New seahorse doing laps and avoiding feeding

[nessyyy]

Hi all! I got 2 H. whitei seahorses on Wednesday. My girl is eating well, took a day or so to get her comfortable eating frozen mysis and brine from the tweezer.
The boy starts doing laps around the tank when I approach and will avoid the tweezers. Sometimes if I catch him chilling on his fave sinularia I'll try to feed him then and he'll turn his head away from me
I have watched him eating pods off the rocks eagerly, my tank is filled with them but I can't count on him eating pods forever...
I have ordered live mysid shrimp to maybe get him acclimated a bit. Though I'd prefer him to just take the frozen mysis from me... I've even tried cutting squid into tiny slivers, the same size as mysis. It's like he doesn't even see the food.

Parameters are Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 Salinity 1.024, Temp 24C. They are from a pretty well known breeder in Tasmania so they should both be CB.

Any tips?

 

[rayjay]

I'd be MORE concerned if you HADN'T see the seahorse eating as it means the eating at the moment is just preferential.
Instead of feeding with a tweezers, why not use a feeding dish or even do broadcast feeding of the frozen mysis and see what happens?
I bought 6 abdominalis and 8 barbouri from the same source you bought from and some individuals took longer than others to eat to my satisfaction. I personally keep bare bottom tanks so that I can broadcast feed as I like to see them actively pursuing the food. (gives them exercise as well)
I feed smaller amounts at a time, but more times a day (4), and only after rinsing the frozen food well so that smaller particles are washed out of the appropriately sized mesh net, leaving only the pieces they are most likely to eat to be placed into the tank. I've got the food portions worked out now so that there are pretty well no pieces remaining on the tank bottom after about 10-15 minutes.

 

[nessyyy]

I'd be MORE concerned if you HADN'T see the seahorse eating as it means the eating at the moment is just preferential.
Instead of feeding with a tweezers, why not use a feeding dish or even do broadcast feeding of the frozen mysis and see what happens?
I bought 6 abdominalis and 8 barbouri from the same source you bought from and some individuals took longer than others to eat to my satisfaction. I personally keep bare bottom tanks so that I can broadcast feed as I like to see them actively pursuing the food. (gives them exercise as well)
I feed smaller amounts at a time, but more times a day (4), and only after rinsing the frozen food well so that smaller particles are washed out of the appropriately sized mesh net, leaving only the pieces they are most likely to eat to be placed into the tank. I've got the food portions worked out now so that there are pretty well no pieces remaining on the tank bottom after about 10-15 minutes.

Thanks for your reply! I have tried broadcast feeding, the female is getting the hang of it and the boy doesn't seem to care much. He is mostly intent on staring at the rocks and sand. I did finally see him snick one brine shrimp from the water last night, but otherwise wasn't interested in eating more. Whenever I look at him, he is eating pods off the rocks. Hopefully the live food will help out a bit. I made a feeder last night like the salty glasses design and tried it out, neither of them could get the concept of it but I will keep trying
I have also noticed weird behavior when I turn out the lights for the past two days. He will to a corner and make very odd movements with his body for a minute or two, then go back to swimming around. I am not sure if he is seeing his reflection and wanting to fight with it or if it is something else. First time I got so spooked I turned the lights back on and he went back to acting normal immediately. Then lights off again and he did the same strange dance in the corner
for a few minutes.

 

[rayjay]

For me, the feeder only worked for most of the seahorses but not all of them so I quit using them and went to just broadcast feeding. Others though have great success and it may be in part that there aren't as many seahorses in each tank so the success rate is more apparent.
I haven't experienced anything like you describe for it's movements so maybe someone else can chime in on that.
Last thing I can say is that seahorses don't all take the same amount of time to get used to their new surroundings and being that you have only recently placed them in this tank, it would not be considered unusual that they still have some getting used to it syndrome.