sure if you can go out in the ocean and catch your own silversides(salt water variety not smelt or minnows they call silversides), then you will obviously be better off. While ghosties may contain thiaminess their live enzymes and viable vitamin B1 will negate any negative effects, guppies and mollies do not contain thiaminese. Any negative nutritional claims on the live foods I recommend have never successfully been challenged by anyone actually able to keep the same species as I speak on, and all of my predators live very long lives. I will strongly state, most sources of any live food today have a very high chance of being compromised by toxic water conditions. You really should set up your own breeding project. As of today the best outcome seems to be between 3-5 years, and as Jay stated most die pretty quickly.

An added note; angler must be released under the water, them gulping air could prove deadly.

I am in a land locked state unfortunately and only have access to frozen silversides and store bought mollies/guppies.

 

[lion king]

I am in a land locked state unfortunately and only have access to frozen silversides and store bought mollies/guppies.

Start out with guppies, initially you may have to purchase, but I suggest setting up a small tank and get some fancy guppies or mollies to breed. Check out the sites dedicated to breeding guppies or mollies, they will have the best suggestions for you to succeed. The only brand of silversides that are true silversides is the San Francisco Bay brand, the other brands will be various forms of fresh water fish that contain the wrong fats and high in thiaminese. While anglers may accept dead foods they always perish soon after offering a dead only diet. Even if you did have access to wild fish, you must know the specific species. Fish that contain the wrong fats and high in thiaminese will kill your angler within months.

 

[lion king]

Lion King's dead food recommendations

I'm a health nut if you haven't noticed, this also translates to my pets. Today I will cover some of the dead foods I feed and why, with some nutritional info that I recall off the top of my head. This is by no means all the foods you can feed, these are just the ones I include in my feedings...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[littlefoxx]

Start out with guppies, initially you may have to purchase, but I suggest setting up a small tank and get some fancy guppies or mollies to breed. Check out the sites dedicated to breeding guppies or mollies, they will have the best suggestions for you to succeed. The only brand of silversides that are true silversides is the San Francisco Bay brand, the other brands will be various forms of fresh water fish that contain the wrong fats and high in thiaminese. While anglers may accept dead foods they always perish soon after offering a dead only diet. Even if you did have access to wild fish, you must know the specific species. Fish that contain the wrong fats and high in thiaminese will kill your angler within months.

Okay I will do that with the guppies! When you set the breeder tank up, do you breed them in saltwater or keep them freshwater?

 

[lion king]

Guppies are brackish, check out sites for hobbyist that breed guppies.

 

[littlefoxx]

So I had some brine shrimp babies in my hatchery I was using to get my marine betta to eat and I put the babies in the 32 biocube I dedicated to the angler fish. Will he eat brine when/if they get bigger? Also wanting to know what corals he can go with?