I haven’t seen my Red Rooster Pygmy Waspfish Eat

MantisShrimpMan

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I purchased it and acclimated it into my tank on Monday night. At the same time, I got a pair of perculas. They’ve been eating the fish food I already had on hand- Reef Nutrition Mysis feast. That said, my waspfish found a cave (Im bummed because I had hoped that cave would remain vacant for when I get a jawfish in the upcoming month!) and even though I can usually get a line of sight on the waspfish, I have yet to witness any clear, definable feeding.

Moreover, many reports I’m seeing on here suggest the waspfish will act similar to dragonets. I know all fish have their own personalities, but will my waspfish venture into the open more often as he settles in? Or am I likely to have a permanently shy fish?

Considering this is my first tank, I currently have some brine shrimp eggs and one of those roomba shaped hatcheries on its way to me. But I’m worried by the idea that its been 2 days and I have yet to witness any feeding. Are they likely to eat baby brine? Or do i need to also get black worms? Is this lack of visible eating normal?
 

Sharkbait19

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I just got mine on Sunday, so take this with a grain of salt.
Scorpionfish generally don’t need to eat super frequently, and instead take large meals a few days apart. It can take weeks for it to become comfortable enough to come out and feed for you, and target feeding is necessary. Mine also seems to be nocturnal, so feeding at night will give the best results.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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I just got mine on Sunday, so take this with a grain of salt.
Scorpionfish generally don’t need to eat super frequently, and instead take large meals a few days apart. It can take weeks for it to become comfortable enough to come out and feed for you, and target feeding is necessary. Mine also seems to be nocturnal, so feeding at night will give the best results.
thanks for responding quickly. I had the same thought, so I tried feeding him using a pipette at night. It’s hard to get a pipette into his little cave, but even then I have not seen him go after the food, in fact, the notion of stuff coming out of the pipette seems to spook him.

my tank is young and doesn’t have a major pod population yet. I’m just really worried this fish will die if I can’t get him to feed soon. Can they go without feeding for more than a week?
 

lion king

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They will sometimes need live foods to get them started and will need to be target fed. Here's a thread with alot of good info, I've had my trio for 3 years. Being small they do take more frequent feeding than other similar predators, they've likely been starved due to their initial difficulty in feeding, so I wouldn't wait long to offer them live foods; live brine, black worms, ghost shrimp, pods preferably amphipods. Every other day once settled in, I feed mine more like 3-4 times a week, they come out looking for me when they are hungry.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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I just got mine on Sunday, so take this with a grain of salt.
Scorpionfish generally don’t need to eat super frequently, and instead take large meals a few days apart. It can take weeks for it to become comfortable enough to come out and feed for you, and target feeding is necessary. Mine also seems to be nocturnal, so feeding at night will give the best results.
They will sometimes need live foods to get them started and will need to be target fed. Here's a thread with alot of good info, I've had my trio for 3 years. Being small they do take more frequent feeding than other similar predators, they've likely been starved due to their initial difficulty in feeding, so I wouldn't wait long to offer them live foods; live brine, black worms, ghost shrimp, pods preferably amphipods. Every other day once settled in, I feed mine more like 3-4 times a week, they come out looking for me when they are hungry.
Both of you, thanks for the responses, but I could still use a bit of guidance:

I went online and bought live blackworms (which has crazy expensive mandatory next day shipping) as well as brine shrimp eggs&hatchery. The first batch of eggs in said hatchery have been wet for about 20 hours, and the room temp theyre in is relatively cold (68-70) so I’m not seeing any hatched yet. The black worms also arrived, I did a lot of research online on how to culture them yourself, so I had a bin pre set up to use to culture them, but in the process of transferring them into said bin, I took a handful to use for my fish.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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So, first live feeding my fish have received!

my clownfish were enthusiastic eaters of the mysis slurry I already had from when I purchased tank supplies prior to their arrival. That said- some of the bigger bits of mysis (such as the complete heads) were too big for my clowns- they’d inhale it, then spit it back out.

this led me to assume my clowns would not be interested in the blackworms considering how long they are. Boy, was I wrong. Took them a second but they started grabbing one end and slurping the whole thing down like a piece of spaghetti.

