wouldnt have chosen tailor in there myself, but hey, it would be pretty cool. make sure the fish are legal sized! haha. but yeah, try tiny peices of prawn, like smaller than what you would use for herring etc. this jellybeaning is much more efficient, because a fish wont always take a large bait. can also use this to refine your techniques to catch em. try some pollard/chook pellets....

Have you checked the water?  Is the salinity at the correct level?  Is the protein skimmer running?

 ummm. yeaaaaaaa :S checked all that NOT.

sorry but im a noob. i just went to hillaries, filled up 5 eskys of sea water and dumped it in my tank.

turned the aerators on and put in a filter........

Hey mate , keeping a salt water tank is a fair bit of work . Best bet would be to get in contact with an aquarium shop in perth who specialises in saltwater aquariums and ask for advice and help on setting one up.   Theyll give you all the right advice and help you need. Bit more work then just dumping in sea water and cranking some filters and pumps, depending on what you want to do with it. cheers

have you got a pic mate, i,d love to see it,

i dont have my camera with me atm but i will take some pics tomorro and post em.

its nothing special. no decorations yet, just a big sea shell and some plants

but do it, i wanna see the fish in it, always been interested in sw tank, i have tropical with a nympho green terror in it and his poor mrs, babies every few weeks,lol

By no means an expert but maybe water temp affects their feeding habits????

The ocean is a very stable environment and even if a fish has been quarantined after capture and gotten over the stress, the environment it gets introduced to needs to be spot on like the one it came from. Marine species are more sensative to changes in conditions unlike freshwater species that haver to tolerate all sorts of changes in their ecosystem. In such a small environment changes in water chemistry can occur rapidly. I would have nothing smaller than 1000 liters for a marine tank. Get a good book and professional advice that will start you off well. You'll need lots of live rock, good lighting, a good skimmer and good water circulation. It takes around 3 months for a marine aquarium to stabilise. Bacteria needs to develop and cycle, theres a bit to know especially if you want keep a reef tank. Good luck.

they will die!....very soon... the water temperature at the bottom will be about 18 degrees now and you will struggle to keep it that low in a home in perth in winter let alone summer you will need a chiller and they are very expensive and the cheap ones dont work I doubt your tailor and flounder will last more than a couple of weeks but your gobble guts should last a bit longer and thats providing you do everything correctly as mentioned above apart from a skimmer, it's not needed in a fish only tank only if you intend keeping inverts. Ive kept one for 20 odd years and quite frankly got pissed off trying to keep them only for them to keel over and die for no apparent reason..............I've now changed over to chiclids!

is a gobble guts..

I'm sure someone will know where to find a pic.

Unfortunately at this stage the fish require multiple water changes, just to keep them alive. Don't feed for another week or two, remove any eaten food. Start 50% water change ASAP. Then each day for a week or two, 20% water change morning and night. U need a good canister/tub filter and a pump that moves 4k Litres per/hr.
Also I find chopped whitebait to be the cleaner food, bluebait/mulie is too oily and will easily pollute the tank.

Whatevr you don't put those fish back in the ocean or any other natural waterway. ???Bacterial/viral contamination???

Jeff get out the fillet knife and have a feed, it sounds like too much hard work to me lol

 hahahah no shit hey. all this effort. what have i gotten myself into. i'll just keep things the way they are cause it seems to be workin (apart from the fact that they dont eat). they are all active and healthy from what i can see. if they die, i'll know not to add anymore fish in there.

If you take an animal from the wild, your obliged to give it a better home than from where you got it.

Too much effort?

You just don't have a right to put an animal into an environment that is toxic, and then say too bad, too much effort.

Your tank hasn't cycled so will get a biuld up of ammonia and your filtration is absolutely shit house which means the bacteria colony needed will not be able to establish itself. Basicly what you are doing is slowly poisoning the fish and they will most likely die due to ammonia poisoning even if you return them back to nature the damage is already done. Let me guess the fish are gasping heavily, spook easily and are very lathargic.

