Potters Angel Quick Question...

[Dreichler]

So my new potters has been in my tank for about a week now, and the only thing I've gotten him to eat is to barely nip at some seaweed I rubber and to some rocks where he likes to swim by. I'm just wondering is this even close to enough for him to live on? So far he hasn't even shown interest in any corals. My tank is covered every square inch with LPS, only have one monti cap. I don't have any algae for him to graze on naturally because I keep a very clean tank. I was thinking of buying some dragons breath and growing it in the back of the tank where the seaweed is now so he can graze on that. Anything else I should do? Anything you guys reccomend? He doesn't even acknowledge frozen food or pellets right now.

[Clown79]

I've heard of frozen peas thawed.

 

Look that up

[Orangutran]

So my new potters has been in my tank for about a week now, and the only thing I've gotten him to eat is to barely nip at some seaweed I rubber and to some rocks where he likes to swim by. I'm just wondering is this even close to enough for him to live on? So far he hasn't even shown interest in any corals. My tank is covered every square inch with LPS, only have one monti cap. I don't have any algae for him to graze on naturally because I keep a very clean tank. I was thinking of buying some dragons breath and growing it in the back of the tank where the seaweed is now so he can graze on that. Anything else I should do? Anything you guys reccomend? He doesn't even acknowledge frozen food or pellets right now.

 

Any luck with your potter's eating? If I get one, definitely asking the LFS to feed it in front of me...

[LbulletM]

Mine took a few days of grazing on live rock exclusively, but now eats 1mm pellets like it's his job.

[Dreichler]

 

Any luck with your potter's eating? If I get one, definitely asking the LFS to feed it in front of me...

Ya he came around. The first like 4 days he would just pace the glass all day but then he slowly started checking out the rocks and just pecking at the rocks. He doesn't peck the actual coral like a lot of people say, he actually gets in between the coral or polyps. Then he stopped pacing and maybe only paces for 10 minutes when he wakes up, and spends most of his time swimming throughout the caves, grazing rock, eating nori, and occasionally I'll see him take very very small pieces of the frozen mysis in garlic. But he's coming around slowly but surely onto frozen food. He recognizes that the pellets are good but hasn't eaten any yet.

[LbulletM]

Mine still won't touch frozen mysis. Might have to try the garlic trick!

[ajmckay]

My Potter appears to be a zombie/undead as I've had it for 2-1/2 months and I have yet to see it eat anything.

 

 

Either that or I have a Jesus fish (you know, like the things people put on their cars or whatever) and it's on an extended fast.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/378161-potters-angelfish-back-in-qt-thoughts-on-how-to-proceed-welcome/page-2

[Clown79]

Lmao ajmckay.

 

Seriously, i love the potters angel but these experiences have warned me off from ever having one

 

How is it possible after 2.5 mnths the fish hasn't eaten and still living?

[LbulletM]

Lmao ajmckay.

 

Seriously, i love the potters angel but these experiences have warned me off from ever having one

 

How is it possible after 2.5 mnths the fish hasn't eaten and still living?

 

I would suggest trying it if you really like them!

 

I got one as a Christmas present as my first fish. Since the tank had only been up a month (thankfully the cycle was over in 2 weeks) I didn't even have a QT set up.

 

Has been a model citizen! Alive - and looks healthy; active - after mostly hiding for the first week or two he always comes out to greet me now; eating like a champ - I feed him one NLS 1mm pellet at a time (since he's my only fish and I want to avoid over feeding for now) until he spits one out and doesn't go back after it, and he usually chases right after them and eats 4-8.

 

It did take a week or two before he went after the pellets where he just nipped at live rocks and diatoms all day. I even came back from a 4 day and then 7 day vacation (a lot of worrying during those after having just set up my first reef), and you could see where he had gone after the film on the glass.

 

Hasn't touched a coral that I've seen in the 20+ minutes a night I watch him, and they all look healthy (2 roses, torch, octospawn, acan lord, oculina robusta).

 

No regrets here, even though I was worried about having to possibly take him back if he started nipping. A lot of reading that I did before getting him said that they're on the safer spetrum of the 50/50 "may nip" scale for dwarf angels.

[Orangutran]

Ya he came around. The first like 4 days he would just pace the glass all day but then he slowly started checking out the rocks and just pecking at the rocks. He doesn't peck the actual coral like a lot of people say, he actually gets in between the coral or polyps. Then he stopped pacing and maybe only paces for 10 minutes when he wakes up, and spends most of his time swimming throughout the caves, grazing rock, eating nori, and occasionally I'll see him take very very small pieces of the frozen mysis in garlic. But he's coming around slowly but surely onto frozen food. He recognizes that the pellets are good but hasn't eaten any yet.

 

 

My Potter appears to be a zombie/undead as I've had it for 2-1/2 months and I have yet to see it eat anything.

 

 

 

 

Has been a model citizen! Alive - and looks healthy; active - after mostly hiding for the first week or two he always comes out to greet me now; eating like a champ - I feed him one NLS 1mm pellet at a time (since he's my only fish and I want to avoid over feeding for now) until he spits one out and doesn't go back after it, and he usually chases right after them and eats 4-8.

