whats with my archer fish?

[muuunkeeyy]

my archer fish lives in a 10 gallon with my mono. its setup as brackish using aquarium salt. the archer fish has been in the tank for about 4 days and i got the mono today. the mono seems well and joyful but my archer looks all emo and stuff, ugly color. he might be still adjusting to the tank but, its been awhile hasnt it? he isnt very active and does not eat that much food. help please?

[aggrocichlidfan]

ok to start were did you gat a archer fish from?

[muuunkeeyy]

got it from extreme fishnpets and the mono from fish land.

[muuunkeeyy]

well..now i left the light on for awhile and he swims around a bit, but he still has problems with eating.

[aggrocichlidfan]

i gotta go get one but what are you feeding him?
i know theere is some kind of epsome salt doseage tht makes them hungry then a mofo

[aggrocichlidfan]

try feedin him the way they eat in the wild hold an insect or something in the air and let him spit shoot and get it then he mill prolly eat it better knowing tht he caught it

[muuunkeeyy]

hmms he likes live things, i js dont wanna be buying crickets..kinda gross lol. i have a feelin he will eat live crickets without hesitation but yeah. i was hoping this mono makes him eat better, competition and stuff.

[aggrocichlidfan]

oh man those are very canivorous fish go buy some crickets of maybe even a ghost shrimp and tell me what happens?

[Zulaab]

Do you know if this fish was a wild caught fish or if this fish was born in a tank ? Do you know if he was kept in brackish water at Extreme or fresh ? If he/she was in fresh and you dumped him in brackish, he might be trying to adapt because he was used to fresh

[muuunkeeyy]

hes sittin in the tank with about 25 ghost shrimps on the bottom with some moss. i think i bought 40 or so but he ate some and some died out. when the ghost shrimp swims towards the top, it gets gobbled up but the archer doesnt eat from things that arent on the surface. i wanna change his eating habits, its annoying me.

[muuunkeeyy]

when i got the fish, all i knew was the tank it was in was brackish. the lady js told me to put bout half a handful of aquarium salt in there and i should be fine. not sure if wild caught or tank bred, but its about 3 inches..not TOO big.

[Zulaab]

Well Archer fish reach between 3 and 4 inches in length from what I can read. Their mouth us made to feed from the surface and its going to be nearly impossible to "change" its way of eating. Another thing is that these fish leap for pray so make sure you keep a lid on things.. and yes they would love for you to buy them some small insects to put in the tank.

[muuunkeeyy]

hmms i might buy some insects for it then..but what bout the mono..dont know what to feed it either lol.

[Nickintex]

My Archers love those disgusting looking canned fly larvae and mealworms that Seachem makes. They are becoming harder to find though, at least the stores I go to. I heard a rumor that some cans may be available for bidding at the GHAC auction.

[imagirlgeek]

I also have some of the Seachem fly larvae and mealworms you can have if you are ever in my part of town. My fish get a lot of live food, so when I tried those, they just kind of looked at me like I was crazy.