I'll preface this by saying that I'm a relative newbie and not as much of a fanatic as most on here... I had two mottled sculpins earlier this summer that both died within 1-2 weeks. I suspect high temperatures (probably approaching 80) and aggressively-feeding tank-mates (bass and sunfish). I saw them take some mosquito larvae when I poured a *ton* in the tank, but they generally got out-competed by the other fish that won't stop feeding until they clear the tank (with bellies near bursting). I tried hand-feeding live compost worms (red wigglers), but never got a sculping to take one. The only way I could keep the worms from being eaten by tank-mates was to place them directly in the sculpins' caves, and they seemed to be more threatened by the thrashing worms than interested in eating them. I won't try to keep sculpins again unless I can set up a dedicated cool-water riffle tank without competitive tank-mates. I don't have the time or interest to always have to hand
feed particular fish.
If you are keeping them with other fish, one thing you might try is to feed only after you shut the lights off for 15 minutes or so. I had a bit of success doing that to get my diurnal fish inactive, with the hopes that the sculpins would complete better in near darkness.
-Jase
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