It takes months to get a marine tank to the situation where you can safely add fish to it. Marine fish are highly intolerable to nitrates which means you must have an unbelievable filtration/sump setup and also natural filtration through seeded substrate/corals etc. Skimmer, great lighting, constant salinaty checks, constant water top ups of fresh water not salt water to maintain salinaty levels. Then you ad fish slowly, very slowly to avoid any spike in ammonia, nitrite and nitrates.

Then there is the law, taking undersize fish is illegal even if you wish to keep it alive.

To keep a Tailor you will need about a 20 meter tank to keep it happy for the entirety of it's life. I would hope that these fish are in atleast a 6x2x2 at the moment anything else is just cruel for a fish of this size at this age.

Dont ever take another fish from the sea, you have no idea what you are doing. Do youself a favour and get down to a good aquarium shop and buy a good filter, heater, light, substrate and start off with freshwater fish. Learn and understand the nitrogen cycle and how it effects fish of all sorts before you even consider keeping a marine tank.

DO SOME RESEARCH!

Have you tried trolling lures with a RC boat to get the tailor excited, then they might start eating lol 

So the man tried and failed, a bit underprepared methinks. Lesson learnt. Whether he's poisoned the fish in a cheap tank or one that's cost a couple of thousand dollars doesn't make any difference. Doesn't take much to get people upset midweek on here. Too many days since/till fishing time. 

 Still less poisonous than the deep fat fryer which is where most of them end up.

Hopefully lesson learnt yes...but the point now is that the fish are going to die a slow and very uncomfortable death. The fish that end up in the deep fat fryer are killed (in most circumstances) much more humanely. I know if I were a fish i'd prefer to be Iki-Jimi'd and fried up rather than slowly poisoned by my own excrement in a tank too small for me if I had to choose how to die.

Not at all angry about the dude having a go at keeping fish; but the attitude towards the potentially cruel and prolonged death is a disgrace.

The belly of the fishes will turn a pinkish colour; that is blood pooling in the visceral cavity. Then the flanks will turn pinkish; that is blood leaching through the skin and scales. This will happen over the next week.

Either knock 'em on the head and start with a goldfish or put in some 'real effort' and follow the 'friendly & helpful' advise.

Don't be a jerk or someone will be a jerk to you and point the authorities in your direction.

Could use them for live bait while theyre still kickin ;) 

   Hey Kavman Im sure the authorities u mention will be there in a flash to save those 2 tailor, 1 flounder and 6 gobble gots - maybe even a TRG raid. OK hes made a mistake but kav/gibbs u blokes need to get a life and stop filling this website up with S##T.

Apathy towards cruelty to animals is his mistake. But, If the fish are undersize, then fisheries would more than likely turn his home upside down.

I love my fishing and hunting and have no problem killing animals for a feed or for distruction purposes...... As Long as its in Hummane way. Starving something because your too lazy to do something  is just wrong Don't let the poor buggers suffer....  let them go or  spend some time and coin and get some help from someone like gibbs. If you CBF'D to do that then  Put them out of thier missery.

heh if you get so worked up over a fish tank i wonder what your like in the real world??

Inhumane practices are part of the real world, regardless what context they happen in (i.e whether its happening to fish in a fish tank, lions on a game reserve, refugees in a detention centre). Its all "real world" and trying to trivialise it won't change caring people's minds.

 alright guys here is how i see it.

i took 4 fish from the ocean to put in my fish tank. they seem active and healthy, the only problem i was having is that they weren't eating, so i asked for some opinions. i spent hundreds on pumps and filters, so its not like im starving them of oxygen or forcing them to live in a polluted environment. who would have thought asking for help turned into numerous replys of insult. if you people feel so strongly about me "treating marine life inhumanly" them pm me and i'll give u my address and you can have a chat with me. if not they stop being keybord heros, sit back in your chair and shut ur little bitch mouths.

