How to feed little fish until they get bigger

[Durbelethwen]

My scooter dragonet that I had (thought) successfully kept in a ten gallon for 19 months is missing presumed dead (I searched for her, I also did a large water changed because I am afraid what ultimately did her in was I left the filter off all night accidentally though only she and one of my fan worms seem to have been troubled by it and things are starting to get back to normal). It happened a couple of days ago. I felt guilty but I had some relief about how we really do not know how long an animal will live in the best of conditions.

She was the only fish in the tank. So I have started to considering replacing her. Most of the animals are either sedentary or secretive.

Looking up dragonets again I found that I can get one that is only up to .75 inches. This would seem that it is young and it should live for a good long time.

My question is I have bought and tried to keep fish of that size before and they have ended up dead. First one, a panda goby, I placed in a six gallon display tank, it disappeared (I was very inexperienced with that one). The next one (same species) I tried putting in a baby saver to grow up in feeding it frozen food which I thought would break apart for mouth size bits -it died. Just recently I put tiny coral croucher in a three gallon bare bottom with some live rock rubble until it grew up feeding it bottled Roe, oyster eggs, and rotifers and it died. They each lived about a week give or take.

So how should one take care of an itty bitty fish until it grows up a little?

[magikarp]

There's no trick to it, find the foods they will accept. Then feed them often.

 

If you feed smaller meals frequently rather than once a day they will grow/fatten up much quicker.

[ndrobey]

Make sure you keep a lid on the tank. Most of the fish you had are jumpers. That might explain what happened to some of them.

[Durbelethwen]

Only one disappeared the other two I had the bodies.