New fish (3 weeks ago) still not eating/hiding

[recliner]

22 days ago I added a flame angel and a sailfin to my tank. The sailfin has always been out swimming since day 1. The flame has always and still is constantly hiding in the rock. I haven't seen it out swimming yet. I haven't seen either fish eat anything I've fed since I've got them. The sailfin pecks at the rocks a lot so I'm not too worried about him. The angel though has me worried. 3 weeks seems way too long, looking for advice and help in tricking it into coming out of hiding and eating

 

[reefnoob]

What kind of food are you feeding? Maybe you can try something else to feed them.

 

[foxymoxy]

I would wrap nori to a piece of live rock using a rubber band. Place the rock close to an area that allows good access to food but also cover. This will give the fish a sense of safety. As the fish learns that the rock = food. You will be able to move the rock anywhere in the tank and the fish will always go to the rock for food. That is what I did with my foxface and tang. The sailfin will eat nori, but i believe the flame angel is a carnivore.

As for the flame fish. I have a long stainless steel pinchers that looks like oversized tweezers. Its actual purpose is for planting plants into the sandbed. But, I use it to feed the eel since it is capable of crushing crab shells. I will hold a piece of food in front of the fish near their cave. Don’t move the food or anything, just hold it right in front of the fish at the cave entrance. This will allow access to the food without the fish having to leave the safety of the cave. For my tang this took nearly 30 mins (several pieces becauce the foxface kept eating the food), before the tang dared to try the food. After each day the tang began to learn the tweezers was a source of food. When the fish learns tweezers = food. I slowly transition them over to being hand feed. This all took about 2 weeks to hand train the tang. The foxface took a week.

You might want to try adding garlic guard since it is a smell that is suppose to attract fish. For small fish you might want to try mysis shrimp. You can also buy scallops, silver siders and black tiger shrimps, but chop them up into small edible pieces.

 

[recliner]

I had tried flake, nori, omega one frozen cubes (veggie and carnivore) and pieces of shrimp. I had gotten some of it right in the cave where the angel spent a lot of time. I never saw him eat and assume my cuc or another fish got it.

I haven't seen the flame since before my post (4+ days) and I think he might have died. My serpent starfish, lobster, and cuc seemed just as hungry as normal last night though. I found the sailfin last night by my overflow box, dead. No signs of injury or disease on the sailfin. Maybe just starved to death?
I'll chalk this up to another stupid newbie mistake. I didn't ask to see them feed before buying them. If the flame angel is indeed dead, that means 3 out of 3 fish I have bought from a pet store since I started saltwater tanks in September have died.

 

[Northstar24]

If all of the dead fish came from the same place, you may want to consider trying to find a new source for fish.

In additon, while asking to see a fish eat at the store is a good idea, its by no means definitive. I have purchased fish that ate like pigs at the LFS, only to get them home and have them decide not to eat for several days,sometimes weeks.

It was almost a month before my Achilles would bother eating anything I fed, and even then it was only nori sheets that he would eat, I never could get him on anything else

Also, do you know what your LFS feeds? If possible, you might want to get some of the exact same food. My LFS feeds a frozen food that is made by a local member of the reef club. I also feed this frozen, so that makes the transition easier for the fish

 

[salt_for_brains]

Sorry for your losses and I know it sucks to lose a fish. One trick I learned especially with tangs that didn't know what an algae clip was or was to scared to come up and eat. I would tear off some algae sheet and fold it over several times, put it between my fingers and stick my fingers under the water, roll the algae sheet with my fingers breaking it up in little pieces. The power heads would circulate those pieces all over the tank even behind the rocks where a fish may be hiding. Some were picky and only liked the red or the brown and some would eat any of it.
I know this doesn't help now but maybe it will with a future fish.

 

[recliner]

Salt for brains, I'll try that with my next picky veggie eater.
North star, they all were from the same lfs. I was talking to my wife last night and said I'm done getting fish from them. They are 15-20% less then the other lfs and only have walk in hours 2 days a week so their fish always sell out. That means you buy the fish the day they arrive in the store. It seems that puts 100% of the risk on the buyer. I guess I'll only buy fish from the others that have them for a week or two and show they can live in a tank