However, I’m still not seeing what I’d like to be seeing from my waspfish? So I made sure to use my pipette to stick blackworms in his vicinity. He’s a bit skittish of my pipette, which certainly doesn’t help. So then I decided to push the tip of the pipette into the sand upon releasing the blackworms, which seems to have helped with keeping the blackworms from getting sucked up into the water column.

The good news is that A) I’ve had this fish for 4 days and he’s still alive (as a complete beginner, might be a low bar, but that’s so far so good) and B) he certainly seems a bit more engaged right now. Usually during the daytime he picks a tight cave and stays there. He’s actually out in the open right now, and it appears to be the case that he is eyeing the worms around him.

but the bad news is that I’m still not seeing a feeding response. I still have not personally witnessed a case of him lunging at a food particle, or opening his mouth, or anything.

I know they’re at least somewhat nocturnal so it has been my hope that maybe he’s just eating when I’m not there to witness it. That said, it’s still worrying. I see all these YouTube videos where the waspfish, even if it sits still initially, ultimately lunges and consumes the food. I’ve not observed any of that in my waspfish. As of right now, he’s sitting out, sort of just looking at the worms around him but not actually eating them.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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I’m hoping he’ll eat some of them soon, whether in front of me or not (though I’d prefer to witness it for reassurance!) also, I should have some brine ready to feed within 24 hours, but still, the fact that I have not received a clear-as-day positive response to my first effort with live foods, concerns me.
 

Sharkbait19

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Do you have a separate tank you may be able to monitor him in (assuming it’s not too hard to catch)?
I’m sure he’s getting something in the dt, but I can definitely agree with the struggle of wanting to see it eat.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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Do you have a separate tank you may be able to monitor him in (assuming it’s not too hard to catch)?
I’m sure he’s getting something in the dt, but I can definitely agree with the struggle of wanting to see it eat.
Don’t have a separate tank, but I do have good news.

despite the fact that my current resurgence of nitrite suggests I am over feeding, I decided to pipette another squirt of blackworms in front of him a few hours later, after noticing that he had moved towards the location my initial feeding was at.

He still doesn’t associate the pipette with food, but in the period of 2 minutes, I saw him lunge at 2-4 blackworms. First definitive feeding behavior I have witnessed from him. Very reassuring and absolutely made my day.
 

lion king

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I was going to mention to be careful not to pollute your tank, its easy to do when you are trying to feed a difficult to feed fish.

Through toughest part is the initial establishment of feeding. It won't be as expensive after they get accustomed to captive living. If you can find some small live ghost shrimp they are one of the best initial offerings, you can just drop 2-3 inand let them hunt them down on their own.

I very rarely see my male, and even blow through the rocks with a baster to chase him out and make sure he's still alive. And somehow this guy still finds food somehow.

Be careful but keep offering him a couple of worms as look as he is out in the open, thats how mine signal to me that they are hungry. It's good to kind of fatten them at first, they've likely went a long time without food or any decent food.
 
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My waspfish was the first addition to my tank. Really want a blue spot jawfish, and sure as ****, the perfect spot in my tank for a jawfish to make its burrow, is my waspfish’s hiding spot. I’ve done the same- used my baster to flush him out. Don’t want him to stress out too much- but I’d prefer he not make that one cave his territory, lol.
I very rarely see my male, and even blow through the rocks with a baster to chase him out and make sure he's still alive. And somehow this guy still finds food somehow.
 
