Is it unusual to not see your fish eat?

[Steve Gordon]

I have a little yellow clown goby in my 10g softie/LPS tank. He's been in there for about 3 weeks now, but the strange thing is that he seems completely uninterested in any food I give him. The guy at the LFS first sold me cyclop-eez, but he doesn't seem to be interested. Next I tried mysis, which is what the LFS feeds them, still nothing. I've even tried putting in a few peices of a dry, crumble-type food. Nothing seems to work. I've soaked everything in selcon, shot it towards him with a turkey baster, and generally tried everything I can to get him to eat.

I figure he's got to be eating something to live this long, but he looks kinda skinny and it just seems strange that he'd ignore food that's readily available. Anyone have any ideas?

[dvmsn]

As an almost absolute rule, never purchase a sw fish unless you see it eat at the store. Unlike fw, this is a common problem and should be guarded against.

[techigirl78]

I'd do a search on clown gobies. They are hit or miss and some say worse then mandarins. Here's some general information: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/gobiodon.htm. I see mine eat occassionally. I've had mine for about 4-5 months.

[Steve Gordon]

I actually did see it eat at the LFS. Like I said, it was eating mysis with all the others. The guy at the LFS told me though that it would probably do better with cyclop-eez at first because he was small. I actually did do some reading on them before I bought him, but I never ran across anything that said they were difficult. As a matter of fact, everything I read seemed to indicate they were easy to keep. Anyone have any tricks to get him to eat? What do other people feed? Thanks.

[ACBlinky]

My clown goby was only fed brine at the store AFAIK and refused to eat when I first brought him home. Eventually he took some brine (useless, I know, but I wanted to get him eating _something_).
I continued trying everything, soaking all foods in garlic and Kent Zoe vitamins, and eventually one day he decided to take squid. Unfortunately, it was to the exclusion of everything else, including the brine he previously enjoyed! He's taken bits of mysis on occasion, but generally been a very picky eater.
A little while ago I posted, worried about how/what to feed him - he kept getting skinnier and skinnier and would only take one or two small pieces of food, then spit anything else out. I tried to get some Cyclopeeze, but the only LFS around here that sells it was closed for vacation!
Then a few days ago I decided to experiment. I turned off ALL the pumps so that the water would be still and food would remain suspended longer. The goby seemed more comfortable with food that wasn't moving (the opposite of what I would have expected), and started going for bits on the surface - I'd read that marines don't generally like to take food from the surface, and had previously been using a pipette to squirt food into the water column.
Next feeding I tried pellets - I alternate these with frozen foods because the wrasse loves 'em, and they soak up the vitamins well, unlike frozen foods. Well, once he got brave enough to try one (from the surface), my little clown went nutso! Now he dances when the pumps go off, and usually gets about five pellets in him before he loses interest (they're very small).
Strangely, he doesn't seem to like food that's soft or anything that's been in the water too long - here's what seems to be working:
I place some pellets in a container, add a few drops of Zoe and maybe some garlic, then turn off the pumps (the fish are beginning to associate this with feeding, which makes things even easier). I put a few pellets at a time into the water, adding more when the fish have eaten what's there. Once the goby starts to lose interest, I turn the pumps back on (the wrasse loves to chase her food, lol) and let them hunt down the remaining pellets as they fall. Now that he's gotten the idea, he seems to be taking other foods more readily.
Be persistant, hopefully your goby will catch on.

[bjolly]

my clown goby loves live black worms.... might be worth a try.

when I first had him I thought he wasn't eating, but eventually I figured out that the cyclopeeze was so small he was taking some of it in without being obvious.