Getting a Quoyi to Eat

ca1ore · Feb 21, 2017

Any clever suggestions on how to get a quoyi parrotfish to eat? Bought off DD a couple of weeks ago. I have a pretty wide range of foods in the freezer - he ignores them all! He will take the small NLS 1 mm pellets with some enthusiasm, but that's it. Worried that he will not compete well in the big tank.

saltyhog · Feb 21, 2017

I really hate to hear this ca1ore! I am just looking for one the size I want and hadn't considered them difficult until a couple of threads the last week or so. Subscribed....I want to hear others experiences with this species.

eatbreakfast · Feb 22, 2017

@Maritimer has been confronted with a similar problem. He has going to try a ham bone, based off of an experience of catching parrotfish in FL.

Also, try a coraline covered piece of live rock.

Maritimer · Feb 22, 2017

I've tried a lot of things so far, but it's hard to say whether he will or won't eat them, as he hasn't come out much at all to give them a chance. (Ham bone goes in before I leave for work this morning - I'll let y'all know how that goes!) He's been in my 75 gallon QT for two weeks, as of tonight.

My list includes:
Red, green and brown nori, in a clip or banded to a rock.
Live Caulerpa and Chaetomorpha, banded to a rock.
Coraline-covered liverock.
Frozen foods, including brine, mysis, copepods, calanus, Ocean Nutrition's three primary blends, three different kinds of LRS and Rod's Food, with and without garlic.
NLS 1mm pellets, Ocean Nutrition small pellets (formula 1 & 2, mixed, and smaller than the NLS) and flake.
NLS algae wafer - the kind they make for freshwater plecostomus.
Live/fresh-cracked (and whole-frozen) littleneck clams on the half-shell.

There may be other things I've forgotten that I've tried over the last two weeks. To date, I haven't _seen_ him eat anything, partly because his QT is covered with black plastic for privacy. I've only seen him come out of his PVC pipe fittings for brief periods - about a minute on his first day, thirty seconds or so a couple of days ago ... and a several-minute swim, interspersed with trying on new PVC hidey-holes last night. I'm hoping that he'll at least start to feed on _something_ soon - and then, as time goes on, broaden his palate.

I've also got some small damselfish (Chromis retrofasciata) in with him, and am hoping that they'll help alert him to the fact that the smell in the water means food for fish, without really being competition. In any case, I'm also going to be leaving him some pellets on the tank bottom before I start my day, so he can snack on them through the day.

He's had a rough couple of weeks (Well, _he_ seems to think he has . . . ) but he has already moved from one pipe to another this morning. (Woohoo! He stayed in one single pipe combination for a week and a half!)

~Bruce

ca1ore · Feb 22, 2017

Bruce and I have been corresponding over on that other forum, but I thought I'd post here as well.

Mine hasn't been quite as reclusive, and has even started following me around a bit. He does eat the small NLS pellets, as I note in my OP, and today he actually ate a few small chunks of LRS. I did put a piece of live rock in the QT, but he mostly ignores it.

Perhaps these fish just need a long acclimation. Only a sample size of one for me, but this fish certainly seem like it really needs the uncompetitive environment that is QT.

saltyhog · Feb 22, 2017

ca1ore said:
Bruce and I have been corresponding over on that other forum, but I thought I'd post here as well.

Mine hasn't been quite as reclusive, and has even started following me around a bit. He does eat the small NLS pellets, as I note in my OP, and today he actually ate a few small chunks of LRS. I did put a piece of live rock in the QT, but he mostly ignores it.

Perhaps these fish just need a long acclimation. Only a sample size of one for me, but this fish certainly seem like it really needs the uncompetitive environment that is QT.

Good stuff! I'm more and more thinking most fish can benefit from a longer stint in an appropriate sized QT. Sounds like yours has already associated you with food. Maybe that will make it easier to get him to eating frozen.

I finally had my first fish that didn't seem to like LRS (my Ear Muff Wrasse) but with persistence he now eats it with vigor as well as anything else I feed except nori.

Maritimer · Feb 22, 2017

I know that mine was in the shop where I got him for at least three weeks prior to purchase, and I know that he was eating - or at least chomping the algae from the rock - as I could see scrape marks on it.

~Bruce

Maritimer · Feb 23, 2017

By the way ...

Although I never saw the Quoy's out of the pipes yesterday, _something_ yanked that ham bone around during the afternoon . . .

~Bruce

ca1ore · Feb 23, 2017

Made progress the last couple of days. He ate LRS yesterday and PE Mysis today, along with being, now, a pellet vacuum.

Maritimer · Feb 23, 2017

That's great!

By the time you're ready to transfer him out of QT, he may be just as swinish as all your other finned residents!

~Bruce, still looking for tailfins sticking out of PVC fittings . . .

saltyhog · Feb 23, 2017

ca1ore said:
Made progress the last couple of days. He ate LRS yesterday and PE Mysis today, along with being, now, a pellet vacuum.

Great news!

Breakthecycle2 · Feb 24, 2017

I told you! Just give them time. They take awhile to come around.

Maritimer · Feb 25, 2017

Some more than others...

Got home from my weekly 24-hr shift, and mine is still hiding in a PVC pipe - but he's hiding in a pipe at the _other_end_ of the tank!

After two and a half weeks at the north end, I'm encouraged by a visit to the south end . . . (hey - I'll take what I can get!)

