blue hippo wont eat.

[seanb1]

ok so i purchased a blue hippo last saturday, he looks a little skinny but dont they all? i did ask if they were eating good before purchase, and of course they were.

the darn fish wont eat anything, ive tried a few different frozen meaty foods, flake, and i have a few different types of algaes growing in small spots in my tank.

a few days ago i did see him picking at the rocks.

hes swimming around normally but does hide in the rocks for a couple hours at a time throughout the day.

he doesnt even look at food when its near him.

his eyes are clear his color is good, no spots or skin problems.

hes opproximately 3 inches long and not overly skinny looking, or sickly. but skinny.

hes not eating.

i have him in a 125, 72x18x22 tank with
70 turbos
100 blue leg hermits
2-5 peppermint shrimp
1 yellow tail blue damsel
2 small clowns
1 scooter blenny

my water is all within acceptable ranges except my nitrate, its at 20 for some reason i cant get below that.

i have plenty of waterflow

a couple hundred pounds of rock.

i have 3-175 20k halides.

running carbon and gfo in a reactor.

i have a octopus skimmer running on the tank.

a few small corals.

i have a suspicion this fish has some sort of a internal parasite problem or has not been eating since capture, i would imagine hes not tank breed. so before i tear the heck out of my tank catching him to get him medicated in a smaller tank.

does anyone have any suggestions besides the obvious of treating them before adding to the tank?.

[indydog1]

try adding seaweed sheets. you might not have enough for him to eat all day. also try to add garlic drops to your tank. just follow the dosing to the package. this will at least build up his immunity. hope this will work. because i don't see a stocking problem. good luck.

[OranguTang]

Try soaking all your food in garlic.

[tmz]

You can soak some seaweed in selcon. They don't all look skinny. Often that emaciated look is a sign of internal parasites or infection. Yes, it is probably wild caught since I don't believe there are any captive propogated. I have had one for over five years. It eats dried seaweed,spirulina flake,Prime Reef Flake, mysis,brine, cyclopeeze, bloodworm,minced krill and open brain corals.

[kevin2000]

Did you see the fish eat at the LFS? What was the LFS using for food.

[seanb1]

Originally posted by kevin2000
Did you see the fish eat at the LFS? What was the LFS using for food.

no i didnt see it eat, just took their word for it.

[seanb1]

Originally posted by OranguTang
Try soaking all your food in garlic.

i tried it this afternoon, no luck. the other fish ate it though.

[seanb1]

Originally posted by indydog1
try adding seaweed sheets. you might not have enough for him to eat all day. also try to add garlic drops to your tank. just follow the dosing to the package. this will at least build up his immunity. hope this will work. because i don't see a stocking problem. good luck.

i forgot in my initial post that ive tried sea veggies also.


i have a peice in there now, ive also unplugged a couple powerheads to make food float slow in the water., he swims around the food.

[seanb1]

i can tell just by opening the hood that i am going to have to remove all the rock to catch this fish, he was a bear to catch at the store with just one peice of rock in their tank.

as soon as i go near the tank, he goes deep into the rocks.

[kevin2000]

Originally posted by seanndenise1
no i didnt see it eat, just took their word for it.

That was a mistake - always view the fish eating before you bring it home. If a LFS says he won't feed your fish in front of you because he just fed them ... find another LFS.

With that said .. its common for some fish not to eat for a few days. It has been my experience that all healthy fish will eat live brine shrimp .. not a great nutritional food source but probably the best food source to "jump start" a fish into eating mode. Worth a try.

[stuccodude]

mine didnt eat for a week, pretty much wrote her off and then all the sudden she ate some mysis. she hid the whole week too but now shes always out. great fish IMO

[seanb1]

Originally posted by kevin2000
That was a mistake - always view the fish eating before you bring it home. If a LFS says he won't feed your fish in front of you because he just fed them ... find another LFS.

