Watching fish age.

[Paul B]

About 10%. If it was not so heavy I would use nothing else.

 

[Paul B]

I took this picture in Bora Bora and long nose butterflies are rather common there and they have no trouble living with the very large fish of the South Pacific. They have their niche with their long nose and can pull food from deep holes. The wild ones in the picture seem to have longer snouts than the ones in our tanks. Maybe because those fish are not collected in Bora Bora being so remote from just about everywhere. I am sure their snouts kept evolving longer to get at those elusive worms because other fish there also have long snouts to get at that food but no where near as long as these butterflies.
They don't dive in the coral as that nose is very fragile and their jaw looks as if it would break just by thinking about diving in coral. If they damage that mouth, they die. They can not eat much at one time and must forage all day. They also can not tear food into pieces like many fish can. They try by shaking their heads but those tiny teeth are practically useless for tearing and I would imagine just by the physics of their anatomy that if they shake too hard they would crack their jaw.
These types of fish along with mandarins, seahorses and pipefish need to eat at least a few times a day, preferably all day but that is not usually possable in a captive reef which is why these types of fish are considered "difficult". It is not their fault that they are difficult, but ours. They live quite well if their needs are met especially in regard to food. If we were fed half a cow once a day and were not allowed to use our hands. And it was consumed by other creatures in a matter of seconds, we would also starve,
But if that cow was cut up in tiny pieces and re plenished every few minutes, we would not have a problem.
I personally feed my fish in the morning with some live worms. That is mainly to keep the long nose healthy and many of the other fish are not up yet because they can eat more food at one seating so they get along with the last meal in the afternoon.
Then I give the tank new born brine shrimp every day.
The shrimp are for the tiny bluestripe pipefish, the clown gobies and some corals like the gorgonians. The other fish eat them but I think they think of them like M&Ms because they are just too small to supply much nutrition.
If I did not feed worms and baby shrimp, I would not be able to keep these fish long enough for them to die of old age. I would not have a fish that I was not willing to care for. The fish we keep should not have to adapt to our world but we should at least try the best we can to have the world we create for them to be as close as possable to their world. We can not give them an ocean to swim in but we can and should at least supply them with what they need and what they recognize as food.
No matter how nutritious it is, if they don't recognize it as food, they will not eat it.