Black Angler Feeding

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Hi Guys

Just added this black angler to my predator tank. I am having a bit of trouble feeding him. I have tried dangling a dead fire fish infront of him with a chop stick and he wouldnt accept it. I tried to even give him calamari, mussels, clam meat and shrimp yet he does not want to take it.

I have been told that I should cut a 2 l coke bottle at about 3/4 down and put it over the angler and then put a small live mollie in there and let him swim around and then the angler will do the rest of the work. Is this something that could work?
What other options do I have?

p-76866-Black-Angler.jpg
 
I dont know of anyone on masa that has an angler or similar fish in their tanks.
I know that scorpionfish can take up to a week to take food & sometimes even have to be fed with feederfisg for a couple weeks before starting to take prepared foods.
Just give it a week, if he hasnt eaten anything, i would try the feeder fish.
 
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What is a good reliable feeder fish? He is quite a big boy as well and has a massive mouth but is just not interested. Its been about a week now already and nothing.
 
Well, mollies are probably the only freshwater fish that will stay alive in a marine tank long enough to be eaten... Ive heard of guys using guppies as well, but its always a 50/50 chance to get it to eat.
What other fish do you have in your tank with it?
 
I also heard mollies will be the best bet. I currently have him in my QT tank with a naso, a few anthias and a lawnmower blenny and he is not bothered.
 
add mollies..acclimatise them slowly n he will feed on his own...when I quarantined my eels in hypo salinity I added a guppy...pasted a week in tank
 
Should I just let them swim around? Or should I do the coke bottle method? He is not very active. He likes to sit in one corner and just watch.
 
Mollies or any other fresh water fish will not be sufficiently nutritious for any marine fish. Marine fish will eventually die from liver damage due to feeding of fresh water species. You will need to train the fish to accept lance fish or pieces squid , krill superba, etc.
 
I am aware of that and this is also my main concern. It is just to get him feeding, once he is I will switch over to lance fish, etc. I dont mind even using some chromis or damsels just to get him feeding.
 
well i used to feed mine daninos and then moved to feeder shrimp
you will need to get some live mysis or the like

good luck
 
Visser said:
I dont know of anyone on masa that has an angler or similar fish in their tanks.
I know that scorpionfish can take up to a week to take food & sometimes even have to be fed with feederfisg for a couple weeks before starting to take prepared foods.
Just give it a week, if he hasnt eaten anything, i would try the feeder fish.
Click to expand...

I've recently shut down my froggie tank - I had a total of 6 anglers (3 Histrios, 1 Commerson's, 1 striatus, 1 pictus) as well as a leopard flounder, paperfish, common lionfish and antennata lionfish in there. Anglers only really thrive on live food - luckily I live 10 meters from the sea, so collecting live food is never a problem for me. I'd recommend getting down to the coast and at least catching some glass shrimps, or small blennies/gobies as food to tide the angler over. I've kept anglers almost constantly for the last 30 years and have almost never had success in teaching them to eat dead food (which is VERY easy with lionfish, scorpionfish and stonefish).
 
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