Fairy not eating well

[lawdog]

Hey all, a new addition to the reef tank has me concerned a bit. I have not had a problem with any fish before, and I have never had a fairy wrasse before so I may be doing something wrong.

She was very skiddish at first only coming out to eat occasionally. But after about 2 weeks she seemed ok coming out to eat and so on. The other inhabitants include a pair of clowns, regal tang and a fox face with 2 small gobies. No one bothered her, now the regal seems to have realized the fairy is there and as he is the tank king anyways he will usually eat most of the food before she can get any. I try and target feed her but she is afraid of the turkey baster.

She is only getting like 2 pieces of mysis shrimp a day soaked in selcon but that doesn't appear to be helping she has gotten thin and I need any suggestions on how to get her to eat more. She will only eat Mysis, she won't touch pellats or flake, will take some cyclopeeze but that stuff is so small I don't think she eats enough of it to matter.

Any ideas of something else to try and get her to eat to help fatten her up and take some of the stress off her. I honestly have never lost a fish in my tank and I don't want to start now.

[lawdog]

I should say I have had her now for like a month or so.

[mike660r]

The fish is probably stressed. I have seen this different fish from time to time. If there is a really dominant fish in the tank it can really stress out a more timid one.

Thats my two drops of Kalk! :)

[mike660r]

My apologies, you were looking for solutions. You can bring it over and drop it in my tank to see how it does. Have you tried using marine quazine ( spelling?) It has smaller bites to it. More of the dominant fish go for the larger stuff first. Also are you shutting down your pumps while feeding?

[Thurge]

You might try hand feeding the tank the Mysis.
Break off a chunk and hold it, frozen, in the tank. Hopefully your most dominant fish will come up and feed of of the frozen chunk you are holding. While they are feeding they will also break off pieces that will float away, spairing the fairy the frenzy. Also if you normally trun off all of your pumps to feed I would, if able, leave something on so that the free floating mysis will get blown away from the group, increasing the chances that the fairy will have some unmollested access to dinner.

[Ron5046]

try getting some live clams, I get mine at a local chinese market, after I open them up I scoop the entire insides into a food processor and it will blend it into a very fine mix that the smallest of fish can eat, and they love fresh clam