~Bruce

ca1ore · Feb 25, 2017

Breakthecycle2 said:
I told you! Just give them time. They take awhile to come around.

You did?

True for most new fish though. Looks like I'm out of the woods with my Quoyi, eating just about everything now.

Breakthecycle2 · Mar 9, 2017

I just got a second one today. Acclimating him to QT. Once its done in there, Im going to put him in an acclimation box and see how it goes.

Maritimer · Mar 9, 2017

Sounds interesting...

I've seen two in the same tank in a LFS.

I've seen videos and forum threads showing two Quoy's in the same tank.

I've heard from someone I respect a great deal that in his experience, two in a tank _didn't_ work on two separate occasions.

Mine ... four full weeks after purchase ... is still spending almost all of his time hiding in PVC pipe fittings. Got meds from Dr. Foster & Smith last night, so - woohoo! - could do a 28 or so gallon water change on the 75 gallon QT - and sucked an awful lot of goo (that used to be NLS pellets) off the bottom of the tank. I'm beginning to become frustrated.

Went to a (different) LFS to check out a Quoy's he'd posted on Facebook - he'd had it labelled as a Princess parrot, but it was sold. (He did offer a tip or two on getting my guy to eat - tried one, but it didn't pan out.) Swung past a nearby Petco on the way home ... and they had a Princess parrotfish. ("Aaah," said the Petco person, "There might be ich in that system..." "It's Petco", I replied. "Of _course_ there's ich in the system! I'm already treating with CopperSafe, so . . . ") Smaller than my Quoy's, and transitional. Got to wondering . . . would it have any effect on the Quoy's to have another parrotfish in proximity?

So now I, too, have two. The princess parrot swims about the tank, and I've seen her pluck bits of frozen food out of the water column. The Quoy's . . . mostly hides in PVC pipe fittings.

I'm still frustrated with this ... fish.

~Bruce

Breakthecycle2 · Mar 10, 2017

Maritimer said:
Sounds interesting...

I've seen two in the same tank in a LFS.

I've seen videos and forum threads showing two Quoy's in the same tank.

I've heard from someone I respect a great deal that in his experience, two in a tank _didn't_ work on two separate occasions.

Mine ... four full weeks after purchase ... is still spending almost all of his time hiding in PVC pipe fittings. Got meds from Dr. Foster & Smith last night, so - woohoo! - could do a 28 or so gallon water change on the 75 gallon QT - and sucked an awful lot of goo (that used to be NLS pellets) off the bottom of the tank. I'm beginning to become frustrated.

Went to a (different) LFS to check out a Quoy's he'd posted on Facebook - he'd had it labelled as a Princess parrot, but it was sold. (He did offer a tip or two on getting my guy to eat - tried one, but it didn't pan out.) Swung past a nearby Petco on the way home ... and they had a Princess parrotfish. ("Aaah," said the Petco person, "There might be ich in that system..." "It's Petco", I replied. "Of _course_ there's ich in the system! I'm already treating with CopperSafe, so . . . ") Smaller than my Quoy's, and transitional. Got to wondering . . . would it have any effect on the Quoy's to have another parrotfish in proximity?

So now I, too, have two. The princess parrot swims about the tank, and I've seen her pluck bits of frozen food out of the water column. The Quoy's . . . mostly hides in PVC pipe fittings.

I'm still frustrated with this ... fish.

~Bruce

A month without eating? That isn't good obviously. Have tried garlic soaked pellets? Live brine?

Maritimer · Mar 10, 2017

Have tried live brine, and garlic-soaked frozen blends, pellets, flakes, dog food, clams on the half-shell, nori with and without garlic, live caulerpa, GHA and chaetomorpha, and even a ham bone. I'm probably forgetting a few things.

Got a blow-by-blow thread in the disease forum, here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/no-disease-yet-but-concerned-with-new-quoyi-parrotfish.289450/

I'm thinking to order some live black worms, and recently got the idea to wrap a frozen cube in nori before banding it to a rock . . . but he's gotta come out of the PVC and start _looking_ for food, or none of it's going to work!

He's been through one round of Prazi-Pro, a treatment of Metronidazole (water treatment, not food treatment - for obvious reasons) and is currently in CopperSafe. In a PVC pipe fitting.

~Bruce

Breakthecycle2 · Mar 10, 2017

So, I "messed" up potentially. The Quoyi I bought yesterday, I thought for sure was going to die today. I went to an LFS and found a very large male for $35. I went for it, only to come home and see the other one still alive, very skiddish, but doesn't seem to have heavy, labored breathing as he did earlier. Long story short, I now have two males in QT and my female in my main tank. If they all live, not sure what to do.

Quah · Mar 10, 2017

Breakthecycle2 said:
So, I "messed" up potentially. The Quoyi I bought yesterday, I thought for sure was going to die today. I went to an LFS and found a very large male for $35. I went for it, only to come home and see the other one still alive, very skiddish, but doesn't seem to have heavy, labored breathing as he did earlier. Long story short, I now have two males in QT and my female in my main tank. If they all live, not sure what to do.

Man $35 is a steal, do you know where your LFS gets their fish? I've had one in QT for about a week. He didn't eat or move much for the first week. Yesterday marked the 2nd week he has been in the QT he's since come around. He moves about the tank, snacks on stuff I've left and today I rubberbanded a sheet of nori to a frag plug and he ate it completely. Mine has been probably the most finicky I've ever dealt with.