its the minority on fishwrecked that give this lovely forum a bad name. i felt so bad for poor fisherman 1992 and mrmulloway when you guys ripped into him. keybord heros the lot of you. fishos should encourage eachother and share tips and info, not bagg eachother every chance they get.

cheers to those who showed support.

i still want to see a pic..

ignore the bull, id love to have a salt tank, with coral, a cple of crays and maybe even a cple of swallowtail or something,

lol fisherman 1992, phuck that still cracks me up

you could try jigging a twisty (with no hooks) in the tank with a handline or something similar. might put them into a frenzy and put them back on the bite. 

on a more serious note: alot of people seem to agree that the tides have a big effect on fish feeding, so would there be any tides (even minute) to affect their feeding? and if there is no tides, which im guessing is the case, would this make them confused enough to starve themselves?

jefree ignore the crap, if the fish didnt go in the tank, they would be in your belly by now. so well done for trying somethng different.

The fish are STRESSED! how do you think they would feel to be ripped out of the ocean espescially tailor and stuck into a tiny

(yes tiny) tank of course theyre not goind to feed

really its a couple of live baits and some gobbleguts...... is it really that bad???? goodluck jeffree

i will be trying the exact thing...... may even dice up a STRESSED skippy for bait ;)

Hey jeffree the tanks bacteria cycle will have begun now theres fish in there. Food, fish poo and even dead fish will get it all happening. Its advised to sacrafice some shit fish in order to get the tank cycling anyhow. Apart from that, lets get back to the fishing talk, after all this is a forum about fishing..... Were you getn those soapies in the swan jeffree??? (refering to your other thread)

You asked for advice, you are doing it all wrong and don't understand how to keep a fish alive. I went out of my way to give you advice and hopefully set you on track, gave you the basics and told you to do some research.

Sorry if i was blunt in my response and it obviously wasn't the advice you wanted to hear even though it is good advice. Leave the caring of fish to others if your not hearing what i'v told you or not willing to put any effort into learning how to keep a healthy tank of water.

If you are willing to learn, shoot me a pm with the make and model of your filter, tank size (dimension's not volume), lighting, heater etc.

If you want a marine tank you will need to spend another $1500, but there are many freshwater fish that look and act just as good as any marine species.

I think the right thing to do is to sell the aquarium and all the gear, or better still don't buy it in the first place. Go and join a skuba diving clup and appreciate the fish in their own environment. I once saw a so called pet magpie kept in a small wooden box, a jail cell, and have never since considered keeping any creature confined. By going into their environment, its you who suffers the consequence should something go wrong, not them.

I had a marine aquarium, mainly because I love the reef fish species and the many beautiful corals, anemonies, inverts and algaes that are associated. But the other attraction was the challenge, educating myself on the biological processes that take place, water chemestry, fish and coral combinations, using the expensive gear to produce the results needed, the list goes on. Diving on coral reefs is another way to enjoys the beauty of the ocean, but being a perth local, this means taking holidays to do so. However when the novelty of the marine aquarium wears off, well you'll think why did I waste all that cash. Thats why I now have a smaller, freshwater setup with cichlids from Lake Tanganika in Africa. The combo of fish is a happy community and looks fantastic. The maintainance, well there is none really, means that just because the novilty has worn off, doesnt mean it cant remain in the home. A marine aquaruim is more of a challenge and demands more time and has more wow factor in the home, but most people try it, dont succeed, give up or try it, succeed, then get bored with it and give it up also. Nothing wrong with givin it a go, most dont realise the challenge, but part of learning is asking for advice, I use forums for advice on lots of things. I dont think that the fish suffering or undersized fish is on the top of peoples concerns on this thread really. Us blokes have all got egos to some extent and we all like to think we know what we're talkin about, and the next bloke hasnt got a clue, etc.... bit like my cocks bigger than yours sorta shit.