Banded Pipefish - Fighting - Won't eat... HELP

A

aentrop

So I bought 2 banded pipefish, trully awesome fish.

They were fighting, one picking on the other, and chasing it into the overflow several times a day.

I returned one to the store after reading that same sex pipefish will fight. The store is ordering me some more in hopes for me to find one of the opposite sex.

The single one that I have now won't eat. I have added tiggerPods, and have offered live brine, and the dead tiggerpods, and frozen mysis, and frozen brine. He won't go after anything... What do I do?

I am hoping that he won't eat because he spends the days grazing on pods that I can't see, but I am not sure that that is enough food. How do I get him to accept frozen food?
 
If you are offering frozen mysis at the same time every day, he may change his mind. I would turn off the flow when feeding so it doesn't have to chase down the food. And if pipefish are anything like seahorses, maybe it would like some live (tiny! ) ghost shrimp.
 
Many LFS sell them, but getting the tiniest ones requires some patience as they scoop them out. Also, there is a business out in Weatherford that raises them on a big scale, very likely to supply the local stores. They donated a few bags full to one of our meetings earlier this year. Someone should remember, to point you in the right direction. You could ask Matt too.
 
Did you have them feed the pipefish before you bought them if so just use what they feed them then ween them to what you want to feed them
 
I returned one of them, because I came to the conclusion that they were both males. I think this was the reason for the fighting.

After that, the remaining one has not once jumped into the overflow, where as I was pulling one out of the overflow once a day...

Since the feeding issue, I still have yet to see the fish eat any frozen food.
Its been 2 weeks, and I haven't fed him since, but I have noticed an explosion of copepods.

I went from none, to seeing tons of them crawling all over my glass and tons in the fuge over the course of a week after adding both tiggerpods and reefpods.

I think the pipefish is feeding on these pods, and hope the trend continues. As time goes by, I will still try to get him to take frozen food...

He seems to be very active, though very skiddish. If I walk up to the tank very slowly, he doesn't react, but if I approach quickly to take a look he immediately swims 6 feet to the other side of the tank and hides in a cave that he has claimed.

He is the only fish in the tank, along with about 8-10 hermit crabs, an emerald crab, some nassarius and turbo snails, and a candy coral.
 
Hoping to see him on the tank tour. Have you tried the ArctiPods? Some claim they work magic.
 
@aentrop wrote:
I returned one of them said:
You might try training him the way I've trained Mandarin and that's to use live enriched brine with frozen brine. I started off with just live, then I started adding a little more frozen and adding in some mysis. I always feed from a turkey baster so they know when it enters it's time to eat.
I don't think he's as bad as Mandarins about clearing out your copepods though, especially with a large tank like that.
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@timthetoolman wrote:
You might try training him the way I've trained Mandarin and that's to use live enriched brine with frozen brine. I started off with just live said:
He won't eat live brine, at least not the last few times I've tried, so I can't switch him because he won't eat it in the first place...
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