Baby Clown knife help...

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Jesseliu13

Jesseliu13

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jun 27, 2012
1,129
140
96
Holmdel, NJ
Let me tell you the whole story so you dont get pissed off.

So A good friend of mine's family owns a fish store. and the owner(his uncle i think) stupidly ordered fish that he has no idea how to take care of. Thank god I was there to help him or all his stock would be dead. Though there are some that i am not very familiar with nbd. I am researching to help him...

As for a reward for helping he let me pick any fish i wanted out of the store. We are family friends so i wasnt greedy. I was thinking of getting another clown knife. But he only had 1. Next week i go into my basement where my tanks are located and i find a Tiny baby clown knife. Its like a little under 3 inches. WTF
It doesnt even have spots yet... its striped. (95% it is a normal clown. not a royal)

thank god my fish are peaceful in that tank. =_=;; I called him immediately and was like WTF why?! i dont have enough room yet for him. I am not getting my 300 gallon until august. Inside the tank there is a 6-7 in arowana (picky eater.. only eats pellets and crickets), 1 clown knife about 8 inches. a 15 inch high fin pleco, and 3 clownloaches. A relatively peaceful tank.

It was a pain in the ass to train my old clown knife which was about 5 inches when i bought it to eat pellets.
But what the hell am i gonna do with this little guy. he is quite the active one at night, even more active than my old clown knife. BUT i do not see him eat. and i dont know if hes eating at night.. or waht to feed it.... Like its soooo small. and there is no agression towards it from the other fish... Its in a 55 gallon right now. (b4 anyone says anything about tank being too small. Sandy destroyed my 225. in august im getting a 300+) Any ideas what to feed it? i put ina few cubes of frozen blood worms but i am not sure if my clown loaches are getting it. let alone the arowana.

if anyone know whats a good staple food to eat it please let me know!. i dont want to move the clown knife to a seperate tank unless i have to. I dont want New tank syndrome. Pellets are a bit big for him. his mouth is mad small. tropical flakes and frozen blood worms is all i got right now. any ideas?
 
I got my old clown at 2" , he was easy to get started on frozen blood worms, from there I chopped frozen shrimp into a small shot glass then added a chunk of blood worm to let them melt together. the blood stains the shrimp red and flavors it , the clown knife switched to shrimp easily with this trick. It would likely work with small pellets as well, just get him to eat them soaked and softened in blood worm juice and mix in more and more unaltered pellets with every feeding until he doesn't need any blood to get him going.

Good news is if the others in the tank are eating he'll be easier to convert because competition drives him to grab food faster. 55g is plenty big for the stocking you mention as long as bigger is planned you'll be fine, I started my clown knife in a 15g at that size, moved him to a 35g at about 4" here he remained until about the 6-8 " mark.
 
im not exactly sure if you call this competition... the pleco is 15 inches. the other clown knife is 8... and he is barely 3 inches... im not 100% sure if he is eating like i said. should i feed at night? or day like i trained my old knife
 
Im not 100% sure what you mean big fish store. are you talking about the size of the fish? or your talking about the size of the store?
 
I would feed frozen bloodworms at that size. And it doesn't really matter if it's day or night. Just watch it to make sure it's eating. You can also put up a divider for a couple of weeks to make sure it's eating it's food and not anyone else. Once it hits the 5"-6" mark, you can start pellet training.
 
You could make one out of an egg crate. That what I did when I had smaller fish that shared a tank with a not so trust worthy fish, lol!
 
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