Picky eater sand sifter tricks to get eating prepared foods?

[swiss1939]

I've just added a captive bred rainfordi goby which doesn't seem to care about any of the live/frozen/flake food in the water column. I feed tdo pellets of various sizes, flake food, frozen brine and live baby brine all in rotation at different times/days. The rainfordi seems to only be interested in sifting sand. My tank is 4 months old with lots of amphipods that are larger, and copepods which I can never tell if I have enough or not. So I am trying to find ways to get the rainfordi goby to eat either nori or algae pellets, etc. Pretty much anything else in addition to whatever it can pick out of the sand.

I've seen it mildly interested in hikari algae pellets that sit on the sand bed, and also peck at a few hikari crab pellets that also sink to the sand bed, but he doesn't really sit there finishing off either of these pellets, more grazes over it, gives it a few extra pecks then moves on. I'm also currently trying to get it to eat nori rubber banded to a small rock in its grazing area, which it doesn't pay any attention to.

Just curious if anyone has suggestions on keeping this rainfordi goby fed beyond the amphipods and copepods in the sand. Again, I know I have a decent amount of both pods, but I just don't know if it is enough to fully sustain the rainfordi solely on that in a 170. I also have a tail spot that seems to peck at the rocks for copepods.

 

[lapin]

You could try black worms. They will live for a short period of time. Enough time to find there way onto and into the sand.

 

[ichthyogeek]

^^This. White worms are said to live longer in the tank. You might also be interested in looking into weaning fish onto frozen.

 

[swiss1939]

^^This. White worms are said to live longer in the tank. You might also be interested in looking into weaning fish onto frozen.

Thats what im trying to do... but i put frozen in and everyone else goes nuts for it.. this guy doesn't even notice it. Not sure how to get it interested in the frozen.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Thats what im trying to do... but i put frozen in and everyone else goes nuts for it.. this guy doesn't even notice it. Not sure how to get it interested in the frozen.

So first, take the fish out of the tank and into another empty tank. Then, feed it with brine shrimp(live) [the food]with something like a turkey baster (the cue). Once it's started taking the live food item, and associated the cue with food, mix in a little bit of the frozen food item (in this example, frozen brine shrimp). Then, once it's been shown to eat the frozen food item, slowly transition it from eating all live, to mostly live and some frozen, to mostly frozen and some live, to all frozen. Then you can start mixing in other foods.

 

[swiss1939]

So first, take the fish out of the tank and into another empty tank. Then, feed it with brine shrimp(live) [the food]with something like a turkey baster (the cue). Once it's started taking the live food item, and associated the cue with food, mix in a little bit of the frozen food item (in this example, frozen brine shrimp). Then, once it's been shown to eat the frozen food item, slowly transition it from eating all live, to mostly live and some frozen, to mostly frozen and some live, to all frozen. Then you can start mixing in other foods.

Great tip! Unfortunately I have no second tank. My clowns are conditioned already to respond to turkey baster when purchased from LFS. They run right up to the baster and start biting it as soon as its in the tank. I've got a blenny and this goby in the tank and i've tried to get both to eat from the baster. The blenny isn't afraid of the baster, but won't take from it. Instead the blenny will chase down pieces which have already been taken by the current. This goby is afraid of the baster so far. I will try feeding live baby brine with it and see if the goby responds to that. I normally just dump the live baby brine in and let them mix with the current, which sets the clowns into a frenzy. But I'll start feeding baby brine using the baster to see if I can get both the blenny and the goby conditioned to eating from the baster!

Thanks for the tips!