Clownfish eating habits

[Rick O]

About two weeks ago I bought a pair of juvenile tank raised Amphiprion ocellaris for my 20 gallon tank. One of them has never eaten anything in my presence. He will take food in his mouth but immediately spits it back out. I have tried a variety of frozen and dry foods but he appears to not like any of them. Otherwise the fish swims and acts normally. Since he is tank raised he will eagerly swim to the front of the glass to greet me whenever I approach the tank and I've observed the tank from a distance to see if he is being harassed but he's not. I assume that he's getting nutrition from somewhere because he's not getting skinny. The tank does have a large population of pods and snails that are about the size of a pinhead. I can only guess that he's eating them.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would appreciate hearing them.

Thanks,
Rick

[BrianD]

Hi Rick

Keep feeding the tank. He will come around. You might try some live brine shrimp. Not a permanent food source, but it might get the fish excited about eating again.

BTW, I just added a maroon clown a couple of weeks ago, and it also looked like it was just "tasting" the food for the first week. It fed most aggressively when I put chunks of Formula 1 in.

Brian

[Rick O]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the advice. I was afraid someone might suggest live food. I'll give that a try but I hope he lowers his standards a little. It's a real pain to go out to pick up live brine every few days. BTW, I tried Formula 1 and he treated it the same as the other foods.

[BamBam]

Some clowns don't like Formula 1 frozen too much - either they like the gel binder in it or they hate it! Clowns that don't like Formula 1 seem to like either frozen Brine Shrimp Plus or Prime Reef. The Tomato clown that I've had for 7 months occasionally does the spit-out routine (although is a voracious eater, too). For the live of me, I haven't figured out any patterns regarding when or why he does it (he'll do it to his favorite food - Prime Reef - too).

But try Brian's suggestion, the live brine shrimp - one try with it might be all it takes to get him to keep down his regular food.

[postenje]

While we are talking about feeding clowns.. how much will they eat?

I feed my pink skunk 3 to 4 times a day. I alternate between Prime Reef flakes, Tetra Marine flakes, and live brine. The little bugger will eat and eat. If I go slow and just give him little doses so that he can eat it before it gets sucked into the intake I am there for 10 minutes or more at times.

How much is healthy for them?

He is around 1 to 1 and a half inches long.

Jeff

PS: He is in a 10g low light tank with shrooms and button polyps. He loves to hang out in the mushrooms. I have read that mushrooms are mildly toxic. Do you think they have any effect on him? What I mean does his protective mucus include mushroom toxins?