No longer starving hawk :)

[Mike]

So I have had a nice looking long nose hawk in the fish only for 2+ weeks now and it does not seem to be eating at all. It gets very excited and acts interested, but doesnt seem to eat anything. We use a good mix of food-, blood worms, mysis, sp enh brine, angel butterfly, krill, emerald entree, squid... we even bought and have been trying mixing it with live brine to try to get him to eat... nothing seems to work... anyone have any other ideas or suggestions?

[StevenSeas]

a small pep or ghost/glass shrimp? I am assuming that you are soaking in garlic/selcon or something of the sort. Might be worth it to find out what the LFS was feeding and try to see if you can get a sample to feed him and see if it eats that.

[Mike]

Thanks. I don't think it was at the store long enough to eat... I considered the ghost shrimp idea, was afraid would be too big for the hawk to eat (which is why we are trying the live brine) and we are using garlic.

[StevenSeas]

you might be surpriesed at what could fit in its mouth, I have seen seahorses eat 3/4 in long ghost shrimps before..... pretty awesome and surprising. I cant think of anything else though, especially if it acting like its wanting to eat.

[ErikH]

If you can take it out, feed it seperately in a smaller tank. I know you probably can't though if it's in the big tank.

[alton]

How many bristle worms did you have in your tank before you added the LNH? If he seems plump he may be eating what comes natural to him?

[Mike]

We have tried arctipods and new mysis feast and had some luck with pe mysis... he has taken a few bites here and there, but nothing much... we will keep trying.

[StevenSeas]

glad to hear of the progress

[Mike]

Update - good news :)

He is still alive and eating more now. He is still not an big eater, but seems to be doing better everyday. He was mostly eating the PE Mysis, but today I just used our normal food mix and he ate at least several bites. Several times I saw him stalking a piece, only to have one of the more serious eaters in the tank come grab it. But looking better... :)

[Europhyllia]

Ha! I was just looking for the LIKE button when I realized we are not on FB... LIKE! anyway ;)
Great news.

[Mike]

Karin, I am not a FB guy, but can appreciate the sentiment. Thanks!

[Mr Cob]

Ha! I was just looking for the LIKE button when I realized we are not on FB... LIKE! anyway ;)
Great news.


haah that's awesome~!


Hey Mike...glad the Hawk is eating now.

[Mike]

Doing better and better. I got a couple of loose shrooms from Gabe (Thanks!) and turned off the pumps and put them in the tank. The long nose hawk grabbed one of them and then spit it out and shook his head. Guess he didn't like the taste. :)

Seriously though, he is eating much better. Sometime it works out...

[Mike]

Still doing better and better. Wanted to give a big shout out to Jason at AD and Randy from Reef Nutrition. Randy told us about his new product, Mysis feast. He gave Jason a sample before it was for sale and Jason let us take most of the sample bottle home for free to see if the hawk would eat it. I think that helped kick start him eating. Thanks to Jason for looking out for us and plug to Randy for a pretty good new product. AD is selling it now if anyone wants to try it. :)

[Europhyllia]

Sounds yummy. Glad he likes it :)

[alton]

Hey Mike did your bristle worm population change any or stay the same?

[Kristy]

Sounds yummy. Glad he likes it :)
Well, he certainly thinks it's yummy anyway. Whatever is so delicious about that Mysis Feast, that finally got him transitioned onto trying some PE Mysis and after a couple of weeks of nibbling at those two, with a few more bites each day, he now will branch out and even boldly eat a regular mysis now and then and try a few other types of food.

For a long while there we would count how many bites he ate each day. He went from zero (for weeks!), to one - three and just stayed there until we found the Mysis Feast, which took him straight to about 8 bites. We no longer count. :)


Hey Mike did your bristle worm population change any or stay the same?
(Not Mike, but I'll answer for him anyway :) ...) We never saw any evidence that he was eating any bristle worms and truthfully I'm not sure whether there IS any bristle worm population in the FOWLR, which is the tank Mike has this guy in. He was very, very thin so I think the most he might have gotten was the occasional pod.