Lyretail Anthias - tips for converting food types

Brian S · Nov 6, 2023

Thanks for the time!

I have two types of anthias in my 90 gallon - lyretail and ignitus. All but the biggest lyretail have converted to pellet food.

Any tips to get the last one the hump?

He's the biggest of the anthias, he'll take non-frozen food, but immediately spits it out.

I've tried flake and pellet - same results.

Thx!

areefer01 · Nov 6, 2023

Are these in the display or QT or isolation and observation? QT, isolation, observation are obviously easier to deal with since they are alone which allows better note taking.

In any case I here is what I do if it helps any. I have 4 pink square anthias although they are captive bred, raised, via Biota. I do this with all of my fish though most of which are captive bred/raised. All of this is small portions by the way as I feed hourly dry and frozen twice.

Dry foods:
PE Mysis Pellet
Hikari Marine S
Hikari Marine A
TDO x-small
TDO small
TDO medium

At first I will select one from the list above, put a pinch in, step back, and watch to see if they eat it. Striking and consuming vs ignoring. Next feeding session which is an hour later, I try the next one. Another pinch. Observe if they strike and consume. By pinch I mean a few pellets that the current can move but not muddy the water if that makes sense. Rotate through the next one. This is pass one.

Next day I will add in some frozen food with the pinch of dry. LRS Nano or Fish works for me the best. I put both in at the same time and watch. Smell might be the wrong word to use here but basically I'm rotating through the foods one at a time and watching what they eat or strike. Mix in a bit of frozen like chum in the water (sharks) and it gets them more into a feeding frenzy.

When all said and done I've found this works. This is then the blend of dry I feed throughout the day. Sometimes it takes a while for me with my most recent being the Milletseed butterflyfish. It would only eat frozen brine and took about 5 weeks to eat dry. TDO x-small did the trick in this case now it eats everything.

Flatearth · Nov 6, 2023

Does it eat frozen food at least? If so then soaking the pellet first might help, maybe the hardness is causing him to spit it out. If he is not eating at all then you can soak the food in garlic.