 

 

 

Are you guys running your tank a bit cooler? I have been researching and they say potters are from cooler waters (72-78), which may prolong lifespan. What are you thoughts? And does running a reef at say 76 affect corals and other fish? *shrug*

[LbulletM]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you guys running your tank a bit cooler? I have been researching and they say potters are from cooler waters (72-78), which may prolong lifespan. What are you thoughts? And does running a reef at say 76 affect corals and other fish? *shrug*

 

I'm not sure about effects of lower temperature on coral (still new to the whole reef thing), but my (possibly flawed) logic would say that lower temperatures would reduce metabolic output and therefore reduce growth. Could be completely wrong though.

 

As for my system, I have a Neo-Therm 150w heater that is set to 78 degrees. My cheapie Amazon thermometer shows 77.4 degrees. I'd tend to put more stock into the heater's reading than the thermometer though. Out of 3 cheap thermometers, they all vary a few tenths.

[Dreichler]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you guys running your tank a bit cooler? I have been researching and they say potters are from cooler waters (72-78), which may prolong lifespan. What are you thoughts? And does running a reef at say 76 affect corals and other fish? *shrug*

 

I have a Cobalt Neo-Therm 100W for my 45 gallon and it does the job extremely well. I live in south florida so the cold isn't usually an issue, but i keep me house very cold and my room even colder. The air in my room is usually around 70-72 and i set the heater at 76-78 and its always right on spot on and off automatically. As for the temperature and the Potters health, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they do prefer cooler waters like 74, but i don't think keeping them in 76-78 is life threatening of stunting to their health. If it were any warmer, like 80-82, then that would probably be a problem.

[LbulletM]

My 150w is on a 29gal standard, but I keep the house at 68° at night a lot of the time. Seems the 100w wasn't able to keep up if the water was low enough for the HOB filter to be dropping water through the cold air.

[Saltydude]

My Potter appears to be a zombie/undead as I've had it for 2-1/2 months and I have yet to see it eat anything.

 

 

Either that or I have a Jesus fish (you know, like the things people put on their cars or whatever) and it's on an extended fast.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/378161-potters-angelfish-back-in-qt-thoughts-on-how-to-proceed-welcome/page-2

Your angels probbly indulging on your rocks while your gone then

[Orangutran]

 

I have a Cobalt Neo-Therm 100W for my 45 gallon and it does the job extremely well. I live in south florida so the cold isn't usually an issue, but i keep me house very cold and my room even colder. The air in my room is usually around 70-72 and i set the heater at 76-78 and its always right on spot on and off automatically. As for the temperature and the Potters health, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they do prefer cooler waters like 74, but i don't think keeping them in 76-78 is life threatening of stunting to their health. If it were any warmer, like 80-82, then that would probably be a problem.

 

 

My 150w is on a 29gal standard, but I keep the house at 68° at night a lot of the time. Seems the 100w wasn't able to keep up if the water was low enough for the HOB filter to be dropping water through the cold air.

 

Huh? What you mean by dropping water thru the cold air?

 

 

Anyway, I might be lowering my thermometer to 76, since I just picked up a potters 3 days ago! You guys gave me the courage to do it! lol The one I got has been at the LFS for a month now (I had been visiting it weekly), so I know it's eating. And now it's picking at all the algae on my rocks and back wall (sorry no quarantine, but I figured the month at the LFS would have helped, they did some copper too).

 

Only concern is to keep my tank cool in the summer time, since I have no AC. I've got a fan over my sump, so hopefully that will help a bit! Good luck guys!

[LbulletM]

 

 

 

Huh? What you mean by dropping water thru the cold air?

 

 

 

The drop through the cold air from the outlet of the HOB filter to the water surface. The waterfall if you will. High surface area and turbulent flow allows great heat exchange, probably causing my heater to not be able to keep up. I have my water level a little higher now than I used to, so it probably wouldn't be an issue anymore, but now I have the 100w on my QT, so c'est la vie.

And congrats on the fish! Great addition!

[Orangutran]

 

The drop through the cold air from the outlet of the HOB filter to the water surface. The waterfall if you will. High surface area and turbulent flow allows great heat exchange, probably causing my heater to not be able to keep up. I have my water level a little higher now than I used to, so it probably wouldn't be an issue anymore, but now I have the 100w on my QT, so c'est la vie.

And congrats on the fish! Great addition!

 

Thanks, I noticed the potter cleaned off all the film algae on the back wall in 2 days! Now I have to keep my tank a little bit dirty, so there's some algae growth for it to snack on… loving it so far, has added the liveliness and colour that my tank needed!

[ajmckay]

Mine is inexplicably still alive. Haven't seen it actually pick at anything and no signs of nipping or eating anything.

[Orangutran]

On February 14, 2017 at 4:39 PM, ajmckay said:

Mine is inexplicably still alive. Haven't seen it actually pick at anything and no signs of nipping or eating anything.

That's great news! Mine hasn't nipped either, knock on wood! Very happy with it, and it now eats pellets too! You guys feeding any spirulina based foods?

[LbulletM]

Just NLS pellets for him and he grabs some of the smaller Omega pellets that I feed my clowns because they can't nom the NLS yet. He showed no interest in nori sheets, but I think I saw him take his first nip of mysis the other day. 

[Dreichler]

My potters is now eating anything i offer him.  He eats nori, pellets, frozen mysis, and grazes on the rocks.  He doesn't pick at any coral in the tank, i don't even think he knows they're food.  But he's extremely active and actually interacts with you when you go to the tank.