frog fish

Question
QUESTION: Hi jennifer, good day to you mam, i just got a frog fish that i bought yesterday, very cute, orange in color and about 3 inches in size, can you tell more about them, specially feeding. i know they feed on small fishes and shrimp but how can i entice them to feed? will they accept earthworms too?

Thanks

ANSWER: Hi Rocky. Very cool fish! These fish are very tolerant of water quality changes and disease resistant too. As far as feeding goes you may want to try to get him on frozen meaty marine food. The only reason I recommend this is because it can get quite expensive to provide him with the live diet he will require. While feeding this fish small freshwater feeder fish may be okay at first they will not survive long term on anything other than food that is from the ocean. Only saltwater fish contain a certain fatty acid (highly unsaturated fatty acids or HUFAs) that is required for the health of a saltwater fish. In other words any predatory saltwater fish must be fed fish or invertebrates that contain this particular fatty acid and this fatty acid can only be found in food that originated in saltwater. If that makes any sense at all. (it is late and I have been working all day) They do make supplements that you can feed to your feeder fish to fortify them with this fatty acid but you would have to set up a separate container to keep them in, in order to gut feed them to make them nutritious enough for the frogfish. Earthworms may be taken but is an extremely unnatural diet for them and they cannot survive long term on that kind of food. Try getting him to eat frozen prawn, krill, silversides, clam, squid and mussel. My friend has a toadfish which is very similar and she has it eating krill and silversides. It may take some patience but eventually you should be able to get this fish to eat frozen food. It is what is best nutritionally for his long term survival.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: yeah i got some prawns for him two days ago, but the problem now is he doesn't take it. After thawing , i peeled of the shell and wiggled it in front of him. i kept on doin that but no luck. any tips mam.

thanks

Answer
Hi again! My suggestion to you would be to just be persistent. Make sure the fish is doing well and keep him on live for the first three weeks to one month of having him. This is so he can acclimate and become well established in your tank. You also do this to make sure he is healthy and gaining good weight. Allot of times when fish are captured and taken out of the ocean they are not fed so they don't foul the water they are being shipped in. This means that they usually come to you starving. So make sure you fatten him up for the first month. After that period there are a few methods you can try to wean him off of live foods. First of all you can start to offer him the live food on a pair of feeding tongs. After you get him to take the live wiggling food off the tongs try killing the live food first and get him to eat it dead off the tongs yet wiggle it to make it appear as it were alive. Once this is mastered by him try some form of meaty frozen marine fish food off the tongs. This process may take several weeks but it is well worth it in the end. You can also try the starvation method. After the month of returning him to good health is over and he has been eating very well in your tank just cut out all live foods and only offer frozen until he eats it. I am not particularly fond of this method(mostly because i can't stand to see any animal hungry) but if you can persist it usually works. If after two weeks if the fish has not eaten anything you may have to go back to square one and feed him live and start all over again. Which ever method you choose just be patient and don't jeopardize his health by letting him go too long without a feeding.