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Through toughest part is the initial establishment of feeding. It won't be as expensive after they get accustomed to captive living. If you can find some small live ghost shrimp they are one of the best initial offerings, you can just drop 2-3 in and let them hunt them down on their own.
I mean, I’ve already spent more on feeding this fish than I did on the fish himself, which is nuts considering he ran me $120. A brine hatchery from bulk reef for ~$35, live blackworms for ~$80, equipment to continuously cultivate my blackworms ~$25 so far and more will likely be necessary.

can I avoid having to also pursue ghost shrimp if this guy finally ate the worms?
 

lion king

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My waspfish was the first addition to my tank. Really want a blue spot jawfish, and sure as ****, the perfect spot in my tank for a jawfish to make its burrow, is my waspfish’s hiding spot. I’ve done the same- used my baster to flush him out. Don’t want him to stress out too much- but I’d prefer he not make that one cave his territory, lol.

I use the baster to check on the guy after I haven't seen him for like 3 months. They will not fight a jawfish for territory, they'll either share or more likely move. While mine do occasionally hang together, they do tend to be more solitary.

Ghost shrimp are like 4 or 5 for a dollar, this feeding usually only last for a couple of weeks at most. They usually will start taking other foods from the pipette once they start feeding regularly. I just think the ghosties are a good boost in nutrition considering a new addition.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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I use the baster to check on the guy after I haven't seen him for like 3 months. They will not fight a jawfish for territory, they'll either share or more likely move. While mine do occasionally hang together, they do tend to be more solitary.

Ghost shrimp are like 4 or 5 for a dollar, this feeding usually only last for a couple of weeks at most. They usually will start taking other foods from the pipette once they start feeding regularly. I just think the ghosties are a good boost in nutrition considering a new addition.
Hey, one question- if I get a good photo of mine, can you confirm if it is a male?

after seeing all these reports of people keeping 2 or even 3, I wouldn’t mind getting a second, especially if it had the potential to become a bonded pair
 

lion king

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Hey, one question- if I get a good photo of mine, can you confirm if it is a male?

after seeing all these reports of people keeping 2 or even 3, I wouldn’t mind getting a second, especially if it had the potential to become a bonded pair

If you looked through the thread I posted, I showed how to determine male and female, I have 2 females and a male. It would very unlikely they would become a bonded pair, they tend to be more solitary.
 
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MantisShrimpMan

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If you looked through the thread I posted, I showed how to determine male and female, I have 2 females and a male. It would very unlikely they would become a bonded pair, they tend to be more solitary.
I’ve seen your thread, I’m trying to confirm that I understand it correctly.
68293215-4016-47A9-800D-3308EB33020B.jpeg

Here’s mine. I believe he is a male.

Heres another one I just saw today at the LFS. I believe that one is a female.
661BFA93-2949-4F27-A7FB-0CFF8D876FA9.jpeg

Am I correct?
 

lion king

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I think you right, it can be deceiving in pics because of the angle. The second and third spike on the dorsal fin of the male will be longer and separated from the other spikes, while on the female the spikes rise uniformly from back to front. Here side by side you can see thew male in front with the female behind.

1674336778504.png
 

YungSonTheSun

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Try throwing in a frozen blood worm cube and see if they go after that. Mine personally love blood worms and will chase them down and retreat to which spot they came out of.
 

MoshJosh

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Can't offer specific advise, but this is my experience:

I may not be of much help as I am pretty new to waspfish myself. I have a male and female in my 29 gallon mixed reef. The female came from the store eating prepared food, the male was brand new to the store the day I got him. Both are mostly hidden during the day, but both come out to feed. So far I only broadcast feed them. I feed the entire tank frozen "reef" food. I find that most my other fish (damsels) ignore the big chunks. Those chunks then float around the tank and the wasps position themselves in areas of flow and snatch them up. The wasps are pretty docile and don't seem interested in squabbling over territory with other fish (the male did chase the female once). My damsels will swim up and "display" and push them away from their nest and the wasp fish raise their spines but then swim away.
IMG_0062.jpeg

IMG_0096.jpeg
 

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