Lisap Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 Been meaning to post this for a while. I bought a healthy wild caught male target dragonet. I read a lot about how to transition them onto frozen foods. A lot of people keep them in a breeder net until they are trained, which doesn't sound that great for obvious reasons. I decided to use a jar to feed him in just to keep the food in one place while he ate it and it ended up working great. I drilled a hole in the jar and used a baster to squirt food into it. At first I just bought live brine shrimp which he ate right away. It didn't take long for him to go looking in the jar for food. I started mixing frozen foods in with the live brine shrimp, which worked nicely- food will stick to live brine shrimp (or they pick it up) if you mix it with them ahead of time. This caused the dragonet to eat the frozen food along with the brine shrimp. It did not take long at all before he was eating the frozen food on its own. He likes Nutramar Ova the most. And it wasn't long after that he would eat it out in the tank, as long as it was on the substrate, although the jar did keep the other fish from eating it. Thought I would put this method out there, as a lot of people use water flow to get the frozen food to look like it's moving. I think mixing it with live brine shrimp is easier, and I have never read anything about the food sticking to the shrimp before. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+etannert Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 Pics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndnreefer Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 What size jar did you use? I saw an article on a similar technique using a baby food jar. The article mentioned training his mandarin from live to frozen and eventually pellets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eel Keeper Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 Yes very interested it seeing pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Your description of the process to train fish behavior is a very good write up. Thank you for taking the time to document this success in reef tank husbandry. While I have read many references to training live eaters to accept other foods, this is the first with details. Kudos to you. Patrick 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisap Posted September 30, 2013 Author Share Posted September 30, 2013 Used the smallest jar I could find- I think it was from some capers. I have some photos, but they're on a roll of film I'm not done with, and then I have to get them developed (yes, seriously). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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