With that said .. its common for some fish not to eat for a few days. It has been my experience that all healthy fish will eat live brine shrimp .. not a great nutritional food source but probably the best food source to "jump start" a fish into eating mode. Worth a try.

to tell you the truth, ive had nothing but bad luck with this fish store, i got a anemone back in december at a freinds wifes request for his tank ended up having to keep it for him because of some tank issues.

i asked the owner for an easy to keep anemone, he gave me an ritteri anemone. after doing some research on it, i learned the anemone most likely didnt stand much of a chance of any long term survival. needless to say the anemone withered away.

im usually not a person that goes on the offensive when its mainly my fault for not researching an animal and especially when i have no proof of misdoings but i might make a trip up to the fish store and ask to see the other fish in the tank eat.

i have talked to the owner and he suggested a few different thing to do about the fish, all of which have not worked.

i am going to leave a couple powerheads off for a couple days and see if that makes a difference.

if he doesnt eat by wednesday night im going to get him out of there even if i have to remove every rock in the tank.

i have a 55 gallon barrel ill load the rock into with water, hopefully i wont get a cycle after putting it back.

[seanb1]

Originally posted by stuccodude
mine didnt eat for a week, pretty much wrote her off and then all the sudden she ate some mysis. she hid the whole week too but now shes always out. great fish IMO

im gonna go buy some mysis today and give that a shot. maybe some plankton.

[OranguTang]

If garlic isnt working, try selcon like tmx suggested. Also give Nutramar Ogo a try.

[george81]

you should try nori rub some garlic extract on it, also instead of dropping the seaweed, nori, etc..in the tank and shutting off a powerhead buy a clip for it.. something like this
http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...ct_ID=fd-oclip

back when i had a hippo tang i fed mysis, new life spectrum flake food, formula 2 flake or pellet...it took atleast 1 week to initiate feeding.
i feed my tangs and back when i had the hippo tang big als dried seaweed, no tang i have ever kept can resist it...it is a little pricey for what you get.

hth keep us posted!

[Phillstone]

Hippos are more carnivour than most tangs. I got mine 8yrs ago at the size of a quarter. Tried feeding him nori and other algae based foods then i saw him? eating off the rocks like my mandarin. Try some frozen Ocean Nutrition's prime reef 'but thaw it out on papertowel before feeding

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by Phillstone
Hippos are more carnivour than most tangs. I got mine 8yrs ago at the size of a quarter. Tried feeding him nori and other algae based foods then i saw him? eating off the rocks like my mandarin. Try some frozen Ocean Nutrition's prime reef 'but thaw it out on papertowel before feeding

good call--actually blue tangs are one of the few tangs that are born carnivores and then change to herbevoirs as they mature.

In this case I would feed it the ON #2 which has more algae in it then the prime beef---you don't know what stage the hippo or blue is in
I would also supplement with granular cyclopeeze soaked in garlic--fish love the stuff

there is a stick on pill made by Sera which is spirulina algae based--it seems to attract more fish to it and is way less messier then the nori or kelp on clips

[redline]

add seaweed sheets. you might not have enough for him to eat all day. also try to add garlic drops to your tank. just follow the dosing to the package. this will at least build up his immunity.

[seanb1]

well i have an update on the hippo.

he seems to have been eating the purple/red algae that is growing on all the turbo snails shells in my tank.

i was just in there after lights came on and noticed he was picking at rock, i started looking around to see what hes picking at and noticed that quite a few of my snails look as though a lawnmower has ran across them.

i also have small spots here and there where micro algae grows on my rock, its kinda red/maroon looking stick type alagae, its also been mowed down.
he is eating, i just hope he knows that when its all gone hes gonna have to eat frozen food.

he must eat after lights go out because i swear ive never seen him eat when the lights are on, other than a quick pick once in awhile on a rock or something.

hes an algae eater,LOL.

anyways, im glad hes eating something, thanks for all the responses.

[Aquarist007]

this is why i suggested the sera tablets--no messy and they last longer then the the macro clips

the spriulina ones:

http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/SERA.html