how long before i should be worried a new fish is not eating?

[peasofme]

i got him yesterday. he was at the lfs for 3 weeks eating live brine. he is an orange spotted shrimp goby. his stomach is fat and he seems healthy and well adjusted to his new surroundings. at the lfs he was living with a buddy. now he is by himself.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

The fish might be trying to adjust to it's new environment so don't be alarmed yet. A healthy fish can go a couple of weeks without eating. You'll know when it's starving. It would be losing weight fast. Keep trying to entice it to eat (hopefully in a quarantine tank) with different foods and such. My mandarin fish took over a week before accepting frozen/ prepared foods. I had to simulate live prey by using a turkey baster to gently blow the food around.

[Reefing Madness]

Are you feeding him the samething the LFS was feeding him? IF so, then I agree with FOMOCO, he needs to acclimate to your tank, give him some time. Usually after 3-4 says they start to settle in.

[reeferbill]

Get some live brine and feed him. If he eats that try to get hin to eat some frozen thawed out mysis shrimp. Once you get him eating the mysis you could try some New Life Spectrum Pellets.

[leebca]

The concern should be imediate. No fish should be off its feed if it was eating. The problem is the stress put on the fish to the move and acclimation procedure. If the acclimation was tip top in quality and procedure, the affect on the fish's eating habits should be minimal. Unfortunately, eating live brine shrimp is not a fish I would acquire. You want the fish trained to eating prepared (dead) foods. So this fish still has some training to go through.

Keep offering different foods and read the sticky post in this Forum regarding getting a fish to start eating and follow its guidelines. Good luck!